CorporateResponsibility.Net

BASF has received an award for the best German sustainability report in 2008. The award, which was made at the annual conference of the German government’s Council for Sustainable Development, is bestowed every two years by the German Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) and future e.V., an environmental initiative founded by a group of small and medium-sized German enterprises. The ranking assesses the transparency, completeness and thus the reliability of the information published by Germany’s 150 largest companies on sustainability issues such as environmental protection and employer responsibility.

Read more (BASF)

Board members of the Global Resporting Initiative (GRI) have issued The Amsterdam Declaration on Transparency and Reporting calling on governments to introduce policies requiring companies to address publicly environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.

The declaration states that the root causes of the current economic crisis would have been moderated by a global transparency and accountability system based on the exercise of due diligence and the public reporting of ESG performance. It calls on governments to take leadership in rebuilding a revitalized and resilient economic system through:

1. Introducing policy requiring companies to report on ESG factors or publicly explain why they have not done so.
2. Requiring ESG reporting by their public bodies – in particular: state owned companies, government pension funds and public investment agencies.
3. Integrating sustainability reporting within the emerging global financial regulatory framework being developed by leaders of the G20.

Read more

Source: CSR Europe

Companies that put a single person in charge of sustainability programs are much more likely to get their employees behind the effort, according to a new survey of HR execs.

The survey, conducted by human resource firm Buck Consultants, finds that employee involvement in green programs dramatically increases when organizations appoint an individual to lead the efforts. For companies with at least three-quarters of their employees actively involved in green programs, 71% have appointed individual leaders whereas only 29% do not have such a leader. Read more

Source: Sustainable Life Media

Sun Microsystems has released an update to their 2008 CSR Report. Dave Douglas, Chief Sustainability Officer at Sun said that there where two main reasons for this update.

1. We want to make sure we were holding ourselves accountable throughout the (reporting) year – not just during the report process at the end of the year. Over the long term we would like to move toward a reporting model where we publish timely data throughout the year rather than just once a year in a neatly packaged report. By definition, some of the data is stale by then.
2. We’re trying to sharpen our internal processes around data collection and progress measurement. With some of the CSR reporting being new in the company, if you only do it once a year its easy to talk yourself into not automating the collection and reporting process. We think in the end we can report some data more often AND at lower cost.

Here is the link to the CSR Report update and the CEO message:

Update

CSO Message

Apple’s launch of new green products at this week’s Macworld show has been overshadowed by the company’s attempts to quash shareholder requests for more corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting.

The company issued a proxy filing on Wednesday in which it urged shareholders to vote against a shareholder resolution proposed by As You Sow, an environmental group co-sponsored by the New York City Office of the Comptroller and the Green Century Equity Fund.

The resolution would require the company to publish a CSR report detailing its approach to greenhouse gas emissions, toxics and recycling by July this year. The report would also require Apple to define “sustainability”, and would include a company-wide review of policies contributing to sustainable operation. Read more

Source: Green Business

Mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting will become a reality for large firms operating in Denmark from next year, after the Danish government last month passed legislation requiring 1,100 of the country’s largest listed firms to include updates on CSR performance in their annual reports.

The new law was passed by an overwhelming majority of the Danish parliament, and while it will not oblige firms to to undertake CSR programmes they will have to disclose that they are failing to invest in CSR activities.

The new law is the latest move in a growing trend which has seen both France and UK pass similar legislation that has required firms to report on their social and environmental performance in some way since 2007. Read more

Source: Business Green

Some have said that sustainability is “doing well by doing good.” Perhaps this is a good start. But sustainability is much more than doing well or well enough. It’s all about performing!

Sustainability reporting initiatives such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) focus on “results.”  They provide their followers with a very long list of lagging indicators. The focus is always on “doing less of a bad thing.” So this approach does not seem to measure “doing well” directly! It is not about performing. Read more

Source: Green Biz

We are all familiar with the phrase, “Good Cop, Bad Cop!” In the world of business, this is often the relationship between the compliance folks and the conformance folks. Compliance professionals are fixated on “doing less of a bad thing.” All of the sustainability indicators in the Global Reporting Initiative reflect the bad cop theme. The conformance professionals try to establish “systems” that seek compliance in a more proactive fashion. Conformance is at the heart of all of the management systems standards (e.g., ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, ISO 26000, SA 8000, etc.). Read more

Source: Grenn Biz

This is an entry from my blog. I thought it might be a CR news item as well.

—————-

Yesterday I came across the latest CSR/Sustainability Review from Cadbury in the UK. You know, Chocolate, etc…..
They had a history of good reporting so I thought lets take a look and do a review.
The first thing I noticed was the web address: http://www.DearCadbury.com. Sounds interesting… Sounds very engaging. Good start. Read more

Source: FabianPattberg.com

The number of large multinational companies reporting corporate responsibility (CR) data has risen dramatically over the last three years, with vast majority doing so because of ethical reasons, according to new research from KPMG.

Nearly three-quarters of the top 100 U.S. companies by revenue reported sustainability data this year, twice as many as three years ago, KPMG has found. Eighty percent of the world’s 250 biggest multinational companies divulge CR information, compared to 64 percent in 2005. Read more

Source: GreenBiz