Event - GRI Global Conference 2016

The fifth GRI Global Conference will take place on May 18 - 20, 2016 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Up to 1,500 sustainability leaders from around the globe will be present to exchange leading-edge knowledge on best practices, innovations and trends that are empowering sustainable decisions and changing the world. GRI is  the globally accepted standard for enabling business, governments and other organizations to understand and communicate their impacts on critical sustainability issues.

The Conference will be an inclusive platform to inspire and engage a truly global network of sustainability leaders. As we move towards a new era of sustainability, it is clear that for information to truly empower decision making it must be more accessible, comparable and available in real time. The focus of the GRI 2016 Conference is to embrace this new era and accelerate progress by delivering innovative sustainability content and by building capability. Those in attendance will help shape the future of sustainable decision making.

Why Attend?

The 5th GRI Conference will create an inclusive platform to inspire and engage a truly global network of sustainability leaders. GRI’s focus at the 2016 Conference is to deliver innovative sustainability content that embraces this new era, enable capacity building, networking, and peer-to-peer learning.

Be inspired and contribute to solutions for sustainability challenges and build your own knowledge; exchange thought leadership in session discussions, share experiences and triumphs through peer to peer learning and take away tools from engaging master classes.

Consider new ways to approach solutions, see a showcase of global commitments, services and products in the marketplace.

Gain access to GRI’s global network and engage with sustainability leaders to bring their insights into your initiatives, seek new and lasting collaborations with potential clients and partners.

About GRI

GRI pioneered sustainability reporting in the late 1990’s and today provides the architecture for sustainability information through GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards, the engine for this data. GRI Standards are foundational to the organization’s work towards its vision of a future where sustainability is integral to every organization’s decision-making process. This enables business, governments and other organizations to understand and communicate their impacts on critical sustainability issues.

To see the program click here.
To register click here.

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Best Practice in Sustainability Reporting and Sustainability Communications

Ethical Corporation has recently published its complimentary Annual Review on CR Reporting and Sustainability Communications. Ethical Corporation helps thousands of businesses all around the globe to be more responsible. They work with NGO's, think-tanks, academia, governments and consultancies. Their work not only benefits the wider world, it also makes good business sense for the organizations that they serve. Their efforts include work in CSR, compliance, risk and governance communities.

Ethical Corporation's CR Reporting and Sustainability Communications is a 25 page document that contains corporate case studies and best practice. In addition to being a guide for robust and focused reporting it delivers a number of organization specific benefits.

The report is designed to help readers understand how reporting can drive positive change and increase profits. A best practice guide shows how to increase brand integrity and awareness. It also reviews ways of engaging internal and external stakeholders to build support and develop mutually beneficial ongoing relationships.

It also provides guidance on G4 reporting including insights from sustainability leaders and ways of translating the materiality challenges in your organization.

Finally the sustainability values guide helps you to build an organization specific case for management.

Click here to apply to download your complementary version of the report.

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New GRI Sustainability Reporting Tools and Resources

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a leader in sustainability reporting and they continue to provide resources to help companies to track their performance. GRI's latest contribution is another helpful installment in this rapidly growing field. This fast moving and increasingly complex realm has seen the proliferation of a number of tools and resources to help companies rise to the challenge.

GRI is working to expand its scope with the aim of advancing sustainability reporting by assisting organizations with their decision making processes.

To improve the quality of sustainability reporting, GRI has restructured its services and created what is known as the GRI Support Suite. This includes a range of tools and services that can help both those who compile reports and those who read them.

The GRI Support Suite offers guidance throughout the entire reporting process. The four categories in the GRI Support Suite are Preparation, which helps those responsible with preparing the report. Alignment which helps to ensure that the report is aligned with GRI guidelines. Communication which helps to share results with a broader audience and Analysis which can help provide insight into sustainability data.

To go to the GRI Support Suite click here.

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Comprehensive Summary of Sustainability Reporting Guidance

This summary is designed to provide guidance for businesses seeking to navigate the complicated landscape of sustainability reporting. There are a number of different ways to approach sustainability reporting and this has led to considerable confusion.

While it is generally accepting that sustainability reporting has a number of benefits, businesses can have a difficult time understanding the differences between approaches and deciding which system is best for their organization. One of the most important trends involves integrated reporting and specifically the 4D approach.

One of the key issue that is deciding what to include in such reports. The World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development have provided guidance on this issue with two mutually exclusive "boundary setting approaches" in their treatise on carbon accounting called the WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol. Those approaches are:

Control Approach

1. Operational Control: Report on 100 percent of anything where you have the authority to introduce and implement operating policies. This is the most commonly used boundary-setting approach.

2. Financial Control: Report on 100 percent of anything in which you bear the majority risk/reward from the operation’s financial performance. Note 50 percent ownership or more is NOT a criteria for financial control. Instead, it is merely whether or not you bear the majority risk/reward, however that may be contractually allocated between you and the other owner(s).

Equity Share Approach

This method of involves reporting in proportion to your ownership in the operation. If you own 32 percent of a factory, for example, you report on 32 percent of the factory's emissions. This is the simplest, most straightforward accounting approach.

* It is important to pick one of these two approaches and not try to combine elements of both together.

However, the lack of uniformity from reporting standards like CDP, GRESB and GRI complicate matters. CDP lets you choose an approach whereas GRESB dictates an unorthodox blend of operational, financial and equity control. What to include and when? Here’s a suggested way to draw your boundaries for GRESB and CDP using the example of real estate companies.

Here is a summary of some other recent guidance that responds to market calls for greater coherence, consistency and comparability between frameworks, standards and requirements:

In May The biggest global names in corporate reporting, CDP, the Global Reporting Initiative, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, IASB, ISO, SASB and the International Integrated Reporting Council published a landscape map that provides a snapshot of a comparison of their frameworks, standards and related requirements through the lens of integrated reporting.

In February Ecometrica, in collaboration with CDP, launched a white paper called Managing Information for Climate Change that serves as a roadmap for sustainability reporting. This effort comes in response to the heightened pressure from customers, investors and regulators for greater transparency.

In March 2015 The Global Reporting Initiative and investment firm RobecoSAM have published a guide that explores materiality from a sustainability reporter’s perspective, as expounded in GRI reports, and compares this with the investor perspective of materiality, as formulated by RobecoSAM. The guide is called Defining Materiality: What Matters to Reporters and Investors.

At the end of 2014, SustainAbility launched a tool to help companies improve transparency in their sustainability reporting by focusing on gathering and providing information on the most material issues.

In 2013 G4 Guidelines were release that have an increased emphasis on the need for organizations to focus on those topics that are material to their business and their key stakeholders. The Global Reporting Initiative launched a service to help improve the usability and transparency of data in sustainability reports. GRI also offers a handbook that introduces the GRI Sustainability Reporting Process for all G4 reporters. The publication provides a step by step approach to the five-phase sustainability reporting process and is based on the G4 Guidelines.

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The Future of Integrated Sustainability Reporting

Integrated reporting helps to cut through the complicated morass of sustainability metrics. This effort helps tor provide greater consensus regarding the understanding of issues like materiality, transparency and comparability. In 2014 and into 2015 we have seen the proliferation of sustainability reporting that incorporates both environmental, financial and other elements.

While the benefits of sustainability reporting have been widely document there is a need for more comprehensive and integrated sustainability reporting. This is revealed in a number of surveys which show that there is a lack of shared understanding. As reported in Responsible Investor Magazine, a 2013 survey indicated that CEO's see many barriers to implementing ESG issues.

CEO's said that the driving force is revenue growth and cost reduction (44%), their own motivation (42%) customer demand (39%), employee engagement (31%) regulation (24%) and investors pressure (12%). What is most interesting about these results is that investor pressure did not change between 2010 and 2013. However this is at odds with research that shows that 78% of investors think that disclosure on ESG issues is adequate. Only 7% think that it was sufficient for them to assess materiality.

Companies have a number of different options each of which come with respective strengths and weaknesses. The three major bodies that have advanced corporate reporting are GRI, SASB and IIRC. Here is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each.

IIRC

Strengths

• Focussed on value creation within companies, from financial capital provider’s perspective
• Responsive to negative and positive externalities
• Flexibility to accommodate other frameworks (including GRI and SASB)
• Potential for integration of ESG issues into business-as-usual reporting

Weaknesses

• No guidance on metrics or KPIs
• Little standardisation
• Freedom may lead to poor ESG disclosure
• Lacks alignment with traditional materiality

SASB

Strengths

• Uses traditional definition of materiality
• Certainty in relation to disclosure
• High levels of comparability is targeted
• Integrated into current reporting mechanisms
• Easy integration with other frameworks (including IIRC and GRI)

Weaknesses

• Very small number of issues identified per sector
• Little guidance on processes, standards or KPIs
• Might not identify all material issues for all companies (especially niche players)
• KPIs not mandated, decreasing comparability

GRI

Strengths

• Reliance on relevance of issues should mean better reporting on less issues
• Focus on future targets and expected performance
• Good flexibility to incorporate SASB and IIRC approaches
• Widely used among large listed companies and good reputation
• Requires process and compulsory metrics reporting

Weaknesses

• More stringent tests for compliance than IIRC
• G4 reporting might result in less transparency and comparability overall
• Doesn’t identify relevant issues for some companies
• Extensive supply chain disclosure is likely to increase related costs

One example that highlights the future of integrated reporting comes from AkzoNobel a paints and coating company. They have taken integrated reporting to the next level with what is being called the 4D method. This approach measures the whole value chain and includes four dimensions of capital: Financial, natural, social and human.

Pavan Sukhdev, CEO of sustainability consultancy GIST Advisory says the pilot “showcases the future of impact valuation and integrated reporting.” Adrian de Groot Ruiz, True Price executive director at True Price, a sustainability research organization that confirmed the 4D approach to be the first of its kind to be published, calls it “the future of integrated thinking and reporting.”

Two studies released in September 2014 demonstrate the merits of integrated reporting. The benefits cited in these report include engagement with external stakeholders and strategic applications.

In a study from the International Integrated Reporting Council research 91 percent of all respondents have seen a positive impact on external engagement with stakeholders, including investors. A total of 87 percent of businesses believe investors better understand their strategy. This includes better decision-making (79%), better collaborative thinking by the board about goals and targets (78%), better understanding of risks and opportunities (68%).

A PwC study showed that nearly two-thirds of investment professionals (63%) who responded believe that integrated reporting improves the quality of a company’s reporting. This includes information about strategy, risks and other drivers of value that could have a direct impact on its cost of capital.

“By attaching an economic value to the positive and negative aspects of each dimension, we can gain valuable insights into how we can drive longer term value not only for our shareholders, but also for the environment, people and society at large,” said AkzoNobel CEO Ton Büchner. “In addition, the results will inform our strategic decision-making … for our ongoing efforts to do more with less.”

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Sustainability Reporting: New GRI G4 Guidelines, SASB, AECOM's Engagement Efforts (Video replay of 3BL Media Webinar)

Here is a recap of a 3BL Media webinar on sustainability reporting. This video features the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and AECOM. It includes a discussion of the new G4 guidelines, an exam for sustainability accounting certification and tricks of the trade for corporate communicators.

Click here to read about some of the benefits of sustainability reporting.

G4 Guidelines

The deadline to adhere to the most current G4 guidelines is January 1 2016. These new reporting guidelines apply to all corporations that use GRI’s G3 or G31 guidelines.

“The first time reporters have very limited information to report on. But by doing stakeholder engagement exercises, they gain insights into what expectations are...The main game for sustainability reporting is not to have a report, but to actually have a report that makes sense for the stakeholders.”

Sustainability Accounting certification

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) discusses sustainability accounting certification. “Anyone who takes and passes the credential exam is able to demonstrate that they can identify, quantify and communicate the financial impacts of sustainability,” said Nicolai Lundy, manager of education for SASB, adding that the FSA designation is expected to be helpful for the career development of corporate communications pros.

SASB, launched in 2012, has established sustainability accounting standards for about 50 industries that comprise 80 percent of the market capitalization of U.S.-based publicly traded companies, Lundy said.

SASB has proposed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that companies be required to communicate their sustainability information as part of the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) section of the Form 10k currently being filed with the regulator. The SEC has yet to rule on the request.

No company is reporting in this fashion as of today, a fact Lundy attributes to the lengthy legal and regulatory review corporations must undertake before supplementing financial reporting with sustainability data.

SASB announced the inaugural “Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting” accreditation test in May.

AECOM stresses engagement around sustainability

Gathering information on sustainability across the 150 countries where AECOM operates takes place all year long. Even producing the annual sustainability report takes four months.

Given the massive time and resource commitment, the communications team at AECOM goes to great lengths to make sure the many success stories surrounding sustainability are shared through multiple channels, and over an extended period, with the company’s 100,000 employees.

“The importance of keeping stakeholders engaged is at an all time high, which is why breaking your sustainability report into digestible pieces on a continuous basis is crucial,” said Chinyere Ojini, a communications specialist with the Los Angeles-based infrastructure and support services firm.

Care was taken to provide AECOM managers with talking points and concrete steps on how to share the sustainability focus across all geographies, Ojini said.

“We are really encouraging employees to promote the report among their clients as well as among their teams,” she said.

“All the content is there. It’s the one place. This really allows us to break down the content into bite sized pieces for our stakeholders,” she said, adding that AECOM also used new 3BL templates emphasizing images over text.

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Sustainability Reporting to Minimize Negative Impacts and Increase Positive Benefits

Sustainability reporting is an all encompassing tool to help create value. Reporting is an integral part of being accountable for the broad range of social, environmental and economic impacts that permeate business activities.

Sustainability reporting not only reviews progress it also identifies opportunities for improvement. Being truly accountable cannot be achieved in the absence of honest reporting. Whether this is about reducing carbon emissions or water usage, reporting is a critical part of assessing progress. Such reporting is also a crucial part of laying out and refining strategies.

Sustainability reports should explore the balance between complex and interrelated social, environmental, and financial aspects. A report can serve as an audit of progress toward achieving quantifiable goals. Reports can help to reduce things like energy and water use they can also assess environmental impacts associated with travel and purchasing as well as other dimensions of sustainability.

Reports are a central part of the culture of ongoing learning which is at the heart of genuine sustainability engagement. Ensuring that an organization is up to date with its sustainability initiatives implies that it knows where it has gone and where it is going.

Sustainability reports identify areas of capital improvements that enhance corporate efficiency. These reports help to understand the efficacy of a program and make improvements. These reports are useful both internally and externally. They are useful to all members of an organization from the CEO and senior management to employees, supply chain partners and the wider public.

By minimizing environmental impacts and enhancing the economic and social benefits, sustainability reporting affords an opportunity to drive significant change both within and outside of an organization.

Sustainability reporting is a key part of the commitment to creating real value. This means being accountable for the social, environmental and economic impacts. Once these impacts are understood, this translates to developing policies and business practices which have positive impacts.

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Allstate is a Leader in Environmental Social and Governance Disclosures

When it comes to environmental and social disclosures in the insurance industry Allstate is a leader. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures (sometimes called goodwill or reputation), include everything from climate change to gender diversity. ESG disclosures are commonly part of corporate sustainability reporting.

A growing number of investors focus on key corporate ESG metrics to make more informed investment and business decisions. Stakeholders are increasingly demanding ESG metrics in 2015.


ESG data is not only valuable to investors it is also of interest to future and current employees as well as existing and prospective customers.

Allstate has had a climate change policy in place for almost a decade and for eight years Allstate has disclosed the risks that climate change poses to its financial performance, its customers, and its operations. They also reveal how they are managing those risks.

The insurance sector does not have much of an environmental footprint compared to the manufacturing sector. So for important environmental metrics like GHG emissions and water intensity Allstate's footprint is almost exclusively focused on the company's buildings and IT centers.

In addition to its environmental efforts Allstate is a leader in gender diversity. More than one quarter (27 percent) of Allstate's board of directors are women, 42 percent of their managers are women and more than half (57 percent) of their workforce are women. Allstate is also a leader in community investment.

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