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  Who are you talking to?

  Fran 8:38 pm on December 11, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Comment
  Tags: sustainability reporting

  Does your sustainability or CR print report pass the conference test? By which I mean, do you feel good about taking a stack – say 15 or 20 – with you to a major meeting? If yes, congratulations, you have a neat product and no backache. If no, it’s time to rethink, starting with your target audiences.

  If you want your reports to have what Mallen Baker calls the X Factor, they should be written with someone in mind. This is a communications rule of thumb, and although most corporate literature is designed for a specific audience, for some reason sustainability and CR reports are expected to appeal to stakeholders in general. Perhaps this is why so few people actually read them.

  Our experience shows that reports aimed at specific users are more successful for two reasons:
  1. They are personally appealing and relevant
  2. They can be focused, brief and useful.

  

  Which brings me to size. When it comes to sustainability and CR reporting, big is only beautiful online. For the print report, it’s best to stick to highlights. Short and sweet works very well, as Tetra Pak’s Mission Possible, written with customers and employees in mind, shows.

   

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  This COP needs more cred

  Astrid von Schmeling 9:40 am on March 20, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Comment
  Tags: 4.0, Advanced Level, COP, GRI (3), sustainability reporting, UNGC (6)

  Almost a year ago to this day, I wrote a blog here called, Has the UNGC jumped the gun?, about the newly launched guidelines for UNGC’s Advanced Level Communication on Progress (COP). Guess what? They had.

  To be truthful, part of my frustration was over the UNGC’s off-kilter mid-February timing. In the last phases of a pressing reporting season, I wasn’t in the mood for having the rules changed.

  Like I stated last year, the UNGC Advanced Level COP was half thought-through. It should have been better aligned with GRI’s 3.1 guidelines and taken tools like the Ruggie ‘Protect, respect and remedy’ framework into stronger account. But they didn’t. As a result, the UNGC has been playing a game of catch up. They issued two versions of the Advanced Level COP – and at least two additional corrections – over the span of one reporting cycle!

  The UNGC’s second iteration, effective in January, 2012, involves an overhaul of their 24 criteria to closer align with core UN and Global Compact resources, including Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Anti-Corruption Reporting Guidance as well as with GRI indicators. Like GRI’s 3.1, it now has Ruggie written all over it.

  There are strong arguments to support the fact that the UNGC should have extended their launch into 2013. Companies are waiting for GRI to issue version 4.0 of their guidelines. There is little reason give the Advanced Level COP much heed when they don’t know how the GRI will change in only a year’s time. Especially when you look at the UNGC’s fickle track record of the last year.

  

  Are continually revised reporting guidelines tearing your hair out? With the UNGC Advanced Level COP guidelines in its second iteration, with just as many corrections in ten months, the UNGC is not demonstrating the excellence that they expect of their reporters.

  If this COP is to gain any cred, it has to get its act together. The UNGC has to better understand the huge undertaking reporting is for multinationals. For the serious companies, it consumes a major part of the sustainability budget, and takes many months of production and preparation and is a complicated apparatus for data analysis and collecting best practice. If the UNGC is reaching for excellence among its signatories, it will have to demonstrate the same level of ambition themselves.

  Maybe UNGC will be able to answer a few of these questions at their webinar scheduled for Friday, March 23. I’ll be listening in – I hope you will too!

   
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  In Search of a Positive Side to Japan's Nuclear Disaster

  ChristineNT 6:42 am on March 26, 2011 | 0 Permalink | Comment
  Tags: communication (8), corporate responsibility (9), Edelman, Japan, sustainability communications (5), sustainability reporting, Tepco, trust (3)

  Glued to the daily news as we all are, the question still unanswered following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster is, what is really going on there? How much radiation is leaking and what are the true dangers for the people living and employed in the region, especially those left working at the plant? No one seems able to answer this question. Prime Minister Naoto Kan learned about the first explosion in Reactor 1 a full hour after the fact and since then seemed in some denial about the events.

  While Japan’s preparation and handling of the earthquake and tsunami may be commendable, there is much to be learned from the information management associated with the power plant crisis. Transparency, or lack thereof, comes first to mind. Historically this is not an area where the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has excelled. Given their somewhat imperfect past, (read more about historical cover ups here) it is easy to be suspicious of TEPCO, and man-on-the-street reports indicate Japanese consumers aren’t exactly trusting. Latest Edelman Trust Barometer 2011 figures from the Annual Global Opinion Leaders Study find that just over 50% of Japanese surveyed believe they can trust government to “do what is right,” up from 42% last year. Slightly more consumers, 53%, trust companies to “do what is right,” but interestingly, this figure is down from last year’s 57%. After the events of the last weeks, what will next year’s numbers show?

  Edelman’s study found that what matters most for a corporation’s reputation are “quality, transparency, trust, employee welfare.”  Currently, TEPCO is failing in all of these areas. But TEPCO’s dashed reputation may be positive in more than one way.

  Japan’s disaster has sent many of the other nuclear-powered countries around the world scrambling to review and validate their own safety measures. That can only be positive.

  Nuclear may still have a role to play in the global power mix, but clean energy can’t help but shine brighter in comparison. Perhaps the legacy of Fukushima will be clean power alternatives getting the attention and funding they deserve.

   
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  Has the UN Global Compact jumped the gun?

  Astrid von Schmeling 4:41 am on March 18, 2011 | 0 Permalink | Comment
  Tags: Global Reporting Initiative, GRI (3), sustainability reporting, UNGC (6)

  A new sustainability reporting framework popped into my mailbox last week, and it left me gagging on my morning coffee.  Dated February 25^th, the UN Global Compact’s ‘differentiation framework‘ defines expectations on how UNGC members are to report their annual Communication on Progress. The COP outlines members’ support of the UNGC 10 principles on human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.

  With the long-standing criticism that the Global Compact’s endorsement isn’t worth the paper it is written on, I’m the first to admit that it’s high time that the UNGC got serious about structuring expectations on corporate signatories. The number of non-COP reporters has been a huge blemish on the UNGC’s reputation. Over 2,000 signatories have so far been expelled for insufficient reporting, according to a recent UNGC tally. This is indeed a large number considering there are currently some 4,700 active business signatories listed on their website.

  But the UNGC’s timing is lousy!  I’m sure we’re not alone in burning the midnight oil writing sustainability reports. Deadlines are looming ominously for a lot of listed companies. At this late hour in the reporting cycle, the last thing we need  is more advice on how to structure our reporting.

  The Global Compact’s COP policy added another layer to an already complicated set of 79 GRI performance indicators and disclosure requirements that reporters are juggling. And there is more where that came from. Significant changes in the GRI frameworks can be expected with G4 in the coming years, and even a revision in the coming month, with the G3.1.

  

  About 4,700 companies support the UN Global Compact. Time will tell how many of these will choose the route of being an Advanced Level reporter on how they meet this endorsement.

  It’s not that the Framework is entirely misguided.  I appreciate the greater focus on supply chain, which is thin with the GRI.  I like their emphasis on outcomes and not only processes. But in many ways, the criteria for their GC Advanced level can create more questions than they try to answer. The introductory text states “Over time, participants at the GC Advanced level are encouraged to implement all best practices that are relevant to their context of operation.” A tall order indeed and this open formulation sounds like a perfect excuse for a procrastinator. And finally, encouraging reporters to report on a Level A+ just adds fuel to the fire as far as to whether ‘A+’ reporters are better than ‘B+’ reporters. I strongly resist this grading of the GRI system based on reporting scope rather than the quality of what’s reported.

  If UNGC was seeking the legitimacy it so desperately needs, the Differentiation Framework should have followed at the heels of GRI’s announcement of G3.1 instead of preceding it. It would have eliminated a lot of confusion among some very exhausted reporters.