Paper conservation at Heinz - or not?

Heinz published their fifth #csr report yesterday. It's a GRI B self-declared report. Congratulations!  I didn't read it yet. But something struck a nerve with me, so i decided to use Heinz as a scapegoat in my upcoming rant. Heinz is by no means the only Company who does this, but, well, they just happened to plop only my screen as I have the energy to rant. Here is what they say about the online report:

"Reflecting our commitment to environmental responsibility, Heinz has conserved paper and the energy used to produce it by publishing our 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report exclusively online. This online report provides more in-depth information than previous reports about our corporate social responsibility activities and includes multimedia elements. In addition, we are offering a customizable PDF so readers of this report may print out any sections they wish."

Start rant.
What is it about CSR reports that they are held up as the sole example of a Company saving the planet by not printing it? What about Annual Reports? Heinz makes it really really easy for anyone, not just investors, to order a printed copy of an Annual Report . There is nothing  in the rest of their CSR report about conserving paper. Reduced printing in everyday operations? Percentage of recycled paper consumption ? On-line billing? Zilch. The only example we have of Heinz's commitment to conserving paper is this one single example of a sustainability report.
There are many good reasons to produce on-line reports, beyond the conservation of paper. And Heinz reports many good examples of environmental positives including reducing packaging initiatives and more. But if the CSR non-printed report is the only paper-conservation exercise that is highlighted by a Company, I begin to wonder how balanced their reporting is.
Finish rant.  
 
elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Inform, inspire and involve to embed CSR in operations

Embedding, post number 4. We already covered embedding CSR in Human Resources, the Procurement function, and the Finance function. All of this, as you may recall, is based on Ethical Corporation's 2009 research report called How to Embed Corporate Responsibility across different parts of your Company. This time, i will cover the ways Companies embed CSR in the "Facility, Logistics and Operations" bits of the Company. Having managed logistics for many years with Procter and Gamble in Europe, this is an area of the business I am familiar with. The report looks at:

• How to make facility or manufacturing operations more efficient and more  environmentally friendly through consultation with operators and line workers
• Developing low energy or socially innovative solutions for triple bottom line benefit
• Indentifying no-cost innovation solutions
• Developing partnerships to drive suggestions for improvements

Most people will understand quite easily that environmental opportunities are abundant in the Manufacturing and Logistics functions. With examples from Boots, Hewlett Packard, Novo Nordisk and Vodafone, the report cites examples of innovative solutions in different aspects of the supply chain which offer benefits for customers and the business, and which have been developed using insights and suggestions of those involved on the ground. Opportunities such as haulage partnerships with non-competitive companies to optimize truck payloads, recycling and re-use rather than disposal of products, real-time energy monitoring  are some of the solutions highlighted. The key common demoninator of the development of these solutions is : dialogue. Creating a culture where employees of the business, suppliers and customers can contribute to developing triple bottom line solutions is core.

Developing new ways of doing things, and maintaining a constructive dialogue with suppliers, customers and employees does not happen automatically. A company looking for CSR opportunities in the manufacturing and logistics functions needs to define its objectives and create awareness for the concepts of social and environmentally preferred ways of manufacturing or trucking. This means creating  communications processes for all these stakeholders, so that CSR is part of their mindset when they are reviewing operational activities. "Greening employees" for example, reflects the process of educating, informing, involving and inspiring  employees regarding environmentally friendly practices.

What better Company to use for a review of the embedding of CSR in the logistics function than a logistics Company. I took a look at Fedex 2008 CSR report. Here is an example:

"At the FedEx Packaging Lab, our engineers use the latest materials and tools to solve shipping challenges, including environmental ones. FedEx engineer Yongquan Zhou recently helped a customer shipping heavy exercise equipment from China find a more protective and environmentally friendly alternative for a commonly used cushioning material known as expanded polystyrene foam (EPS). His result: a honeycomb-style packaging with corrugated pads and banding, a packaging solution that not only reduces damage at a comparable cost, but is also better for the environment."

I assume Mr Zhou didn't wake up one morning out of the blue and thought to himself over the morning cornfakes: "Hmm, I need to find environmentally friendly packaging solutions today". I bet he didn't say to himself " Wow. Honeycomb-style packaging, gotta do something with that". I bet he didn't think, as he helped himself to a third bowl of cornflakes,   "I can contribute to saving the planet today by developing environmentally-friendly solutions for Fedex clients". Maybe he did, but the chances are that if he did, it was because of a culture that had been developed at Fedex to ensure employees are aware of their possibilities to contribute to environmental efforts, and provide them with the opportunity to do so.

You can't embed CSR if you don't inform, inspire and  involve.
 
elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

12 ways to engage stakeholders and the AA1000SE standard

So you think you know how to engage stakeholders, right ? Most of the CSR reports I read and review don't really address stakeholder engagement with any real depth. It is always included as a headline, but more often than not, the headline is followed by a list of declarative generic hot-air such as "engaging with stakeholders helps us understand their concerns and respond appropriately" or "we regularly engage with stakeholders on the issues they care about" or "it is an important part of our mission to listen to our stakeholders and respond to their concerns" or the best of all "engaging with stakeholders is a core element of our approach to responsible business practices, and we are transparent about the ways we engage with stakeholders, the issues that arise, and our response to them" (ok, i invented that last one - sounds too good to be true, right?)

Many sustainability reports refer to employee or customer surveys as evidence of engagement, or the fact that there are regular meetings with suppliers to discuss their next price decrease or delivery lead times - but this is not engagement. This is doing the stuff necessary to do the business, in a traditional  profit-oriented way. Stakeholder engagment is a relationship of equals based on open and transparent dialogue which results in better business, better relationships and a better triple bottom line. Here are the top 12 ways to engage stakeholders:

• Invite them to your new product launch (makes the room look fuller, as though there is LOTS of interest)
• Invite them to the Christmas Party (unless they are wearing a yarmilke)
• Ask them to come and view your new office art collection (don't worry if the Mickey Mouse poster is not their favourite objet d'art)
• Suggest they invite you for a tour of their manufacturing plant (get prepared for a long trip to northern China)
• Ask them what they expect of your Company (then make for the nearest emergency exit)
• Call a stakeholder panel (and if it doesnt answer, call again)
• Make a complaint about their service (they must be doing SOMETHING wrong)
• Give them your private office hotline number (and take care not to answer Hello Mother)
• Tell them you will share your last tub of Chunky Monkey if they will talk honestly about their experience with your business (ok, maybe not, offer them generic vanilla instead)
• Ask your stakeholders about the things they consider most material (dont be surprised if they repond: polyester, wool, acrylic etc)
• Subpoena them (sometimes you just gotta forget the carrot and go for the stick)
• Ask them to memorize a tape containing the mantra " your company is wonderful and meets all my needs" (and loop-broadcast it at your next investor roadshow)

But seriously folks, stakeholder engagement has its own standard. For the folks who take it seriously. This standard has been revised recently. It's the AccountAbility AA1000 Stakeholder Engagement standard, which is currently the subject of a series of  stakeholder consultations around the world, and is available as a wiki for input by cyberspace dwellers.
The Standard "provides a defined process of engagement and participation that that will enable comprehensive and balanced involvement that will result in strategies, plans, actions and outcomes that address and respond to issues and impacts in an accountable way." (yes, those long AccountAbility sentences again) It covers the principle of inclusivity, the way to analyse stakeholder groups, and the way to plan, prepare and manage stakeholder engagement processes. As part of our bit to make the world a better place, my Company BeyondBusiness, in partnership with another local consulting firm GoodVision, conducted a stakeholder consultation on the AA1000SE in Tel Aviv earlier this week.

Around 20 representatives of the business and non-profit sectors attended, including CSR Managers of our client companies such as Bank Leumi, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Motorola Israel , Maccabi Healthcare Services and others. The Meeting was generously hosted by the National Lottery organization.

In general, there was much interest in the concept of stakeholder engagement, which hasn't  developed in a structured way in Israel. There was general appreciation for the adoption of a stucutured approach to stakeholder engagement, and a recognition that it takes two to tango - ie even if a business wants to engage external stakeholders, there must be a reciprocal interest in responding and a willingness to engage in open and constructive dialogue. It is not always easy to bring all parties to the table.

We all agreed, however, that you get stakeholder engagement, sooner or later, whether you want it or not. In today's era of cyber-information, no corporation operates without someone noticing. Sooner or later, if you dont engage your stakeholders, they will engage you.
It's advisable to apply a structured management process to ensure this is a positive interaction. The AA1000SE standard provides the basis.

I am now going to engage with some Chunky Monkey ..... :)

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Can Finance Managers count CSR ?

Embeding CSR in .... wait for it ... the FINANCE function. Oops! Did i hear that right ? Do CFO's have a CSR mindset ? Isn't CSR just a cost center and not a revenue generator? Isn't that how most CFO's think? So what's the deal with embedding CSR in the financial division of the corporation? This is another post in my series relating to embedding CSR in the business, prompted by  Ethical Corporation's latest research publication on How to embed Corporate Responsibility across different parts of your Company. , a 100 page report published at end September 2009. It provides an analysis and case studies covering 5 organizational functions: Human Resources, Finance and Accounting, Communications, Procurement and Logistics and Operations. I have already blogged about embedding CSR in the Procurement function and in the Human Resources function. Here comes Mr Money's turn.

I will pause to tell you a story. I was once attending an Executive Leadership Meeting of a Company, where an unavoidable 60 redundancies were to be made as part of a cost-reduction exercise. The CFO, on hearing this number of people who would be dismissed, shouted out with glee and said " Great!! That will almost solve our cost problem." or words to that effect. The sight of a respected Manager of a large business almost jumping with joy at the fact that 60 people were about to lose their livelihoods still makes me feel rather sick. It's not that I have anything against Finance Managers (apart from the fact that they always seem to control what money is not available, rather than what is), but this "people equal costs" approach is the sad antithesis of corporate social reponsibility. Story over.

Finance Managers are also employees and share responsibility to be ambassadors of the corporate CSR approach. They  create their share of direct impact through their resources consumption, travel  and waste generation , and participate in corporate volunteering activities (unless it's month or year end) . The are the authority on managing the Company's money are the first in line to field investor questions and analyst queries. They are the first to understand the financial implications of most corporate risks. So, it seems there is a basis for the financial function to be a contributor to, and not just a calculator of, a Company's CSR programme.

The Ethical Corporation research report refers to CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and IBE (Institute of Business Ethics) who issued a report in 2008 that emphasised the role that ethics will increasingly play in Finance Managers' jobs, based on a survey they conducted. The report covers issues such as advice for finance professionals on ethics, how accounting and finance functions can improve a Company's CSR strategy, the opportunities of carbon trading, ethical checks and balances, and the expectations of ethical investors. Richard Ellis of Boots is quoted in the report as saying "Financial departments need to have an interest in measuring non-financial information" and i agree with him (I am sure he will be pleased about THAT), though we all know that accounting for long term indirect impacts are a little more complicated than the standard accounting exams most CFOs have passed with flying colours.

The research report touches on integrated reporting which only a handful of CSR reporting Companies have adopted. Integrated reporting (see also my post on this a while back) is an indication of total systems thinking by an organization and serves to elevate the CSR content to the same level of transparency and rigour as the financial content. And as the owners of the Financial Report, the CFO's cannot ignore this new style content invading their traditional territory. 

I thought about the CSR reports i read and review, and recall little about the way the Finance Function is involved in CSR. The Australian Real Estate Mirvac Group reported in its 2008 Sustainability Report that it had  "established the Climate Change Response Group. This group, which is chaired by Mirvac’s CFO,and includes representatives from corporate risk, sustainability, and all business unit areas is developing Mirvac’s business wide climate change response." I also recall that CSR at the Spanish group Telefonica is managed by the CFO, though i cannot find this mentioned in their CSR Report for 2008. 

Like it or not, Finance Managers need to embrace CSR as a reality of the business. Like it or not, we will probably find that when they do, we will suddenly have a lot more numbers in our CSR reports. Like it or not, i am now gonna devour my daily tub of  Chunky Monkey before its cost feasibility outweighs its contribution to making the world a better place.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Cisco and New Models of Social Responsibility

I am still really looking forward to the upcoming Global Virtual Summit (November 5th and 9th , 2009) entitled New Models of Social Responsibility, presented by Communitelligence and Cisco. The summit boasts a truly impressive line-up of speakers. As my Company, BeyondBusiness , is one of the Media Sponsors for the summit, I was privileged to have the opportunity to interview some of the speakers. You can read my interview with Cecily Joseph, CR Director of Symantec here. This post is all about another impressive woman on the sustainabilty scene - Kathy Mulvany, Director of Marketing and Sustainable Business Practices for Corporate Affairs at Cisco. Kathy will be making opening remarks on Day One of the Summit.

Kathy has been with Cisco for 13 years, and has led Sustainable Business Practices for the past 15 months. She wears two connected hats.  "Marketing and Sustainable Business Practices are two separate groups that I manage within Corporate Affairs though they both involve communications. My marketing role is focused on building awareness of and engagement in the work we do in Corporate Affairs, specifically our social investments. My sustainable business practice role is focused on overall CSR reporting for Cisco (environment, society, employees and governance), stakeholder engagement and analysis so that we can better inform the business of emerging CSR issues, helping to prioritize CSR issues for which the business functions then set goals, implement programs and measure performance. "
As always, this kind of role has personal relevance and Kathy says  "I get great satisfaction from helping Cisco have a positive and lasting impact on the world through our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. I also have the opportunity to work with a great team of people who are passionate and committed to the CSR work they do. And I enjoy finding new, creative ways to tell our human impact story."
Cisco is now a seasoned CSR reporter after having produced 4 CSR reports. It is always interesting to me to see how Companies evolve their CSR reporting as each reporting cycle brings tremendous learning opportunities. Kathy explains how it happened so far at Cisco: "Our report has evolved considerably over the last 5 years in terms of breadth, depth, level of transparency and delivery methods. As with many early reporters, our first CSR report in 2005 was an inventory of responses to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. This first report set the outlined our overall approach to CSR, our programs and strategies. As our reporting matured we began to focus our reporting on issues that are most material to our sustainability as a business and have continued to deepen the level of disclosure, diligence and measurement in each successive annual CSR report. In the past few years we’ve put particular emphasis on enhancing the readability and user experience of the dense CSR content. In examining stakeholder needs for CSR data, we’ve found new and innovative ways of reporting our progress. We’ve introduced an interactive overview of our global CSR activities to provide a regional context for our CSR performance. We’ve incorporated videos that provide 1st person perspectives. We are also exploring ways in which social media (Web 2.0) might help us improve the dialogue between our stakeholders and business owners" .
One of the commendable things about Cisco's reporting is the focus on internal CSR processes and engagement of employees - 31 pages in the 2008 report. Kathy says about internal employee communication and engagement processes "We use a number of internal channels to drive awareness and engagement amongst our employees including newsletters, articles on our company intranet, executive briefs on our CSR engagements, employee meetings at the company and departmental level, CSR showcases during our virtual strategic leadership summit and global sales meeting, informational fairs, etc. In addition, we use a number of Web 2.0 technologies to bring our CSR story to life including videos, blogs, RSS feeds as well as WebEx and TelePresence sessions." 
My regular readers will know that i am a fan of localization in reporting - i.e. the practice of reporting a local level by global companies, in addition to global reports which have less relevance for  local stakeholders. Cisco have an interesting approach with  regional and country updates on in an interactive presentation on the Cisco CSR report website. Kathy says: "Cisco's CSR report is intended for external and internal parties who want current and historical information about Cisco’s performance on CSR issues. Our audience includes financial and industry analysts, investors, customers, NGOs, employees, academia, government, and the media. A topic of very active discussion is how to balance the detail needed by analysts and the readability desired by those wanting a general overview. Because we respond to hundreds of stakeholder CSR inquiries and surveys throughout the year, it is advantageous to publish a complete reference to support such interest and inquiries. Conversely, we also receive feedback to make the reporting shorter and more accessible. As such we introduced the regional interactive overview for those who wanted a high level snapshot of our CSR work around the globe. We continue to research web-based tools that satisfy both audiences in a scalable and cost effective manner."
Whither Cisco CSR in the coming years? "We continue to develop best practices for our CSR programs through benchmarking, IT sector engagement and dialogue with multiple stakeholder groups. For the longer term, however, we are focusing on enhancements to our governance structure and driving CSR innovation across multiple organizations. We have started this process by engaging in Cisco’s new Collaborative Management Model and reporting into Cisco’s Connected Business Operations Council. We feel this is the most efficient approach for reporting up into cross functional senior leadership. We also actively engage with our boards and councils as needed. More information on this will be included in our FY09 CSR Report."

If you want to know more about network enabled sustainability and Cisco's leadership in this field, take a look at their report and website. If you want to hear more from Kathy Mulvany and other Cisco colleagues, come to the Global Virtual Summit on New Models of Social Responsibility . I am sure that we will hear more from Cisco that will insprie us.

Thanks to Kathy Mulvany for generously sharing insights, thanks to John Gerstner, visionary founder and president of Communitelligence.
And i still haven't worked out - how do they get the Chunky Monkey to you in a Virtual Summit ... hmmmm .... I am stockpiling tubs in my office just in case ...


elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

buy it ethically

Back to embedding... this time i will take a look at the procurement section of the Ethical Corporation's latest research publication on How to embed Corporate Responsibility across different parts of your Company. This is a 100 page report published at end September 2009. It provides an analysis and case studies covering 5 organizational functions: Human Resources, Finance and Accounting, Communications, Procurement and Logistics and Operations. Last time i blogged about embedding in the Human  Resources function. This time, being an ex Supply Chain executive (8 years in Supply Chain function with P&Gin Europe, including several years of Purchasing), I will cover csr in the buying office. 

The Ethical Corporation guide highlights examples of how companies address CR challenges in supply chain activities and procurement operations, and how sustainability and ethics are embedded in the supply chain, with reference to codes of conduct and even data sharing and collaboration with competitors (anti-trust regulators permitting!). The section is full of fascinating case studues from HP (target setting in the supply chain), Green and Black's (engaging NGO's to develop supply chains), Innocent drinks (contract terms) ,Sedex (supply chain goals) and Pepsico (cooperating with competitors). The report lists some conclusions  - guidelines which all buyers should heed - i cannot list them all (you know why!) , but the first one is be transparent about your suppliers. That's an interesting point, not something the average buyer thinks about, i suspect. Certainly one which i never considered when i was buying tens of millions of $ of raw materials for P&G products many moons ago.  

Think about it. You are the buyer for your Company. Everyone knows who your suppliers are. How risky is transparency ? It's less risky if you manage it. What if your suppliers are exploiting children in their supply chain? What if they are abusing human rights? What if they are releasing tons of contaminants into a local river ? What if they are involved in bribery and corrupt business dealings ? What if they have been involved in discriminatory behaviour? What if they are using illegal raw materials, or operating with unsafe practices in their plant?  I could list hundreds of cases in which corporations have been penalised or incurred cost penalties because of the actions of their suppliers  - Mattel and Hasbro due to illegal practices by Chines toy manufacturers,  Nestle's issues in sourcing milk from Grace Mugabe at the expense of local farmers, issues for Primark on child labour in the supply chain and many more. What is the risk that these issues come back to haunt you, because this is part of your responsibility for your supply chain. How do you safeguard against this risk?  It's one thing to have such issues in your supply chain, it's another if you never even talked to you suppliers, made your expectations of ethical business clear, or inspected them in some way.
As the buyer for your Company, what questions do you ask of your suppliers ? How do you manage the issues that your suppliers can potentially create for your business? This is part of buying CSR due diligence. Transparency is decidedly less risky if you have a policy and practice designed to identify and reduce risk.
This question is not new for the apparel industry, and Levi Strauss was the first apparel brand to establish a supply chain sourcing code and publicly disclose all its suppliers. Since then, many other apparel brands have followed, but other industries such as toys, electronics, computer hardware etc are slow to follow. CSR in the supply chain is a frequent section in CSR reports. Gone are the days when corporations can plead ignorance of what is happening in their supply chains, and gone are the days when stakeholders accept "We didn't know" as a viable response. So if you are a Purchasing Manager, and you aren't aware of the risks in your supply chain, my advice is do something about them before they do something about you!

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Dying to work at France Telecom ?

Every so often things make you quite angry. During the past 20 months, 25 France Telecom employees have committed suicide, and several others attempted to do so. What is it about the culture in this Company that puts people under so much pressure that they take their own lives? What is the repsonsibility of a Company to ensure that the working environment and culture can not allow such an epidemic of suicides  to take place ? One suicide is an exception. 25 suicides is a corporate crime.  

The France Telecom 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Report was published in June 2009. It's a GRI B level report verified by Deloitte who confirm that nothing came to their attention that caused them to question their belief that the report, or the parts of it that they checked, is fairly stated . (If you have a problem with that sentence, it's the same problem i have with assurance statements - why pay an assurer to write about what DIDN'T come to their attention? Hello ? A spate of suicides didnt come to their attention ? )  Anyway.... it of course interested me to see what France Telecom said about ther working environment and employee turnover  (France Telecom appear to have given a whole new meaning to the term employee turnover). At page 67, we get to the section entitled:  Acting as a responsible employer. It is 7 pages long (total report 105 pages).  Highilghts ? Information on traning and development of employees, focus on diversity and equal opportunity, especially advancement of women, 45% of French employees responded to an employee engagement survey (55% who didnt respond are apparently less engaged), and.....this is what France Telecom say about addressing psycho-social risks in the workplace :

" Aware of the increasing seriousness of work-related stress, since 2000, the Group has taken steps to prevent this type of risk. A commission dedicated to preventing stress was formed with staff  representatives. Its work has made it possible to offer concrete solutions, and improve the work environment in collaboration with the business units. In 2007, these activities were bolstered by the implementation of “Espaces d‟écoute et d‟accompagnement” (Listening and Support Spaces), which are teams that try to provide solutions, in consultation, either individually or collectively. In 2008, we implemented stress management training sessions - one “Stress management” module for employees confronted with difficult situations with customers, and one “Management practices and stress situations: guide for action” module designed for managers."

and whilst the graph of occupational accidents frequency rate shows a nice downward trend between 2004 and 2008, there is no mention of fatailities or suicides. I was also surpised to note that " France Telecom assisted in developing a guide to good practices for workplace wellbeing, published by CSR Europe.". Oops.

This is the problem we all have with CSR reports. Plenty of good news and convenient glossing over the bad news. The assurance process should pick this up, but clearly even paid independent-dependent  assurers have their limitations.  It is clear why Companies are selective about their transparency. However, what France Telecom doesn't realise is that the issues they have are transparent whether they report them or not, and that they urgently need to be addressed on a scale which is more significant than stress management workshops. Perhaps France Telecom will bite the bullet in their next report and cover this issue more fully. In the meantime, the fact that this siutation appears to be ongoing and increasing in intensity, makes me angry. Losing your life whilst doing your job should not be an option.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Symantec and New Models of Social Responsibility

I am really looking forward to the upcoming Global Virtual Summit (November 5th and 9th , 2009) entitled New Models of Social Responsibility, presented by Communitelligence and Cisco.  The summit boasts a truly impressive line-up of speakers, including one of my heroes Jeffrey Swartz, CEO of Timberland.  As my Company,  BeyondBusiness ,  is one of the Media Sponsors for the summit,   I was privileged to have the opportunity to interview some of the speakers. In this first interview-post, i will share some insights from the impressive  Cecily Joseph, Director of Corporate Responsibility at Symantec Corporation Cecily will participate in a discussion entitled  "End of the glossy report ? The Future of Social Responsibility communication and reporting" , which as you may have guessed is a subject i am particularly interested in, fairly knowledgeable and even rather opinionated about. (opinionated? me ?) . Earlier this week, Cecily and I both participated in a 90 minute webinar with the International Advisory Group of the joint UNGC and UNIFEM initiative to develop and assimilate a new set of Women's Empowerment Principles (go girls!), so it was nice to interact again on my even more favourite subject, CSR reporting.

Symantec Corporation is probably most famous for its suite of products under the Norton brand name, and despite being no newcomer to the world of Internet Security, the company first reported in 2008, with a  Corporate Responsibility Report with the theme "Confidence in a connected world" covering FY08 (April 07 to March 08), a GRI self-declared B level report, which is also UNGC indexed. If there is anything you dont know about "decoding the cybercrime landscape",  "the hidden costs of piracy", or Green Data Centers,  this report is a good place to start. Another impressive element of Symantec performance and reporting is the commitment to advancing women in technology,  with 13 Women's Action Network Groups for personal and professional networking to assist women in advancing their careers, and partnerships with the Anita Borg Institute and Catalyst, amonst other things (though Symantec's 10-strong Board has only one woman, and the 18 strong Executive Team counts only  3 women - hopefully Symantec's efforts in this area will break through this infamous glass ceiling). Also, Symantec's community reporting indicates an impressive $16million in donated cash and products and over 20,000 employee volunteer hours. Symantec, a Fortune 500 Company, was founded in 1982, generates annual revenue of over $6 billion, employs over 17,500 people and declares its unique forcus to be eliminating  "risks to information, technology and processes independent of the device, platform, interaction or location."  So the role of CR Director in a business such as this is clearly relevant and significant. 

Cecily, who has been in her role since July 2005, and has led Symantec's reporting efforts,  says: " On a personal level, Corporate Responsibility means to me that we think in ways that are creative and innovative. We think differently to solve our problems and improve our businesses. Thinking differently means that we don't just focus internally but look at society as part of the equation.... I gain most satisfaction when we help to bring new ideas to the company that impact the business in a positive way, when we act as an early sensor to shifts and trends which other parts of the business are not as aware of yet, and when Symantec is recognized positively for something that CR has helped it accomplish."  What personal skills do you need to do Cecily's job (and make a success of it) ? "Leading through influence; ability to speak to all levels of the organization starting with the Board of Directors and the CEO; sense of humor; patience" though Cecily says "I don't always have enough of that". (which i suspect is probably a good thing!) .
Symantec and Cecily made the decision to become a first-time CR reporter in order to "engage stakeholders in the process of defining CR more clearly for Symantec". Indeed, the Symantec report is one of the few CR reports which describes a robust materiality process, conducted  with both internal stakeholders and a 5 member External Advisory Council. The report includes a materiality matrix.This yielded benefits, Cecily says: " We saw that engaging employees and external parties in the preparation of the report was critical and really expanded our scope - we will plan to do more of this on our next report."  Some key challenges in first time reporting were the budget unknowns ("we got to the end of the process and realized we had not allocated any money for design or printing of our executive summary") but perhaps more important was to "determine how we would measure success". Symantec defined its target readership for the report as "Employees, other CR professionals and  NGO's. Customers have become more engaged in our quarterly reporting-our CR Snapshots " The CR Snapshot is a great three pager with an key updates in between Symantec's two year reporting cycle. Finally, Cecily describes Symantec's key CR challenges in the next 3-5 years as: " .. defining responsible sourcing practices for the software industry, privacy and freedom of expression, diversity and gender equity as more than a nice to have but as a business imperative, continuing to build on practices of good governance in this current climate where the rules are evolving, helping to deliver education and awareness on digital literacy and the protection of rights online." Looks like Cecily has got her work cut out for her for the foreseeable future, but judging by progress made and reported in the 08 CR report, I remain optimistic.

Thanks to Cecily Joseph  for generously sharing insights, thanks to John Gerstner, visionary founder and president of Communitelligence, and thanks to YOU for signing up to the Global Virtual Summit on New Models of Social Responsibilty and showing your support for the practitioners who are making our business and our world a better place.

One thing i didnt quite work out - how do they get the Chunky Monkey to you in a Virtual Summit ... hmmmm ....

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

A special kind of non-profit

I am dedicating this post to Beit Issie Shapiro. Beit Issie Shapiro is a non-profit organization based in Israel  that develops and provides services for children and adults with developmental disabilities. It has played a leading role in promoting the inclusion of people with special needs in society and advocates for better legal provisions for people with special needs.
The organization was founded in 1980 by Naomi Stuchiner, currently President of Beit Issie Shapiro, as a way to fulfil the dream of her late father to contribute the quality of life for people in Israel. Beit Issie Shapiro is currently managed by the CEO Jean Judes, the inspiring and forward-thinking leader of this organization which employes over 300 staff and and has a measurable impact on some 24,000 people, annually. 
I invite you to read about the wonderful work that is done by Beit Issie Shapiro, in caring for those with disabilities, in developing awareness, knowledge and best practices through care programmes, research, training and community outreach. I have a special admiration for the open and responsible culture fostered by Beit Issie Shapiro which i was privileged to experience at first hand though work i have done with the organization on the subject of ethics.

In this post, i wanted to express a particular sense of awe, after i participated in a Special Evening last week celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Beit Issie Shapiro. The organization funded a thank-you event for partners, donors, employees, friends and community members - one of the most special evenings I have attended in a long long while. The highlight of the event was the China Disabled People's Performing Arts Toupe (CDPPAT) and their incredible show "The Dream". . All the performers of this unique group are hearing, visually or physically impaired. The precision, talent, energy and style which which they performed are an example to us all.The performance was incredible - moving, so,so professional, and thoroughly inspirational.
More than the performance itself, I wanted to applaud Beit Issie Shapiro for staging this evening, for the benefit of the community. It is not often we see non-profits, who are so engaged in fundraising and solliciting donations to promote their cause, assign a portion of their funds and energies in generously providing a different kind of value to the community.

I just wanted to share that with all my readers.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en 

How do you picture CSR ?

A client of mine said "Elaine, look at the Nikon 2009 CSR report! It it impressive or what ?" And when a client says that, you ain't got not choice but to look, right?  I looked at the report. In fact, i scanned the report quickly, in between bites of Chunky Monkey. The report  seems to be very comprehensive and packed with lots of  detail. Here follows the essence of my 58 second review. I always look for some key things (especially when the company has reported several times):
GRI Index: I took a look at Nikon GRI index  which shows that a number of key indicators are not reported, though the report is very full. It's probably a B level report. As this is their 8th reporting cycle, I wonder why they are not able to report key metrics more fully.
Assurance: It is not assured (brief stakeholder commentaries at the end do not count as assurance) so this reduces credibility in my view.
Materiality: There is no materiality index showing the most important issues – this is critical for an experienced reporter.
Stakeholder engagement: I couldn’t see ways in which Nikon engages stakeholders, reports specifically on their issues and responds to them in this report
The President or CEO statement : This is quite a good statement highlighting the things that are important to Nikon and providing a strategic perspective.
My bottom line after super-quick review: strong positive reporting, very high on detail, less high on focus.

However, this is not why i wrote this post. What I really wanted to draw attention to is something else i discovered on the Nikon website: the CSR Photo Story. The 10 photos in the CSR story were selected from  47,000 entries in the Nikon Photo Contest International 2006-2007,  from Australia, Brazil, Iran, Korea, Japan, Turkey and more.  This annual contest has been held since 1969 and draws photography from people of every background and age all over the world.

The narrative accompanying the CSR story starts like this:
When you were young, what kind of person did you wish to be?
Someone people trust? Someone creative? A kind person?  A strong person? Someone who pursues their dreams? You picture in your mind that person. So do we at Nikon when we picture the kind of Company we strive to be.
Nice, huh?

Nikon make imaging products - cameras and things. So what better a way to express their CSR than in the outputs of the way consumers use the products they create? Nikon expresses part of their role in society as contributing to a photographic culture by  "enhancing and enriching the enjoyment of photographs", and in addition to the annual photo contest, they engage in several activities to contibute to the community and the appreciation of visual art. I think this is a nice example of a company aligning its CSR activities with its business strategy and generating positive indirect impacts. The fact that i am  a lousy photographer and whatever i seem to do with a camera ends up looking like i snapped a collection of rainclouds is immaterial. I may not win the Nikon contest (unless they like rainclouds) but i do recommend you take a look at the CSR photo story.  And perhaps you might be inspired to take your photo of CSR.

I wondered what i would photograph if i were to photo CSR:
# my Siberian hamster, riding the hamster wheel (round and round, going nowhere)
# my 7 yr old son, practising basketball shots (one basket in 453 but still trying)
# my CSR report library (hundreds of unsustainable printed CSR reports)
# my laundry hanging on the line (sun-dried, but stained with bird-sh**t) 
# my pack of paracetamol (big pharma, generically removing unsustainable headaches)
# my cellphone (connecting me to an unsustainable world)
# a lettuce leaf (geez, gotta stick to that diet, fat people are unsustainable)
# a tub of Chunky Monkey (hah! you knew that was coming, right) ( saving the planet with indulgence)

Your suggestions ?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

CSR and your company's reputation

"Your reputation is created at and affected by every touch point of the organization. Reputation management means addressing your organizational reputation as a strategic issue. It requires a whole-of-business approach to genuine corporate social responsibility and sustainability, and a culture of thinking beyond quarterly financial reports."


One of the most amazing things about the blogosphere and the twitterverse is that you meet the most inspiring people. I have been fortunate to meet the author of the above words. She is Alex Harris (#ff), a reputation management professional with more than 20 years experience in the media industry. Alex authored the book Reputation at Risk, published by Masterstroke Group in June 2009. Alex is the author of the widely acclaimed blog, Reputation Report. The quote above is the start of the epilogue to 140 pages of rivetting perspectives about and examples of the way organizations mis-manage reputation, the risks and consequences of such actions, and insights into best practice. Reading Reputation at Risk will leave you in no doubt about the clear link between business success and effective reputation management, and the umbellical cord that connects reputation and csr practices and reporting.  Alex was born in Papua New Guinea and now lives in Australia, so this book has a healthy helping of Australian stories, and a style which brings the Alex's passionate temperament to life for the reader.  


Reputation at Risk provides a view of corporate governance and the lack thereof that caused the GFC (Global Financial Crisis), the role of  business schools , the risks to reputation from CGM (consumer generated media (no, i didn't know what that meant either), crisis management and more. There is a checklist of positive corporate responses to a crisis or a serious issue and some good advice: "Too often, companies assume the crises will occur in normal working hours when all the key executives and trained operatives will be available. They rarely do". Alex promotes CSR as a key element of business, contributing to public image and reputation. She advocates that CSR should be part of the DNA of the business as csr influences a business's abilty to attract and retain skilled staff, maintain effective customer relationships and shareholder satisfaction and more. What's more, Reputation at Risk speaks in favour of reporting - "The way companies communicate their CSR activities is just as important as the CSR itself".


I tend to think that Alex Harris's voice over the past 20 years has carried some weight, because in a previous analysis i conducted, Australia is the number five top country in the world for producing CSR and sustainability reports. So, Alex, keep telling it as you see it. My only negative about this book is that it doesn't come with a free tub of Chunky Monkey.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

#CSR without EMBEDDING is like CHUNKY without MONKEY

One of the popular csr-speak terms you need to be familiar with these days is EMBED. Dictionary.com says this means "to fix into a surrounding mass: to embed stones in cement". So if your Company is a mass of cement, your CSR program is the stones. Makes sense, right?  The concept of embedding CSR is not new. I suspect (I am guessing) that one of the first to use this term for CSR was AccountAbility in their first exposure draft of the AA1000 principles in 1999.  EMBEDDEDNESS was one of the principles related to management of the process on an ongoing basis :
" Embeddedness – or systems integration, concerns making the social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting processes part of the organisation’s operations, systems and policy making, and not treated as a one-off exercise to produce a social and ethical report"  (they like long sentences at AccountAbility).
Many Companies who report on their CSR or Sustainability LOVE to use this great word EMBED. It expreses the fact that CSR is not just something you add on to your "real" business activities, but something that is part of the fabric of your business and integrated in all processes and practices. Most mature CSR reporters like to express the embeddedness of their CSR. Sounds kinda noble and professional, right?
The Stagecoach Group in their 2009 CSR report say: "We have a clear set of values which underpin our business and are firmly embedded in our Group’s culture." And thousands of reports offer variations on this theme. And my recent post on "When CSR reporting is a waste of paper"  provided an example of the problem of UN-EMBEDDEDNESS - ie what happens when you really haven't got this embed thing covered at all levels of your organization.

So this is why i was interested to read Ethical Corporation's latest research publication on How to embed Corporate Responsibility across different parts of your Company. This is a 100 page report published at end September 2009. It provides an analysis and case studies covering 5 organizational functions: Human Resources, Finance and Accounting, Communications, Procurement and Logistics and Operations. I will blog about each of these functional zoom-ins and the related embedding stuff one-by-one in the next few posts. (Disclosure: Ethical Corp kindly provided me with a complimentary copy so that i could read, learn and share - but, they didnt tell me what to say! - all views are my own) Ethical Corp's research data is "aggregated, analysed and triangulated".( I am glad its triangulated. Meant I got to learn the meaning of another long word.)The report is in two sections - first, an overall survey of the way CR is embedded, practiced and communicated in large corporations, and second, specific functional guides. And of course, there is a set of recommendations. I guess Ethical Corp wouldn't be too pleased if i revealed all their recommendations free of charge to the world, but i can't resist quoting the one which says: " Reporting Effectively: Producing a CR report ... remains a highly effective tool."

I will start my blog series with one of my favourite subjects: Human Resources.
CR minus HR = PR. (Wish i knew who said that!)
The Ethical Corp research covers how to embed C(S)R via the Human Resources function in order to achieve maximum productivity and staff morale, and refers to :

• recruiting and training staff
• maximising employee performance and competencies
• managing a company's personal employee evaluation and appraisal system
• building an ethical corporate culture and engaging employees.

I always say that CSR is about moving from accounting for "impacts on employees" to enhancing and accounting for the "impacts of employees" ie transforming the business perspective into one which ensures that every single internal and external touchpoint of employees in an organization leverages the CSR approach of the business.

The HR research uses input from CSR Managers  at Hewlett Packard, Boots, Novo Nordisk and BT, and case studies from Starbuck's and Campbell Soup regarding their HR-CR practices. Interesting reading, actually. The section ends up with a short checklist for HR Managers with the key learning points from the research. 

All the Companies quoted in this section are of course strong CSR reporters. 
HP's 2008 report (GRI B self-declared) doesn't actually use the word embed to describe their CR - perhaps this is because embedding is also associated with technology ( review steps for accessing the HP embedded web server (EWS), but their report covers quite a lot of detail of employee engagement in CR activities.
Alliance Boots 2008-2009 Report (not GRI indexed) say that embedding comes naturally: "As a pharmacy-led heath and beauty group, our corporate social responsibility principles are naturally embedded in the working practices of our people."
Novo Nordisk's 2008 (GRI A+ self-declared) integrated report  describes how strategies are revised after the management of CR issues has been fully embedded in the organisation so that they are fully integrated into business processes, as part of the way they determine materiality.
BT Group's 2009 (GRI A+) report talk about the  BT Sustainable Marketing Programme as part of their commitment to embedding the principles of sustainability into business as usual
Starbucks 2008 (GRI B+ self declared) Global Repsonsibility Report confirms that "being a responsible business is a commitment that is embedded in our culture. "
Campbell Soup Company's first 2008 (non-GRI) report talks about four "overarching themes" which are embedded in their mission statement.

So there you have it, people are embedding CSR, or trying to. At least they have adopted the politically correct csr-speak. Embedding is no small task and does require a level of maturity and organizational alignment which are not achieved overnight. And there is no doubt that a strong, professional and skilled Human Resources function can play a significant role. So if you aspire to have both the Chunky AND the Monkey, think about the way your HR function embeds YOUR csr program .

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en 

When CSR reporting is a waste of paper

CSR reports, aka Sustainability Reports, are supposed to be sustainable, right? That means no printed copies, right ? Wrong. Sustainability reports are business documents, and, like any other important business document,  it is ok to print them but. Print them but. This means that, as with any aspect of CSR and sustainability, we must exercise restraint and consideration of all stakeholders in how we do what we do. So in printing CSR reports, I might expect a Company to consider:

• Printing on recycled paper or environmentally friendly paper (see previous post on paper made from all-sorts-of-animal-excrement).
• Printing a short summary with the bulk of the report online(see Nexxar for best CSR online reporting).
• Printing a small number of copies for those who really want or should read the report.

I confess. I like to see something in print. Gives me a feel for the Company. Allows me carry reports around and read them when i can. (Ask my hub about how many reports i take to bed with me!!) (well, on second thoughts, don't ask him). Perhaps this is hypocritical ? A sustainability consultant who likes to read printed reports? Perhaps but.

The but is that what really REALLY annoys me is unconsidered wasteful ways of sending CSR reports through the mail. I have mentioned this before in a different previous post, and now i will mention it again. (consistency is a virtue)

The following picture is of 9 one-side-printed separate pieces of paper that accompanied the delivery of the 2009 CR Report from .. and this time i will name names ... Deutsche Telekom. Delivered by DHL which is a Deutche Post Company.

Here's that consistency thing again: 9 separate one-side-printed pieces of paper. Why would you need 9 pieces of paper to go with the delivery of one slim report?

Deutsche Telekom's 2009 CSR report is  online and a 68 page PDF download. It is a well written report at GRI-checked  A+ reporting level. This is what DT have to say about saving paper:

(page 41) "Thanks to innovations such as “Paper, Pen & Phone,” customers can significantly reduce their own paper consumption and the resulting environmental pollution. The special pen developed by T-Systems records all the special characteristics of a signature via an integrated camera, thereby enabling digital identification and processing of documents signed by hand. Compared to the former archiving process, paper consumption is thus reduced by up to 50 percent, and costs are reduced by as much as around 70 percent. In order to exploit this savings potential in our own Group as well, we have launched “Paper, Pen & Phone” in around 800 Telekom Shops in Germany since February 2009."

And more (page46 ) "We succeeded in winning over almost one third of T-Home customers for our online billing. This helps us and our customers in contributing to environment protection by reducing paper consumption by over 1,500 tons".

But what about shipping CSR reports? What super innovations have been developed to ensure that paper consumption is reduced in this process?

Which brings me to another point: INDIRECT REPONSIBILITY .

It is possible that Deutche Telekom have no idea that DHL uses 9 separate one-side-printed pieces of paper for each report they deliver. Maybe this is standard DHL procedure. The kind of standard procedure that no-one ever thinks to question because that's just the way its done. But doesn't Deutsche Telekom have an indirect reponsibility for the actions of their suppliers engaged in providing products or services on their behalf?

Actually, in the DHL (Deutche Post AG)  2009 self-declared B+ report I couldn't find anything relating to paper consumption reduction, only references to sustainable paper sourcing. I couldn't find a figure for how many tons of paper consumption DHL or Deutsche Post have reduced in the reporting period. Maybe that's because they havent. However, a target area for Deutsche Post is " Mobilizing our employees: Raising awareness of climate protection and broader environmental issues, and enabling our employees to minimize our company’s environmental impact through their everyday actions." Like shipping CSR reports.

So who should we take issue with here ?

(1) DHL for using 9 pieces of paper

(2) Deutsche Telekom for letting them

(3) Me, for wanting to read the printed report in the first place ?  (hint: dont pick this option)

But the point of this post is that : i would expect that people in a company where CSR is truly embedded at all levels of the organization would pick this up.  I believe that employees at all levels  should recognize  environmental waste in  the system, assuming they had been made aware of its importance to the Company. 

These day-to-day almost-unnoticed actions can  be very important. They can also point to the degree to which each employee in any business takes personal responsibility for all aspects of the Company's CSR behaviour.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Greater CSR leadership needed in Israel

At the annual CSR conference in Israel this week, organisaed by Maala, the BSR affiliate in Israel, for the first time, an award was presented to Companies who had issued (or almost issued) more about the almost thing later.. CSR reports during the years 2007 to 2009. Actually, it's not surprising that this was the first set of awards, because the Israeli market has beed decidedly slow in uptake on the reporting front (see my previous post). It was back in 2005 when my partner, Liad Ortar, took the initiative to translate the GRI guidelines into Hebrew, making them accessible to the local market and starting a momentum for reporting in line with the global best practice. The awards were presented in order of GRI transparency levels. So, just for the record, I will run through them in that order here.

Bank Leumi published a GRI checked A+ report in 2009, covering years 2007-2008.Unfortunately, this is only in Hebrew so non-speako-the-lingo people won't get much from this, apart from the fantastic design using creations from an exhibition that Leumi sponsored for unknown artists. (Disclosure: My Company was the consultant on this report). Leumi is the largest banking group in Israel and was the first to report in 2006 with a GRI B level report (which we also worked on). 

Bank Hapoalim published a GRI checked A+ report in 2008, covering 2007. Again, this is only available in Hebrew. It is the first report of this, the second largest banking group in Israel. 

comme il faut published a GRI checked A level report in 2008, covering 2007. comme il faut is a privately owned SME with a strong CSR record and a strong reputation for responsible business practices. This was the first report for a fashion company, first for a private company, and a first  A level report in Israel . The report was published in Hebrew and in English (above link to English report). (Disclosure: We wrote this report). Aside from the high transparency for this small business, the design, as you might expect from a fashion company, is quite creative. 

Strauss Group published a GRI checked A level report in 2009, covering 2008. Strauss is an Israeli based globally active food and beverages Company. This is their second report, published both in Hebrew and English.

Partner Communications published a GRI checked level B report in 2008, covering 2007. Partner is a leading telecommunications player in Israel, and the owner of the Orange brand. As you might expect, this report is a little ... orange. Published in Hebrew and Enlgish.

DeltaGalil Industries published a GRI checked level B report in 2009, covering 2008. This first report was published in English only. Delta is a leading apparel manufacturer, specializing in underwear and casualwear, headquartered in Israel and supplying world markets.

Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises published a self declared GRI B level report in 2009, covering 2008. Nesher also reported in 2006 on environmental issues. The report is in Hebrew and not available for download (yet).

The Egged Bus Company published a self declared GRI C report in 2009, covering 2008. This is their third report, the last one being published in 2005. It is in Hebrew and not available for download (yet).

The Hannan Mor Group published a self declared GRI C level report in 2009, covering 2008-2009. This is a small traded construction company. This first report is in Hebrew and not available for download (yet). 

Intel published a local report in the spirit of GRI in 2009 covering 2008. This is a summary report , one document in Hebrew with some English and Arabic translated parts. The Intel local report falls within a local reporting framwork adopted by Intel around the world, and using the annual global report as a base. Intel is one of the two global Companies publishing local reports in our market, and this is their third such report.

Motorola Israel published a local report with a GRI index in 2008, covering 2007. This is a comprehensive report covering all CSR subjects, and the third by this local branch of the global Motorola. It was published in Hebrew and English. (Disclosure: I assured  this report)

Baran Group published a report in the spirit of the GRI in 2009, covering 2007. The report is in Hebrew and not indexed. It is a first report for this engineering Company.

Other Companies - Cellcom, the largest telecomms provider, Carmel Olefins, a polymer manufactuer and Rafael, a government-owned air defense Company, and Discount Bank, one of the four leading banks in Israel - all received awards on account of the fact that they have committed to publish before end October. Let's hope they do.

That makes 16. I think that's it. Hope i didnt forget anyone !Overall, 12 reports in 2 years .. maybe 16. Clear leadership shown by the banking sector, fashion , technology and telecomms in the wings. Some food, industrial, transportation and construction sector presence. Strong adoption of GRI as the reporting standard, but early days for a widespread approach to assurance. However, this is still  a drop in the ocean in terms of the size of the Israeli market, the level of global activity of Israeli Companies and the advanced approach to business in this country. We must continue to pust for stronger CSR leadership, accountability and transparency. If you do business with Israeli companies, demand to know what they are doing on CSR .....

What will 2010 bring ? More ? Less ? Same ?
There is no doubt that a certain momentum is in the air, and that those reporting feel the benefits in terms of internal processes and external recognition, but before you can report, you need to ensure your Company is behaving with a CSR mindset, and much of our work in the Israeli market is still about creating awareness and appreciation for CSR practices and supporting Companies in getting on board. There are, we know,  more en route, so we can be hopeful  (better not say optimistic) that 2011 awards for reports published in 2010 and 2011 may show a modest increase. I wonder if a free supply of  Chunky Monkey to all potential reporting Companies would help ?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Opportunities for CSR reporting professionals

Yesterday, in Israel, at the annual CSR conference organized by Maala – Business for Social Responsibility (the BSR affiliate in Israel), awards were made to Companies that have produced CSR reports during 2007-2009 (including those who have committed to publish reports by end October 2009). The purpose of the award was to create awareness for reporting in a country where reporting has been slow off the mark and relatively slow in uptake.
17 awards were made. I will blog about these reports in my next post. In the meantime, I thought I would check out how Israel is doing in the league table of reporting.
The CorporateRegister.com reports database allows a good review of numbers of reporting countries. It may not be 100% comprehensive, but I believe it hosts over 90% of all reports issued, so I am happy to use this data to review reporting output. In total, during this period, 8,663 reports were published – an average of around 2,900 reports per year.
I analyzed reports published in 175 countries (some of which I didn’t even know were countries) during the period 2007-2009:

• 42% had NO businesses which reported on the Corporate Responsibility
• 36% of countries published between 1 and 25 reports
• 20% of countries published between 26 and 500 reports
• 2% (4 countries) published over 500 reports each.

Of the 36% of countries who published between 1 and 25 reports, over 80% published between 1 and 5 reports during this 3 year period.
The  league table of reports published during 2007-2009 is as follows:
USA - 1042
UK - 1034
Japan - 817
Spain - 517
Australia - 484
Germany - 452
Italy - 418
Canada - 367
France - 364
Brazil - 276
The Netherlands - 264
South Africa - 229
Switzerland - 211
Sweden - 205
Finland - 174
Israel is number 53 in this list of 175 countries. (This is based on 8 reports shown on CorporateRegister.com during this period).

I cross-checked the level reporting to size of the economy. I used the GDP per country based on GDP 2006 published by the Economist.
This shows a very different league table. The countries publishing the most reports per US$ Billion of GDP are: South Africa, Finland, Portugal, Chile, Australia and Switzerland, each of whom have published a report for every US$ 5 billion GDP or less in each of the three years between 2007 and 2009.
Here is the league table showing the rate of publication of reports relative to US$ Billion of GDP per year 2007-2009 (eg. South Africa published one report per US$ 3 billion GDP per year):
South Africa - 3
Finland - 4
Portugal-4
Chile-4
Australia-5
Switzerland-5
Sweden-6
HongKong-7
Austria-7
UK-7
Spain-7
The Netherlands-8
Denmark-8
Norway-9
Canada-10

Only Australia is in the top 5 in both tables, showing a strong reporting ethos which correlates to the relative size of their economy. Well done Australian reporters!Saudi Arabia is the 23rd largest economy and has published no reports at all and Iran is the 31st largest economy and published only 1 report. Israel is the 42nd largest economy in the world based on the Economist figures, and number 35 in this league table of reports by $US billion GDP (one report for US$53 billion GDP. )
So why is all this important? (It’s not so important, really, but once I started thinking about it, I just had to check it out). Perhaps it shows that reporting leadership, as most other things, is relative and can be benchmarked. The world’s leading economies – US, Japan, Germany, China and Britain - produce large numbers of reports in absolute terms but not in relative terms to size of economy. Perhaps it shows that most of the world leading economies are on the reporting train, and that there is some awareness of responsible business practice in these countries, which should continue to develop. Perhaps it shows that the 74 countries who do not report at all are fertile ground for CSR consultants, assurers, report designers and printers. So if you are a CSR professional in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Macedonia, Malawi, Togo, Uzbekistan or Yemen…. seems like there is an opportunity for you out there!

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

The Wild West of CSR report assurance

Sustainability reporting assurance. It's called assurance because its purpose is to assure you that the report is (1) accurate and (2) relevant. Accurate meaning you told no lies and made no mistakes in your data (that extra zero on the end of your annual cash donations number, or that missing digit in your carbon footprint calculation). Relevant meaning you reported on the most important things (materiality) and you didn’t leave out things that might influence the way stakeholders make decisions (our product was contaminated due to poor machine cleaning processes and 183 people were food-poisoned) .
For any of you who have ever written a CR report, you will know that deciding what to include and what to leave out is probably the toughest part of the process. The assurer of a report looks for what's in there, and what's not, and how accurate what's in there is. (An excellent assurer would look for how accurate what's not in there is, but he would probably charge more for this). The theory goes that if your report is assured, it has a better chance of being credible, and enhancing the trust of your stakeholders in your reporting and in your company.
CorporateRegister.com statistics show that around 25% of all reports are externally assured. And if you really want to know the nitty gritties, you can view the report by CorporateRegister.com issued in July 2008 called Assure View .You can read all about AccountAbility standards which set the framework for assurance at their website , and you can see what the GRI says about the criteria for good assurance.
Now that the formalities are over with, I guess the key point I would like to make in this post is that not many of the assurance statements I read actually assure me. Aside from all the fancy theory, what do I look for?

• the DETAILED EVIDENCE that sufficient practical work has been done to delve into the guts of the reporting process and content in order to assess accuracy and relevance.
• the NAME of the assurer or assuring team (not just a Company) who sign off on the statement
• the CREDIBILITY of the assuring team – their prior experience or qualifications in assuring CSR reports
• disclosure regarding the INDEPENDENCE of the assurer and the nature of the assurers relationship with the reporting company
• the GOOD NEWS and the BAD NEWS (recommendations for improvement) relating to the reporting process and content
• a CLEAR STATEMENT that the report has what I call integrity (a fair and balanced representation, in csr-speak).

I recently reviewed the State Street Bank report for CorporateRegister.com and highlighted the assurance statement as outstanding. It addresses all my points above comprehensively, succinctly and left me feeling that a thorough job had been done.
I took a look at some 2009 reports to see how their assurance statements shape up. ( I do not name assurance providers – you can check out the reports if you want to see who they are – my intention is to focus on the work and not the workers) :

Barrick Gold Corporation, 2008 report : reporting level A+
An interesting statement, assuring two things: this mining company's adherence to the Sustainability Principles of International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM) and adherence to the GRI framework. There is a very detailed list of activities the assurers performed and a longer list of points for improvement. The conclusion says that Barrick has aligned its sustainability policies to ICMM’s 10 Sustainable Development Principles and in all material respects, reported in accordance with the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (2006) - level A requirements and the associated GRI Mining and Metals Sector Supplement Pilot Version 1.0 (2005) as presented in the GRI Content Index. That's clear enough for me. Credibility added value: dix points.
Wartsila Annual Report 2008. reporting level A+
Wartsila is a power company operating power plants and providing power solutions.The assurance statement in this report is a turn-off. One page short, it barely describes the assurance process activities, though the two (yes, just two) interviews conducted with senior managers and 2 site visits are mentioned (Wartsila operates in 160 locations). This is one of those assurance statements that ends up with "Based on our work described above, nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe that the Sustainability Information,based on the abovementioned criteria, is not fairly stated in all material respects." That really oozes decisiveness and builds credibility, right? I wouldn’t pay someone to make a statement like that. Credibility added value: zero points.
Trelleborg AB, Sweden, 2008 CSR report: reporting level B+
Trelleborg is an engineering group which develops products based on polymer tecnology. The Assurance statement in this report  is based on a limited review of about 6 performance indicators. Activities for this limited review are included. Two site visits were made, and the rest was discussions and reviews. The conclusion is the multiple negative one – "nothing has come to our attention that …".
Credibility added value: zero points
Athens International Airport, 2008 report :reporting level B+
Published in the form of an eBook (what a painful way to read a report)  (I downloaded it – 31 MB). This is a short but nice statement. It lists a fairly long number of assurance activities. It contains both a positive statement and a multi-negative statement. Positive: "the range of topics reported provide a fair and balanced representation…." and negative , relating to KPI's "nothing has come to our attention that causes us to believe. …".
Credibility added value: sept points
OHL Group.2008 report : reporting level A+
This is a Spanish holding group with a range of interests mainly around construction and real estate. The assurance statement is a scanned copy of a one-page letter, designed to be almost illegible. The activities are listed, but they are super-general – review of .. checking that … analysis of …testing on a sample basis … It's hard to get a real feel for what was actually done. I was encouraged to know that the "review procedures did not disclose any matter that would lead us to believe that the information furnished on the degree of progress on the Corporate Responsibility targets for 2008 is materially misstated". To put it another way, we didn’t find any major blunders in reporting against targets.
Credibility added value: deux points
Telefonica 2008 report:  reporting level A+
This report has a great assurance statement – the detail included in the activity list includes ONE HUNDRED interviews with Telefonica people and states the purpose of these interviews - and much more. This gives me confidence that the assurance assignment was undertaken with seriousness and professionalism. It ends up with that double-negative again – "no significant matters that would lead us to believe that it wasn’t "etc. … but there is a crispness and comprehensiveness about this statement that gives you confidence.
Credibility added value: neuf points.

So, you know what?

I think assurance needs to get its act together. If the assurers aren’t prepared to put their neck out and say "we believe this report is credible" then why pay them? If they aren't prepared to do the leg work and list it in detail, why bother? If their credibility added value is below dix points, when why let them loose in your organization?
There is no accepted template for an assurance statement. There are general guidelines but no checklist that all assurers adhere to. And no qualitative assessment of assurance statements. And the GRI barely pays attention to this, checking only the existence of an assurance statement, and not its quality, in order to assign the coveted + to any reporting level. I think the time has come to establish a framework  for the verification of CSR reports that includes prescriptive format and content, much like the GRI framework. The GRI should consider adding performance criteria relating to the quality of the assurance statement. And allocation of the coveted + should be a little more rigorous.

If assurance is to move up from its current 25%, it has to add more value.
The Wild West of assurance needs to stop.  


elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

When is a CSR report not a CSR report?

Barrick Gold Company is a large gold mining Company operating 26 mines over loads of continents. They report extensively on their Corporate Responsibility. What caught my attention about their reporting, though, is that, in addition to their annual GRI A+ corporate reporting since 2002, they also produce SITE reports. I don't know of many companies who produce CR reports by SITE. There are PDF download reports for each of 25 sites.

Their sites have some great names - Bulyanhulu, Tulawaka, Turquoise Ridge, Gold Mountain and more. (They sound more like Club Med locations than gold mines.) I downloaded Granny Smith site report (reminded me of eating green apples as a kid). It's a 5 pager about Granny's mine located 950 km north of Perth, Australia, staffed by Perth-dwellers who fly to and from the mine to get to their work. This brief report covers environmental responsibility, health and safety, and community involvement. Whilst the title - Reponsibility Report - sounds promising, it is really a profile of the mine with some policy and management approach statements about csr issues. Hard to describe this as a report. So i tried my luck with Plutonic , also an Australian mine, and what a surprise, same 5 pager with a couple of changes for local references. Well, i thought,  let switch continents - so i looked at North Mara mine in South Africa, in the Tanzania region and, well, you tell me .. how many pages ? Five. What headlines ? Ask Granny Smith. Any numbers? No. Looks to me that they have a full-time copy-paster at Barrick. I gave up on the remaining sites.

Whilst i applaud Barrick for their intention of injecting high local relevance into their CR reporting,  and they obviously did make some eforts to reflect local issues such as local community programs around each site, and biodiversity issues etc, i do believe we have to be careful when calling something a report when it is not a report. A little more effort and they could elevate this local reporting to include the carbon footprint of each mine, employee demographics in each mine, and community contribution and involvement in some more detail. Would this add value? Is it worth the effort? Hard to say, but the mining is a high risk business in terns of sustainability, and support of local communities and regulators is important. Perhaps this extra effort could pay off over the long term.

I thought (did you hear that clunking sound?)  about the implications of site level reporting on a wider scale. Actually, this is the essence of sustainability. Relevance and engagement with local stakeholders. I have blogged in the past about global versus local (country) reporting (localization) , finding global reports to be such high level that locals who are most impacted by global corporations are unable to connect. Also, as any global report must be built bottom up at some point- with data and stories from each operating location - i wonder if this is not a more efficient and effecitve approach to reporting?

Resources, resources, i hear you cry. Who has all the resources to develop a hundreds of local reports? If you leave out all the pyrotechnical design features and cut to the chase with a simple aesthetically written but not graphically mindblowing report, a local site report doesnt have to be such a major exaggeration in use of resources. It could probably even add value in terms of local accountability. And my bet is that site managers are producing oodles of operating reports anyway. As i write, i get this sense that my suggestion won't be all that popular.. but i kind of think that one day, this will be the future of reporting. In the meantime, I send a virtual tub of Chunky Monkey to Barrick site reporters.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

PUMA outruns the pack in carbon footprinting

Going for a run ? Quick jog in the park? Got a new pair of PUMA sports shoes? Know anyone who has ? Then you might be interested in the PUMA Sustainability Report covering 2007/2008. Even if you wear a rival brand of sports footwear, you may still be interested in above-mentioned report. Why all the fuss ? I will let them tell it:

QUOTE from report:
In 2008 PUMA commissioned a diploma thesis to investigate the carbon footprint of the PUMA shoe Van Slobbe Logo Lux. Taking into consideration that no universally accepted standard on carbon footprint mapping was existent, we followed the methodology of the Carbon Trust and used the software Umberto as well as the data bases Ecoinvent and Probas. Product carbon footprinting is a relatively new method. Therefore, we had to make certain assumptions for our calculations. Although inaccuracies have to be taken into consideration, the results are quite surprising. For example, 57% of the 41 kg CO2 emitted per pair of shoes originate from cattle farming and another 37% from pig farming .This means that the overwhelming carbon emissions of our shoe can be traced back to leather production, while transport emissions are rather low in comparison. Taking into account the erroneous or missing data, the result is a carbon footprint of 41.08 kg for the PUMA “Van Slobbe Logo Lux” shoe." UNQUOTE

So, now you can blame cows and pigs for the fact that your running gear is causing global warming. Oink!

Another interesting thing about this analysis is that several countries are involved in the supply chain of this Van Slobbe Logo Lux shoe (couldn't they have chosen a shorter brand name ?) This involved shipping from Cameroon, transport between Romania and Italy, shipping from China, resources in Germany and shipping from Argentina. Looks like these shoes started running long before you did!

Removing the livestock data for the leather processing elements, the key impacts are :
*   24.39 % derived from all transportation processes
*   34.69 % derived from incineration (not sure excactly what they incinerate)
*   21.33 % derived from manufacturing processes
*   19.42 % derived from producing electricity

OK. Stop. Pause. Chunky Monkey. Think.
Why is all this so exciting?

First: PUMA is one of the only reporters i know to have gone to such lengths to calculate the carbon footprint of their product and report it transparently. Thumbs UP!
Second: The insights from this exercise provide the basis for taking action to reduce carbon footprints and climate change effects.Indeed, they provide the basis for an industry-wide methodology and set a standard for others to follow. Thumbs UP!
Third: It provides material for a really fascinating blog post (Modesty is a strong point with me). Fingers and thumbs UP!

The next time you go running in your snazzy PUMA Van Slobbe thing shoes, remember this: cows and pigs are the reason you feel so hot and sweaty.   

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

An Ode to #CSR reporting

Some people accuse us CSR Reporting pros of lacking creativity, fun, humour and wit. I guess that's because of the really really boring CSR reports that we write year after year. I am all in favour of dispelling this myth, and to prove it, i offer you the following Ode to CSR Reporting: 

CSR is not simply a game
Or a way to stop critics and blame
For stakeholder support
Just write a report
It's your route to success and to fame


A report is a way to explain
The csr work you maintain
If you've nothing to say
Report it anyway
Don’t expect anyone to complain


A CR report's a foundation
For building trust in your corporation
If it doesn’t quite work
And you feel like a jerk
You can always go on vacation


Three thousand reports every year
Show reporting is quite a sincere
Attempt to expose
The cons and the pros
Of the ethics to which you adhere


You can choose to report GRI
Indicators on which we rely
Don’t forget the index
Of all the subjects
No data? We'll turn a blind eye


Carbon footprint is key to disclose
GHG's averages highs and lows
If emissions increased
And offsets decreased
The numbers you can just transpose


On diversity you shouldn’t fall short
Women managers you must support
There are none on the Board
By the CEO they're ignored
But on that you don’t have to report


If you want your report to attract
And encourage stakeholders to react
Make it very very long
This can never be wrong
Length does from the content distract


Your report of course you must assure
Credibility so as to ensure
But if this costs too much
A very nice touch
Is to make all the language obscure


Your report you should publish online
With a swishy interactive design
They'll think you are cool
Over your report they'll drool
This year, you won't need to resign


To sum up, reporting is attainable
CSR is totally explainable
Do not be deterred
Follow the herd
It's your passport to being sustainable!


(PS: I deliberately left Chunky Monkey out of this Ode, just in case you think i am a little obsessed. Well, actually, you try finding something to rhyme with chunky monkey....)


elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Sustainability flies! Lufthansa reports.

Lufthansa and sustainability in the skies. I returned today from Germany where i was presenting to a large business on Corporate Responsibility Reporting. I flew Lufthansa between Tel Aviv and Frankfurt. Lufthansa crew do not usually speak Hebrew , so imagine our surprise when this flight attendant gets on the loudspeaker and proceeds to give us the landing blurb in Hebrew. He explains that he has been learning the language for three weeks, and he rounds off with  "Maccabi Tel Aviv are the champions!" Passengers on the flight smiled and clapped enthusiastically! (Myself, I prefer Manchester United ) Kinda reminded me of what i hear about Southwest Airlines. Southwest Lufthansa. This guy generated such a positive reaction, passengers loved it and will remember this small but thoughtful gesture of friendship towards Hebrew-speakers on the flight . And several will tell their friends. This is how positive reputation is built, not only via press-releases. Well done to this Lufthansa guy!

Pleasing to note, the tales-of-Lufthansa  broadcast on the in-flight screens includes a mention that passengers can read about the airline's social and environmental initiatives in the airline's Sustainability Report. Nice touch, though i suspect that a one sentence plug flew (bad pun!) over the heads of most of the aircraft passengers. But, aha! It didnt escape me. Let's read it ....

It's called Balance. It's a heavyish 124 pages short and  selectively covers the year 2008. It's not GRI and its not assured (humph) . In scanning the ATR section (About This Report, for the non-pros amongst us) , which i always do to know what's included and what's not, I noticed a rather anachronistic statement referring to the scope of the report which excludes "third-party services, as Lufthansa has no influence either on their  performance or on the aircraft operated". Aren't those days over, when we refused to be accountable for the actions of our suppliers? Isn't it generally accepted that companies DO have a degree of responsibility AND an influence over service providers? Does Lufthansa REALLY mean they have NO influence ? And does this mean that there is NO attention paid to the kind of third party services are employed in the name of the German aviation giant, with 108,000 employees, 515 aircraft and a $3 billion balance sheet? Perhaps they hadn't read their Chairman's intro which says : "As always, we strive to convince through quality and performance. This applies to all companies within the Group, and we also bring our influence to bear on partners, suppliers and the framework of conditions in which we operate". Nothing much else is written about the thousands of suppliers i expect supply Lufthansa with meals, equipment, spare parts, overflow flight services, paper, services and whatever else it needs to transport millions of passengers and freight all over the world. (humph again). But, there is GOOD NEWS. Lufthansa has been running the HelpAlliance for the past 10 years, which has supported over 60 projects supporting underprivileged children in the world's poorest countries. Passengers are engouraged to donate cash or airmiles. Perhaps i could donate Chunky Monkey?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

The catch 22 of CSR reporting and the paradox of trust

The purpose of a CSR report is to build trust. By operating transparently and responding openly to stakeholder concerns and aspirations, through a "fair and balanced" presentation of the material issues relating to your organization's sustainability and corporate responsibily efforts, you build trust. Trust, so that stakeholders can hold your Company's integrity  in high regard and make educated decisions about whether they want to invest in you, work for you, buy your products or services, supply to you, collaborate with you, complain about you to the regulators, approve your license to operate in their neighborhood or simply recommend you to their friends. But quite often, reports are met with cyncism and mistrust. Why should we believe what is written in CSR reports. And more importantly, why shouldn't we believe what's reported? 

MANY PEOPLE SAY:

CSR Reports are just a form of marcom or PR - self-gratifying do-gooding self-promotion.

i.e. you cant trust CSR reports and you can't trust reporting companies. People may be right. CSR reports look like  PR. They are  full of superlatives and positives and superlapositives (like that ? It's a hybrid. Using one word instead of two is sustainable best practice... or bractice. Less typing energy, less server power, less carbissions). 

Which is why i find it interesting that so very few PR professionals are actually involved in managing CSR communications in their businesses, or in leading the writing of CSR reports. See some examples from reports published in September 2009:

Corporate Express Austrailia's 2008 report :  CSR is led by a CSR manager reporting to the CEO. There is a CSR Steering Committee with representation from all functions including the New Zealand person who reports to the Head of Marketing. But there seems to be no dominant PR or comms-related presence.
WestLB AG 2009 report : The Sustainability Department, which is responsible for planning, steering and controlling all sustainability activities, is a part of the Group Development business unit and reports to the Chairman of the Managing Board. Do you detect a mention of Marketing or PR in this structure ? Nope. Me neither.
Teck 2009 Report :The Safety and Sustainability Committee  of the Board of Directors provides policy direction and monitors  environmental, social and safety performance. The Corporate Environment and Risk Management Committee is a senior management committee that sets priorities and direction for EHS programs, tracks performance and measures results. No PR stuff here.
MTR Corporation 2008 Report : The Corporate Responsibility Steering Committee is chaired by the Legal Secretary and members from different parts of the business are on the team. Sounds pretty PR-less. 

Now, in an outstanding piece of research by Sherie Winston of Georgetown University, in which she charts the positioning of CSR in a business, 125 CSR jobs were studied and only half had some form of CSR communications content. When hiring CSR people, companies dont' look for communications specialists. "Few are pure communications jobs, and most fall under administrative, managerial or business development categories."  

Logic might dictate that if companies were intending their CSR reports to be PR brochures, they would have PR people leading their CSR report publication. Does that make sense? I mean, in any business i have ever worked in, the Finance guy counted the profits and the IT person decided when to upgrade my laptop. So why would a PR-motivated CSR report not be led by the PR person, arguably the most competent person to produce PR content ? 

Do you have kids ? What happens when someone asks you about your kids? You dont start off by listing all their bad points (well, unless your kid is Dennis the Menace). You dont spend all your time saying what they dont do well. You start off by saying how wonderful they are. Perhaps you might throw in the odd comment about the fact they total-lossed yourcar again last week, but on the whole, you stay with the good stuff. They are not bottom of the class, they are 28th from the top. They are not hyperactive, they have lots of energy. Most mom's are natural PR agents for their own kids. Mom's  tell the REAL truth about their kids (my son is two rungs short of a ladder) only  when they are with their closest family members or friends. The people who they trust the most.

And it's a bit like that with CSR reports. Each report is someone's kid. No CSR reporter wants to scoop up the dirt when writing about the organization in whose success he has a vested interest. So fair and balanced reporting is acually counter-intuitive, requires a degree of maturity and confidence that most corporations have not yet achieved.

Actually, it requires trust. It requires the organization to trust that the stakeholders who read the report will do so with a fair and balanced mindset, and not look for the first opportunity to beat the company about the head for everything that it admits is not perfect.

and here we have it, the CATCH 22.

To engender trust, you have to show trust though balanced reporting.
But balanced reporting is risky, as stakeholders might react negatively to anything that is less than perfect. If you dont trust them, they wont trust you.  If you don't trust your stakeholders, your CSR report will always lack authenticity. Because you will always be too scared to present your Company in a balanced way.


Like mommy (above), a corporation will have greater trust in those stakeholders that it is closest to. Those the company has invested time in getting to know, in engaging and dialoging with. The corporation will feel safe in providing with a balanced picture to this greater critical mass of stakeholders.

and here is the PARADOX

Paradoxically, despite the fact that stakeholder engagement is crucial to building trust and therefore balanced, trustworthy reporting, most Companies do not pay much attention to this. We can see this evidenced in the brief one-pagers in most reports which do no more than pay lip-service to stakeholder engagement. Not many corporations realize how core this is to their entire CSR program, and to building trust through CSR reporting. 

At this point, you are wondering how Chunky Monkey fits with reporting, catch 22's and paradoxes (gotcha!) . Here's the thing: I did a Free Astrology Destiny Reading on Astrology.com for Chunky Monkey , and this is part of what what is says: ...... chunky monkey, if you are a business person, you may feel that your employees and customers (especially the loyal, long time ones) are your family and try to take care of them as such. You care about their personal lives and feel for their troubles, and can like a good mother you see them through tough times.   Get that ? Chunky Monkey is all about values and stakeholder engagement. Phew. That's a relief!


elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

27 ways to make your CR report BUZZ

So you wrote a CR report! Big deal! What next? Make it BUZZ.
The thing about writing CSR reports is that they take a helluvalotta energy. The reporting process takes months, involves many internal and external stakeholders, and creates a reporting frenzy in the organization which bypasses none but the most unengaged employees. In theory, that is. Sometimes reporting is an intensive process for a just small group of individuals in the organization. Whatever the format, it's intense. There's a build-up. A deadline. Many hurdles to defuse. (is that as mixed metaphore?) Then. It happens. You send the report to print (or upload it to your fancy new html flash mini-site for viewing by the general public) and that's it. B-I-G sigh of relief. Mop your brow. Stare into space and feel the release. Off to the bar for a celebratory drink. Sit back and wait for the compliments to start flowing in.
I suspect this is how it happens in most organizations. The report is a certain end in itself, an achievement to be recognized, a tangible result of months of effort, challenge and hard, hard work. Once it's done, a nicely deserved pat-on-the-back can be justified.
Or not.
Because the report is just a milestone . It's not an end in itself and should not enjoy splendid isolation from csr processes in the business, or from the reporting continuum. For the day you finish work on one report, is the day you start work on the next. So what do you do when you have published your report? Here are 27 things (disclosure: I didn’t count them. But as list journalism is so popular, 27 seemed like a good number – actually I wish it was my age):

Public Relations: This should start before your report is published. Prior to the report publication date, certain facts, figures and stories that are worthy of highlight can be discerned. You could plan a PR build-up to a report publication using focused teasers, so that your PR mileage starts early, publish a headline referring to some worthy achievement soon-to-be revealed in the CSR report, or respond to a current issue in the press by referring to your upcoming report. Once your report is published, you could:

• Hold a press conference
• Issue a press release to ReportAlert.info
• Get your report hosted on CorporateRegister.com
• Tweet it, Retweet it, Retweet Retweets, #FollowFriday it, #EcoMonday it, #SustainabilitySaturday it, Twitpic the cover, you get it. right ?
• Announce it on Justmeans.com, DevelopmentCrossing , CSRwire, LinkedIn, Facebook and anywhere else
• Get it added to the GRI Reports list (if it's a GRI report)
• Use the GRI's new report announcement service (if it's a GRI report)
• Send posts to all the available social media
• Make a short video about the report and post it to YouTube
• Put up a slideshare presentation
• Blog about your report
• Tell your friends and family
• Add a thumbnail of your report cover to all Company business cards

Engage Internal stakeholders: As soon as the report is published (and ideally some time prior to publication) you need to brief your employees. They need to know (a) the report exists and (b) details of the content, so that they can be effective reporting champions in their interface with all external stakeholders including customer and suppliers. There are many ways to do this:

• post a CEO letter on the corporate intranet
• hold communications meetings to present and discuss the report
• send an Executive Summary to all employees
• supply a Q&A brief for assistance in how to respond to feedback received
• share a video presentation for employees by the reporting team to be screened on company plasmas
• hold a report quiz in your intranet and offer a prize for winners.

Whatever the form of internal communication, a key advantage can be gained by seeking employee feedback and generating dialogue, rather than just creating awareness. Seek responses, insights, suggestions for improvement, address issues that arise, and log all interactions for your next report. Make sure your employees know what you expect of them in promoting the report.

Oh, and don't forget to THANK the employees who contributed to the report. Hold a report party. Order in a few tons of Chunky Monkey. A beer or two. Say thank you.

Engage External stakeholders: As with employees, the more external stakeholders you engage after your report is published, the more trust you will create, the more useful insights you will receive. Group your external stakeholders into meaningful categories (perhaps the ones you engaged in your materiality assessment, if you did this) and select the best way to approach them – personal letters, surveys, on-line polls, panel meetings, one-on-one discussions, initiated discussions on social media sites. Several reporters issue a hard copy to wide groups of stakeholders (sorry environmentalists!) and include a feedback questionnaire. Encourage responses, offer an incentive to provide feedback, a small prize, a daily supply of Chunky Monkey until the next report, for example. Engage your business partners in promoting the report – especially those, such as customers or suppliers, who you may have profiled in the report. They can also be ambassadors for your reporting efforts which support their own PR efforts.

Whatever the form of external activity, a key advantage can be gained by seeking feedback and generating dialogue, rather than just creating awareness. Seek responses, insights, suggestions for improvement, address issues that arise, and log all interactions for your next report. (You may have noticed I repeated that paragraph. Intentionally. Why? I thought it was important and you might have skipped it…. haha ..you cant fool ME!)

On-line presentation: Your online report presentation is critical to creating awareness and generating engagement. One Company who specializes in getting your report effectively on-lined is Nexxar.com. See their recent analysis of on-line visibility, accessibility and interactivity of CR reports. This of course has to be planned and established in advance, but the benefits are gained after the report is published. Make sure you have someone in your team responsible for gathering, collating and analyzing the stats and relevant input from this process. Some reporters include an on-line survey on their HTML site, some have a forum for responses.

Conferences and seminars: Take the opportunity to present your report at the many many international and local conference, workshop and venues where people talk and learn about CR. Talk about the challenges in the reporting process, not just about the report itself. If you are Cadbury, and you give out slabs of Dairy Milk together with your report, you are sure to get strong interest. (it worked with me!)

Reporting awards:

• Enter the CRRA Awards if you are anywhere in the world (it helps to be SOMEwhere).
• Enter the CERES awards if you are in the US, Mexico or Canada.
• Enter the ACCA Awards in the UK and many different countries around the world
• Even if you don’t win, your report gains exposure.

Ensure your report creates positive impact
Finally, if you really want your report to be a BIG HIT and create true positive impact, you need to do something really creative and engaging. Here are some off-the-wall ideas:

• Ask Madonna to do a benefit concert called Like a Virgin - our CR Report
• Give a lottery ticket to each person who sends feedback and see who becomes a millionaire
• Get Disney to produce a movie entitled : Mickey Mouse and the CR report
• Ask Coca Cola to do a special edition CR Report Coke just for your company
• Photoshop Barack Obama engrossed in page 48 of your report and publish to Flickr
• Ask Ophrah Winfrey to do a prime-time show called: My husband betrayed me because of a CR report
• Ask Al Gore to do a CR report roadshow for you called The Convenient Truth
• Have Twitter put up your CR report banner on that page which comes up 24 times a day "there are too many tweets, please try again soon"
• Wrap your corporate Christmas gifts to clients in pages of your report
• Create a CR report meditation room in your head office, and have the Dalai Lama come meditate
• Have McDonalds create a CR Report Happy Meal
• Create an iphone app for your report which places calls to stakeholders reminding them to read it
• Hide a bunch of CR reports in non-obvious places and run a viral cause-marketing campaign promising a modest contribution to Oxfam for each one found
• And you guessed it… Have B&J produce a special edition CR Report Chunky Monkey flavor with extra chunks and fewer monkeys.
  

And now that you know, I hope to see lots of CR reports BUZZING from here on in….

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

8 reasons non-profits should write sustainability reports

BSR – Business for Social Responsibility – a leading light in the field of professional non-profits (they might prefer to be called an NGO) produced their second public report earlier this year, which you can download here. I won't take up your valuable time by analyzing this report, excellent though it is. I will however express my respect for an NGO who adopts a policy of public disclosure and reporting.
Far too often in the non-profit world we see a reluctance to adopt professional practices of social and environmental responsibility and transparency. NGO's, who are often so critical of business, and who campaign businesses to improve their impacts, often feel that this doesn't apply to them. "We are promoting a social cause, why should we be transparent?" is the cry.""How better than this can you get? is the implication. I fail to see the logic here, of course. All organizations, for profit, not-for-profit, for a better world or for a better environment, for better or for worse (or for chunky monkey) should behave sustainably. One could argue that non-profits should be even greater models of transparency than we might expect of business. In the case of an organization whose mission is to promote sustainable business practices, such as BSR, this an absolute necessity. Similarly, one cannot fault the Global Reporting Initiative for not behaving with integrity. Their Sustainability Report for 2007/2008 is proudly presented and follows GRI methodology to the letter. The Global Compact produces an annual report which can be found here for 2008.
Why is it important for non-profits to report? Is this not a duty (and a privilege?) reserved for corporations? Corporations report because they have a responsibility to account for their impacts on stakeholders, and in doing so hope to enhance trust, relationships, engagement and improve business processes to yield greater overall sustainable impact. Are these objectives equally valid for non-profits ? Of course. So why is reporting branded corporations only?

I looked for non-profits who produce a sustainability report (i excluded academic institutions, professional assosiations and governmental bodies from this analysis in order to focus on social and environmental cause-based non-profits only).

The UK based World Wildlife Fund published its latest an Annual Review in 2008. This is a great overview of their emvironmental impacts covering issues such as Earth Hour, climate change, sustainable investment and the way we all live as earth people. But it says nothing about internal procedures such as governance, budget allocations, people management, people diversity, community involvement, purchasing policy. Governance is covered on the website, in headline terms, and their 2008 annual financial report covers management , strategy, performance against targets and financial statements. All in all, a pretty good disclosure. There are gaps, mainly relating to their internal policies and decision making processes, support for human rights, human resources management and policies etc, and the fact that you have to read two reports to understand the totality of the organization's non-financial impacts is a minor inconvenience.
Oxfam International , another UK based non-profit which brings together 13 country Oxfam organizations, has its 2007 Annual Report available on their website ,an accountability section with some further detail and a 125 page report assessing Oxfam's social impacts. But all this falls far short of a sustainability report. Very little on governance, ethics assimilation, the way they employ people or the way they impact on the environment. I couldnt find a number of how many people are employed by this organization. And what about their purchasing budget ? Any ethical purchasing? How do they manage suppliers ?
Thumbs up for Save the Children, also a UK registered charity, you can read their Annual Report for 2007/8 - this comes very close to sustainability reporting with a strong section relating to internal governance and processes, people management, equal opportunity employment, disclosures related to ethical investing, risk management and more. They also have a Global Children's Panel, a kind of stakeholder dialogue process made up of a panel of 14 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 from 9 countries. 46% of the leadership team are women (go girls!). A great report !!

Enough with the UK, I say to myself , let's look at the USA , I answer myself. Fast forward to Feeding America. Nothing more than financial statements on this website. Yet this is a massive organisation which oversees an enormous network of foodbanks, logistics, trucks, people and more. Environmental impacts here are significant. And also environmental benefits with the amounts of food waste they avoid or reclaim . Another neat non-profit came accoss my radar in the form of StrongWomen , Strong Girls. Surely a feminist organization would be more transparent, right ? Wrong. Nothing, not even financial reports.Come on, girls, lets show 'em how its done. Global Giving is a great organization improving our society. We are treated to detalied biographies of the 22-strong executive team, and an annual report for 2007, which covers the projects GlobalGIving supports, but no additional details. How many staff are employed at this non-profit? How do they manage their carbon footprint ? How do they select, hire and fire people ?

So far, i find my search for reporting non-profits to be rather disappointing. Then i had a brainwave. I waved back. I zoomed off to the GRI reporting website and downloaded their Reports List. Of the 454 GRI reports listed as published in 2009, 9 are non-profit (one of these is the GRI itself, mentioned above.). 2 % of the total . I had a look at one of them: The Ruah 2008 Community Services Accountability and Sustainability Report. , whose mission is to
"To redress disadvantage and enhance the human spirit. Based in Australia, Ruch provides community mental health services, housing and homelessness services, and works with issues of domestic violence, addiction, employment, and family support." What a delightful report!!! It is a self-declared C level report and meets the requirements for the UNGC Communication on Progress. They have 160 staff, use Bokashi bins for composting waste in their office locations, they have assessed their human rights compliance and developed an improvement plan, they spent 1.4% of salary budget on training, and employees receive annual performance reviews. This is an organization which is focused on their overall impact and not just the social mission which is their core "business".

The GRI has produced a NGO sector supplement, now in final draft form for public comment. The rational for NGO sustainability reports is stated as : " The public benefit nature of the NGO sector creates an additional responsibility to demonstrate that operations are consistent with the values represented." One additional indicator for NGO's for example is the issue of ethical fundraising policies and practice.

Anyway, to sum up what has become a rather long post (NB: Now is the time for ChunkyMonkey, helps keep you focused) the 8 reasons for non-profits to engage in sustainability reporting are similar to for-profit organizations:

1. build trust with stakeholders and manage reputation proactively
2. create a tool for structuring the process of stakeholder dialogue and engagement, and defining materiality
3. understand, manage and improve their economic, social and environmental impacts as an organization (in addition to the effectiveness of their social/environmental programs which is their "core" mission and which they currently addressss to some degree)
4. drive internal employee engagement
5. support recruitment of employees and volunteers
6. operate transparently - they have a responsibility to do so
7. gain competitive advantage in the fundraising war
8. ensure their own sustainability through robust internal governance, ethics and risk management practices

All these are relevant whether the operational profits are directed to the pockets of investors, or back into the community for the benefit of all. But this sector is largely unaware and unengaged in the true meaning of sustainability and the need for transparency beyond compliance and marketing.
This is why we decided, as CSR consultants with a mission to drive awareness and transparency, to offer one non-profit in Israel a FREEBIE sustainability report which we hope will start a REVOLUTION in this sector. (you can't fault us on optimism!).

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

How to READ a CSR report

I regularly review CSR reports for CorporateRegister.com. The review format is compact, ie not very long and detailed, and focuses on Content (what they disclose), Communication (how they disclose) and Credibility (can you believe it). It takes around 3 hours to read, understand, analyse and review a report. Even the lightest weight reports. So far, I have completed around 37 reviews, across all types of Company and in most sectors. After a while, you begin to get the hang of what to look for in a report. So, for the 1,212,507 people who read reports, I would like to offer some guidance as to how to make your reading experience enjoyable and worthwhile (ok, just a touch of sarcasm there). And for the very few people who do not read reports, this may help you get started J . At this point, regular readers will expect me to say: "First, equip yourself with a Chunky Monkey and a really interesting report." Ha! Ok. We'll assume you did that already. I find CSR reports fascinating – and I strongly believe in their importance and relevance in driving the transparency of businesses around the globe. So let's get dug in. Here are some introductory insights to report reading:

Start with an open mind
It is so easy to have bad vibes about report from a Company you have bad vibes about. You know they are not really into CSR and you expect to find a whole load of irrelevance in the report. You're mind is made up, and you look to prove your point as you read the report. Well, don't. Remember that CSR is evolving in every corporation and that each Company is facing different challenges and progressing at its own pace. We can learn from each Company. Whatever the motivation or the quality, any report so better than none. Go with an open mind, evaluate on the basis of what your read, by all means do a little cross-checking , but take the report on its merits. Try to understand the context in which the report was written. BAT, for example. Many would claim that a Company who makes cigarettes cannot be responsible. So when their CSR report lands in your lap, your automatic reaction is WTF?!?! i.e. a teeny weeny bit negative. @MBernhart (Michelle Bernhart of True Blue Communications) reviewed BAT's latest report which tackles the question head on of whether a tobacco company can be sustainable. They may not be your model of sustainability, but they operate a legal business and report on some measure of positive impact.

People write reports, not companies
Remember that the Company name may be on the cover, but it is people, real people who are doing their best to do a good job, who are charged with writing and producing the report. These people are doing the best they can with what they have. Sometimes, they are people who work for a totally great company with lots to report and a disposition for transparency. This makes life for the reporters much easier. Sometimes the hardest thing about writing a report is managing the internal politics. Just how much to disclose and more importantly, what NOT to disclose. Whether to tell the whole truth or just a little less than the whole truth. What to do with colleagues who do not provide data. How to present bad data in a good light and more. CSR reporters are always torn between reflecting the Company's position in a fair and balanced way, adhering to management demands and working conscientiously within reporting frameworks. By remembering that people write reports, you will be more balanced in your criticism, if you have criticism. An example is the 2008 report from Seiko. Sorry, but it's everything a CSR report should not be. But somewhere in Seiko there is a CSR person trying to do his or her best with the limited scope the Company allows. In reading this report, we should try to understand some of the limitations of a Company CSR reporter who has a desire to present good corporate citizenship but has not been able to make the sort of progress that supports good reporting. We should try to understand the complexities for a reporter, suspend negative judgement for a while, see what works, and try to encourage a better effort next time around.

Read the opening remarks by the Big Chief
The opening remarks by the Chairman, CEO or President, or all three, are quite telling. Often regarded as mumbo-jumbo empty phrases to skip over, they actually set the tone for the report, and give you a heads-up on what you may or may not find, Often there is no substance to these remarks (" this is our CSR report for the year 2008, it describes our csr activities blurb blurb we welcome your feedback blurb etc ") and this should alert you what you will find in the report. More blurb. If the opening remarks have substance, the report probably has too. Compare these two examples: Delhaize Report for 2008 – the opening remarks by the Chairman and President/CEO add nothing to the report and contain the standard blurb about how great Delhaize is and how doing CSR contributes to making them wonderful. Vodafone 2008 –here the CEO gives us a flavor of what is material to stakeholders and to Vodafone in a concise and well thought-out summary which precedes the most transparent and comprehensive reporting effort ever.

Choose how you read
After the opening remarks, there are a number of ways you can go. You can keep on reading. You can look for something specific. You can go to a section of interest. You can go for a pizza. If the Big Chief has said something meaningful, you might want to pick a thread and follow it in the report. If you have a particular issue or prejudgement about the Company, you can dive in to see what they report about that. If something is currently topical, such as climate change, you might want to go there first. This is where an index comes in very useful. A GRI index is the best. Tells you exactly where to find exactly what you are looking for. (Though beware, not all that is indexed is present). But the point is, don't try to read the report as if it were a best seller. They are not written by Alexander McCall Smith (as far as I know) and do not make for great bedtime stories. Read the report as a report in a discerning way – its purpose is to provide a lot of information to a broad range of stakeholders. By definition, not everybody will be interested in everything to the same degree. Decide what you want to read about and go there.

Seek materiality
Whilst good corporate citizenship is made up of different actions in many parts of the business, the true impacts of a corporation are the ones that address material issues, which are often related to indirect impacts. A corporation who reports on direct impacts alone has not matured to the most significant level of CSR. Gap Inc 2005-2006 report always sticks in my memory as an outstanding report that addresses indirect impacts well. The report is called "What is a company's role in society?" How more indirect than that can you get? The report contains a good materiality assessment summary.

Be copy-paste and delete aware
For all but first reports, I always check back to the prior report, sometimes several prior reports. It is hard to believe just how much copy-pasting goes on in reporting. Sometimes you can read the same paragraph year after year. Surely the point of a report is to report new stuff. Not to regurgitate. If nothing new has happened in the reporting period, leave it out. Or say why not. Often a glance at prior reports can give you a better sense of context and evolution of the company's approach, and also what they are not reporting. The Aviva CR report for 2009 neatly omitted to report on social-benefit insurance products offerings that were proudly announced in the previous report. Clearly Aviva had not been able to meet the challenges of changing consumer perceptions and behaviours. Look at promises made in previous reports and how they are addressed in the current report. You sometimes need to assess the report credibility based on what was copy-pasted or deleted from prior reports.

Look for consistency (and inconsistency) in data
If Companies have been reporting for years, they should present data in charts showing at least 3 prior years. This provides context and understanding of the measure of performance over time. Where contextual data is lacking, there is always a reason. A closer look often leads you to the answers. Marks and Spencer, in their last Plan A report, which I reviewed here, made no mention of high numbers redundancies despite this being plastered all over the UK press. 1,000 people- that's a lot of livelihoods and was glossed over in the CR report. Compare data, look for inconsistencies in carbon footprint calculations, see how companies spend pages talking about energy consumption reduction and carbon reduction per product, per person or per location when overall they have increased, not reduced their footprint. Look for big declarations (we support equal opportunity) and results ( 5% women in management). Look for the data that isn't reported. And think about why.

Give feedback, ask questions, make comments, get engaged
There is nothing worst for a CSR reporter than no reaction. All reporters want feedback on their report, even if it's negative. I regularly make contact with the reporting companies whose reports I review, if something is not clear to me, and I regularly provide feedback directly to Companies. In almost all cases, I get a positive and comprehensive response from someone who is committed to the process. The best recent example is W.M. Morrison, the UK Supermarket chain. After writing about issues related to product packaging, I received a long response with explanations from the Company. Similarly Aviva, mentioned above, responded to me frankly and constructively about issues I raised in their report. I could cite numerous more examples. So all of you who sit there beefing about how CSR reports are bad, worthless and even misleading – I urge you to do something about it and WRITE to the reporting companies. Ask, tell, demand .. and listen to the response.

Give some leeway to first-timers
The first CSR report is a real challenge. It is often written at a stage where the Company has started on the journey of CSR, but is still developing its approach. Not all data may be available. The mammoth exercise of aligning the Company in a way which fits into a reporting process is not to be underestimated. The first report requires the Company to address issues that have probably never before been discussed. Cut these companies some slack. Understand that the only way to gain reporting experience is to report. The best two examples for first timers I came across in the last year are Jumeirah Hotel Group in Dubai and Central Textiles of Hong Kong.

If you have read to the end of this post, congratulations! You are now qualified as an Advanced CSR Report Reader. Go read some reports! And don't forget that Chunky Monkey makes even the awfullest of reports more palatable.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

33 Applications of a CSR report

They say the best way to beat your adversaries is to get to know them. CSR reports have many adversaries. In an attempt to get to know them, and understand how to better position the valuable process of CSR reporting, here is a list of useful applications of CSR reports which I imagine reporting adversaries could have generated. Of course, you all know that I am a strong advocate of CSR reports, and this list absolutely does not represent my personal views. Absolutely not. No way. Not. No. Anyway, here is their list:

1. Build trust with stakeholders (just in case there is a remote possibility that they don't trust you)
2. Increase trust with stakeholders (you built it with your first report)
3. Demonstrate to shareholders that you are doing good things with their money (you know what's best for them)
4. Use as basis for recommendation a bonus for the CSR Manager (you are the CSR manager)
5. Expand CSR reports numbers so that we can be confident that climate will change
6. Use as an audition piece for Shakespeare plays (if they can make a CSR report sound exciting, Shakespeare is a doddle)
7. Indirectly generate business for the carbon offset industry through reporting carbon neutral operations
8. Give journalists something else not to write about
9. Give analysts something else not to analyse
10. Give marcom hotshots something else not to marcom about
11. Give CSR critics a raison d'etre (the French ones)
12. Teach Human Resources that there is more to the business than office parties
13. Provide justification for sitting around while you eat (more) Chunky Monkey
14. Provide case studies for MBA programs (how to present every aspect in the business in the best possible light)
15. Support greenwash (everyone else bashes it , and as Loretta Lyn said: if you can't be first, or best, be different )
16. Donate spare reports for origami classes (works best in Tokyo)
17. Offer as material for translation practice in language schools (basic level, you only need around 76 core phrases)
18. Use as an entry point into social media (Tweet: we produced a CSR report RT : they produced a CSR report)
19. Use to ensnare willing young graduates who don't know what working at your company is really like
20. Bundle them all together and put them in your backpack for cross country running training (if you get tired, you can always dump them – far away so no one will know)
21. Provide occupation for your local community (consultants, assurers, stakeholder panel participants) (strong community, strong business, right?)
22. Ensure everyone has lots of reports to fill their bookshelves (full shelves gather less dust)
23. Provide material for investor roadshows (so they won't notice the size of the executive bonuses)
24. Provide material for girl scouts camps bonfires (nothing burns like a good report, except a bad report)
25. Help your CEO defend accusations of exploitation in your supply chain (report that you audit all your outsourcing factories, it works every time)
26. Support human rights (come on, you HAVE heard that humans have rights…)
27. Justify the existence of the GRI (conferences alone don't cut it)
28. Demonstrate that your organization is highly creative (distribute your report with an eco-self-destructing mechanism)
29. Provide material for reporting blogs
30. Provide material for reporting blogs
31. Provide material for reporting blogs
32. Provide material for reporting blogs (ok, carried away again)
33. Provide material for my next post: a tutorial on HOW to READ CSR reports

because writing them is one thing, producing them is another, but reading them, well, that's like eating Chunky Monkey with chopsticks – you can pick out the chunks quite easily, but you have to work really hard to get to the true flavor.

And now we know many of the adversarial arguments relating to CSR reports, I feel much more confident that we will be able to counter these with calm, cool, clear rational justifcation for this important CSR process and communications tool. Convinced ?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

CSR reports. Read or recycle ?

A short while ago, @Timberland_Jeff tweeted: "Does anyone really read Corp CSR reports? Steelcase's 2009 report is very impressive: http://bit.ly/NRQne "

Let's leave Steelcase out of this post for the time being and focus on the question: does anyone read CSR reports?

Oy! How many times have we all heard this question?
And how many times have we all heard the auto-pilot response: (altogether now>>.) no-one.
This is usually followed by a tirade of how irrelevant reports are, not worth the paper they are written on, how they do not fulfil their purpose, and how they are greenwash, whitewash, blackwash and hogwash, end up in the recycle bin (well, at least they are contributing to improve recycling targets).

Now why does this frustrate me so?

• Because I am a naturally frustrated person ? (oops, let's not go there …)
• Because I make a living (kinda) from writing reports ?
• Because my hobby is reviewing reports for CorporateRegister ?
• Because I am passionate about reporting (it takes all kinds, right ?)
• Does it have something to do with Chunky Monkey? (haha! you saw that coming)
• Or does it have something to do with the fact that I empirically, emphatically, especially, eternally, everlastingly, enthusiastically everso-everso believe that this (a) is untrue and (b) the wrong question. (sorry if I have understated this a little).
  

Who reads CSR reports?
(Clarification: Read includes reading part of the report not necessarily cover to cover – we aren't talking about Kathy Reichs, remember)

• The people who write them – in 2008, according to Corporate Register stats page, 3,336 reports were published worldwide in 2008. This follows a year on year double digit increase almost every single year since 1992. If we assume that for each report, there are at least 50 people in the Company who participate in the reporting process and read the report prior to publication, then in 2008, around 170,000 people read reports
• The people who assure them – in 2008, same stats source, around 28% of published reports were assured – and assuming only around 5 people on the assurance team for each report, another 5,000 people read reports
• The report checker at the Global Reporting Initiative who checks the 40% or so of reports which are GRI based – lets count this as 1,500 reads.
• The people who evaluate reports – there are many different services and raters of CSR reports. This includes The Roberts Environmental Center, excellent work done by Radley Yeldar here and here, the CSR report analysis by Sustainability Services in South Africa, sites such as Zumer.com and my fellow report reviewers at CorporateRegister.com … lets assume that there are at least 5,000 people involved in this work in one form or another around the world in any given year
• The people who vote for reports in the several reporting competitions, the most significant being the CRRA Awards which are included in the 26,000 registered report readers of CorporateRegister.com
• The people who tweet and retweet about reports …. I see a quite a few each week … let's assume they and their followers amount to 100 per week = 5,000 or so per year
• The stakeholders – this is an unknown quantity of course, but we can safely assume that there is a certain percentage of directors, managers, employees, customers, suppliers, community partners, social and environmental activists, journalists, analysts, investors, students, csr consultants, family members of employees, mom's of the report writers etc read at least some of the content. I will assume a conservative 300 people per report – that makes an additional 1 million or so readers in 2008. In my experience, at least this number of people read reports, based on reports I have been involved in writing or assuring.
• Me and my team – well, that's another half a dozen or so, depending on the month.
• My husband – he reads everything I write. He has no choice. He wants dinner.
• Me.
  
  So all in all, I conservatively estimate that, in 2008, 1,212,507 people read CSR reports. Is this a high number? Or is it a drop in the ocean. Consider it this way, 1.2+ million consumers, employees, activists, investors, analysts, journalists, managers, CSR professionals and members of the general public had an opportunity to gain new CSR insights. And maybe something good came out of some of those insights.

Therefore to say no-one reads CSR reports is W-R-O-N-G.
Or to put it another way. G-R-W-O-N.

Now here is the right question.

Even if we assumed that no-one reads CSR report, do they have value?
ONE: In order to write a report, even the most miserable of reports, with very little in the way of transparent, clear and progressive content, the organization needs to ask itself questions. In doing so, people need to get engaged with the context of corporate social responsibility and start thinking about organizational performance in a different way. These conversations and new thoughts lead to new possibilities for CSR actions by the business. They create a CSR momentum which builds up in the organization. The process of creating the report drives changes in strategy and performance. CSR reporting is a catalyst. This really really really does happen, from my personal experience, with every single Company I have worked with on CSR reporting. So whether or not people read the finished product, most of the benefit is gained by producing it.
TWO: The report forces a structure around csr performance review which does not take place in any other way in standard business, financial or organizational reporting frameworks. The report ensures a core body of data about the Company which supports target setting and tracking of data year on year. Often, the fact that the report requires some form of future promise is enough to drive the organization to commit to improvement targets. The fact that csr targets are stated in the report is a commitment for all external stakeholders to hook up to, and which the organization feels obliged, once having publicly declared its intention, to uphold.
THREE: The report is a management tool for monitoring and evaluating performance in a consistent way. It forces data flow processes in the organization. Some reports even include the names of managers responsible for actioning certain projects as a way of reinforcing engagement and commitment by those Managers.
THREE and a HALF: You will note I don't list all the other reasons reports have value – transparency as a goal in itself, reputation building, employee engagement, encouraging trust with stakeholders, setting standards for other companies etc. All these are valid. But there is little data to prove their efficacy.

A word about other ways of disclosing csr information – a report is one tool in a corporation's total spectrum of csr communications and should not be the only one – there are many fine examples of corporate transparency via websites, stakeholder dialogue calls a la Timberland, meetings, investor briefings, participation in csr conferences, interviews in newspapers, journals, magazines and participation in social media such as JustMeans and Development Crossing, Facebook, Twitter and more. A report is a snapshot of performance and we should avoid seeing it as the sole mouthpiece for CSR disclosures.

To sum up, if you didn't get it, people read csr reports and csr reports have value. That's it. People read csr reports and csr reports have value. I am not paranoid. People read csr reports and csr reports have value. Not convinced? Repeat after me. People read csr reports and csr reports have value. I' m just stating facts. Grit your teeth, take a walk in the sunshine, grab a Chunky Monkey and, if you are not one of the enlightened 1,212,507, reach out for the nearest report and take a look. You might just get addicted …..

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Why go paperless when you can have crap?

Warning: This post is not for the offensive-languagely sensitive

What do wombats, kangaroos and sheep have in common?

1. they have all survived the global financial crisis (so far)
2. they all sleep standing on their heads
3. they all produce shit from which specialty paper is made
4. they all devour Chunky Monkey when given the chance

And the answer is: errrrrrrrrrr. yes. it …..is………………..(3). and (4)
Sustainability in the paper industry has now reached an all time high. Or should I say low. The most environmentally friendly version of paper to hit our Shaeffer nibs is made from the excrement of our friends in the animal kingdom. Roo Poo Paper made from Kangaroo dung is a major innovative leap (pun intended!), Wombat paper made from the droppings of this furry Australian marsupial is contributing to the health of the Australian economy, and Sheep Poo Paper is made from super-fresh sheep feces, collected with care from the rural Welsh mountainside. You can even pre-order your Reindeer Poo Paper as Christmas gifts for all your loved ones! (Darling, here is a gift to remind you of me. A piece of shit . But it comes in handy if your copmuter is broken)
So what is this fixation of paper makers with.. err … crap ? And more often than not, CSR reports are accused of containing crap rather than being printed on it. I thought I would just check what CSR reports are actually printed on, to see if this innovative crap technology has reached the most advanced of reporters.

Novo Nordisk's annual report for 2008 is printed on paper from recycled fiber, from well managed forests and controlled sources.
General Electric 2008 report is made from 100% post-consumer waste recycled FSC-certified paper. The emissions from the electricity used to manufacture this paper are offset with credits from windpower projects.
Coca Cola 2008 is printed on FSC certified recycled paper from mixed sources from well managed forests, recycled wood or fiber
ArcelorMittal's 2008 report is printed on ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free) and FSC certified pulp from well-managed forests and printed using vegetable based inks.
State Street Corporation's 2008 report is not printed or paper-type not disclosed (could it be crap?!) BAT's 2008 report is FSC certified and CarbonNeutral®. The paper used Revive 50:50 Silk, comprising 25% post-consumer and 25% pre-consumer waste, and 50% virgin wood fibre sourced from well managed forests independently certified according to the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council. And its recyclable.
Vodafone's 2008 398 page mammoth report is not printed but the very very very short 25 page summary report is printed on FSC Certified Revive 75 Silk, manufactured in the EU at mills with ISO 14001 accreditation and comprising 50% de-inked post-consumer waste, 25% pre-consumer waste and 25% virgin fibre. Printed in accordance with the ISO 14001 environmental management system using vegetable-based inks.

Well, as you can see, I scored a duck. Leading CSR reports are not (yet) printed on crap-based paper. What can we do to encourage report producers to adopt this new sustainable shit technology? Perhaps we could make a real-time video of kangaroos, wombats and sheep producing their raw material ? Perhaps we could parcel up a load of wombat nuggets (that's what they call original wombat droppings) and send them to leading csr managers with a letter on crappy paper entitled: Please print a crap report. hmmmm. Maybe some of them already got that letter….
But seriously, how do reporters select the paper for printed reports? And more importantly, I wonder if this super duper FSC-certified-post-pre-recycled-consumer-waste-carbon-offsetted-de-inked-non-virgin-wood-fibre-everything-sustainable paper that is used for reports is used for any other printed materials in their business? It seems to me that the height of csr hypocrisy would be to print the csr report on this special paper and everything else on regular un-FSC un-everything un-sustainable paper. Just a thought.

Anyway, I am now going to write tomorrow's to-do list. Let me go get a sheet of that crap-type paper. Or to put it another way, I 'm going for a cr**p.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Bahai CSR activism

Did you know the Bahai faith are CSR activists? During our short vacation last week, we visited the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahai faith. This Shrine is just a short ride away from the ancient city of Acre, and is a breathtaking pocket of peace and tranquility in the midst of bustling urban surroundings. We enjoyed the picturesque gardens and a shoe-less silent visit inside the shrine. We learnt about the religion and its 6 million followers.

The Gardens

The Shrine (oops, my kids got in the way, sorry about that!)

Bahá'ís believe the crucial need facing humanity is to find a unifying vision of the nature and purpose of life and of the future of society. The key teachings are that all humanity is one people, that men and women are equal, and that all racial, national economic or religious prejudice should be overcome, and that economic problems are linked to spiritual problems. Actually, it was the gender thing that caught my eye (go girls!) . The Bahai make equality a core tennet of their faith and act to promote the advancement of women for social and economic reasons. I noticed that the Bahai, through their non-profit organization, are very active in advancing a range of social and environmental causes. And then I saw the Bahai European Business Forum whose mission, under the banner of "people inspiring responsible business", is To promote ethical values, personal virtues, and moral leadership in business as well as in organizations of social change. Sounds like CSR to me! Here is a publication on CSR by the Eurporean Bahai Business forum produced as early as 1997. And Bahai bloggers do a great job here. So I got to thinking that the Bahai ought to be producing a CSR report. And lo and behold, I find they have produced an annual report, available on line since 2001. Here is the 2008 report. Whilst it is not GRI, or designed in the familiar structured way of CR reports, it is certainly an account of the impacts of the Bahai business forum in a kind of triple bottom line sense and a transparent view of the activities of the Bahai business activists in researching, discussing, participating and partnering the responsible business initiatives, gender equality and human rights causes.

And the Bahai recipe of csr with tranquility, humanity, equality, inclusivity and ice-cream (ok, the ice-cream bit is my contribution), it seems to me that religion and business can actually have a positive impact.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

chunky #csr monkey and more!

I am positively trembling with excitement. I just noticed that Ben and Jerry's have published a preview of their 20^th SEAR report for us Chunky Monkey guzzlers and other stakeholders (to keep us busy while we consume more pints). They maintain that their Social and Environmental Assessment Report is not quite ready, and that the full Monkey will be available by mid-summer. Hmm. Today is 25^th July. Wonder which hemisphere they are referring to because in mine, at 34 deg and 65% humidity, either mid-summer is here already or my hot flushes are due to menopause. A quick look at the preview tells us that the B&J team held a first ever Social Mission Summit in 2008 and agreed on three goals:

1. Use our Company to further the cause of Peace and Justice
   
2. Harmonize Our Global Supply Chain and Ensure its Alignment with Our Values
   
3. Take the Lead Promoting Global Sustainable Dairy Practices
   

What's new? I hear you ask (always did have ears like an African elephant). Well, new Fair Trade Chocolate Macademia flavor for a start. Wow. Sounds positively ultimate. Will it beat Chunky Monkey in the B&J league? But B&J are not the only ice-creamers to go for FT ice cream – M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury and more all do it, and there is even a novel kind of Fair Trade in ice cream in the UK – a pint of ice cream in return for a pint of blood. That's a great incentive.. wonder if they limit the number of pints you can trade in a day? (I would just hook myself up to the machine and have both directions working simultaneously– blood out, ice cream in) Additional entries in the B&J soon-to-be-born SEAR report will include certified humane cage-free eggs, greener cleaner freezers based on non HFC technology, support for sustainable dairy farming and a campaign against cloned animals. But hey, why sit around and wait for the B&J report. I had a look for other Ice-cream reporters.

This is what I came up with:

Velvet Ice Creams – they don't report but they do support the fight against breast cancer

Mackies Ice Cream – they don't report either, but 70 people and 500 cows do what they can to save the planet

Cotswold Ice Cream - another non reporter but sure looks tasty! Fair trade ice cream from kindly Friesian cows

Haagen–Dazs – runs a program to save honey bees - buy a carton, do the bee disco-dance, save a bee. Bzzzzzzzzz. But Hagen Dazs is now owned by General Mills , and their CR report for 2009 includes a mention of the Haagen-Dasz plant which uses wastewater derived methane to power the plant. Hope that doesn't put you off your most sweetly romantic and richly satisfying Dulche de Leche flavored moment of indulgence.

Baskin Robbins – have community plastered all over their "about" page and clearly delight in Educational Outreach Programs and ice-cream social fundraisers for a range of good causes. No CR report tho.

Unilever (who own Ben and Jerry's) and Nestle are leading ice cream makers and they are regular reporters, and even socially conscious Starbucks is into the ice cream business with a range of coffee-flavored offerings.

No doubt there are more, but all the above just goes to prove what a socially oriented business ice cream seems to be. So the next time I devour my Chunky Monkey(s), I will take great comfort in the fact that I am doing the world so much good.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Can you speak CSR report?

Inspired by post on Twitter : RT @MBernhart via @BSDConsultingCL funny consultant-speak : http://tinyurl.com/knwrzy

The author of the tweeted article highlights jargon such as "sandboxing" ideas, "iterations", "bus theory" for what happens if you get hit by a bus, and "socializing" ideas as a term for discussing them with clients. I have now gleefully added all these to my repertoire (I mean, when in consultantland… right ?)
I decided to see who speaks CSR report.

• Creating value: This means making profit. Making profit means someone bought your product. In this way you created value for them.
• Eco-friendly workplace: All the windows are locked so as to conserve air-conditioning efficiency
• A challenging period: The most significant financial crisis since the Wall Street crash
• Sustainable product responsibility is a complex task: No data reported
• We maintain dialog with a wide range of stakeholders: We conduct employee and customer surveys once a year
• We are committed to a diverse workforce: Some of our managers are women
• We are committed to employing more women in senior positions: Very few, if any, of our senior managers are women
• All our operations are carbon neutral: We have purchased loads and loads of carbon offsets
• We work closely with our suppliers to help them manage their own impacts: We ask them if they obey the law or pollute the environment (but we do not necessarily listen to the answer)
• Investing in communities is an integral part of our strategy: We donate money to charitable causes to inflate end-year budgets
• We are committed to managing our business transparently: This applies to information already in the public domain
• As part of our efforts to save the planet, this report is only available on- line: We ran out of budget for printing

and let's not forget the all time classic: our employees are our most important asset …. (I won't even comment on that one!)

There are many platitudes and standard report jargon in sustainability reporting. Sometimes it's frustrating and erodes trust. Sometimes it's hard to avoid as it represents a genuine management approach which is difficult to express any other way. Reporters must take care to ensure that the jargon serves to reinforce substantiated advancement in an aspect of csr practice, and is followed thru with performance data and relevant examples.

Now that I have iterated all of that, and socialized this idea with you all, I would just like to offer a quick method for creating standard report-speak (cannot recall where I got this from years ago)

0	balanced	Management	contingency
1	total	Organization	Hardware (or software)
2	integrated	reciprocal	projection
3	compatible .	monitored	time-frame
4	synchronized... .	digital	concept
5	optimal	modular	programming
6	responsive .	transitional	mobility
7	functional	Incremental	capability
8	parallel	third-generation	flexibility
9	systemized	policy	options

Just select any three-digit number; then use the corresponding words from the above grid, e.g: no. 664 and 506 : We adopt a responsive transitional concept with optimal management mobility for embedding gender mainstreaming in our business
This will guarantee that your report will be so full of meaningless phrases words that stakeholders will believe everything you write. A little like talking consultant, right?

(Regular consumption of Chunky Monkey is a helpful antidote to uncontrolled use of jargon. Not gonna sandbox that!)

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

First class travel for CSR reports

CSR is reflected not only in the multimillion $$$ investments in climate change, employee work-life balance programs, cause marketing creativity, community empowerment and all the other wonderful things I take note of in the masses of CSR reports i read and review. CSR is also reflected in the little things that happen in the business. It's the measure of thought which goes into every action that employees take.

CSR evangelists might call this embeddedness .
CEO's might call it alignment.
Human Resources Managers might call it culture.
In this particular case, I call it common sense.

I am referring to first class travel conditions for a CSR report. Below are photos of the packaging used to transport one CSR summary report of 22 pages to my office from a European location.

Enough said?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Lower carbon intensity – yeah, right

I am no environmental expert, but I shudder every time I read CR reports by businesses that they are bending over backwards to reduce carbon emissions and extolling the praises of every single carbon-emission-reducing project, and in the next breath we read that their absolute carbon emissions have increased. Am I just naïve or is there something wrong with this system? Do all these businesses who are growing and increasing their carbon footprint year on year think they are positively contributing to climate change just because their emission levels per store, per truck, per refrigerator, per hamburger, per trip, per cup of coffee, per banana, per printed CR report or per pair of underpants is less than it was a year ago ? I mean, who do they think I am? Dumbo? (ok, they're not sooo far off). Who are we kidding here?

Take a quick look at Tesco in the UK. 2009 CR report. This sentence: Over the past year our net sales area grew by 16.4% while our carbon footprint increased by 3.7%. This means we cut our carbon intensity by 10.9% year-on-year. I did a little research. In the last two years their sales area has grew by 16.2% % and carbon emissions increased by 14.7% . This is almost no carbon intensity reduction. Who cares about carbon intensity anyway? We should care about absolute emission levels.

OK, so who else?

IKEA provide a comprehensive breakdown of total carbon emissions in their latest CR report for 2008 and show that carbon emissions have INCREASED YEAR ON YEAR EVERY YEAR for the past 4 years. But here is how IKEA present this: "The total amount of carbon dioxide emissions directly related to IKEA operations increased in FY08. However, in relative terms, the development is positive. When one examines carbon dioxide emissions per total products sold, we see an overall positive improvement compared to FY05. " Positive ? Is "relative" going to save the planet?

One more:

DANSKE BANK. Carbon emissions increased from 54.1 to 65.2 ktons 2008 vs 2007.An increase of 20% and from 2.9 to 3.5 tonnes per FTE. In a section entitled "Continuing to improve our impact" and full of green jargon such as "towards a low-carbon future" , "carbon neutrality" and "1 tonne less" campaign" , the actual results of all these words and efforts is exactly opposite.

CR reports are very valuable for assessing carbon management performance. I applaud all the above and thousands others who report, and who are making efforts to support climate change. But the focus has to shift from words to clear decisive actions which result in absolute lower carbon emission levels. Sadly, we are still caught up in the intensity of it all and cowering behind the relativity of ghg statements. Maybe we should be relatively more intense and focus on relatively more results?

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Localization - the Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing in reporting is Localization.

Led by the global giants of #CSR (# signifies i have become a twitterer, and am now compelled to #tag #everything as i #write) , the concept that producing one annual, all-embracing, total coverage, general, global CSR report by MNE's (Multinational Enterprises) is inadequate to reach the hearts and minds of local stakeholders, is gaining momentum. Spurred on by the desire to reach out to those closest to the local hubs of activity, the Localization Leaders are illunimating the way for other MNE's to follow. Who are the Localization Leaders?

Intel: Intel now produce a variety of local reports to serve local stakeholders. You can even read how Suzanne Fallender describes Intel's approach "Many people continue to criticize CSR reports for being too long, detailed and boring for most stakeholders to read. When you combine that sentiment with the challenges of explaining your corporate responsibility performance in multiple languages and cultures and your impact at the local level, it is clear that one size does not fit all."
Take a trip to Israel, Russia, Ireland, Europe or Middle East Region.

Vodafone: You just cant top Vodafone. Check out their download page - 13 superb looking local CR reports in addition to the global report. From Portugal to Italy, and Malta to New Zealand, Volafone are master localizers.

Telefonica SA are excellent localizers too. They published 17 CR reports in 2008. A wide range of Latin American Telefonica subsidiaries published only in Spanish, but i guess thats ok, verdad?

General Electric are partial localizers. They translate their global report into several languages. If they used their (eco)imagination a little more, they might realize that adding a little local content would make for a more relevant report.

Motorola Inc is a local localizer. They publish an excellent report in Israel (disclosure: I assured it!) but I believe this is their only localization effort.

Then there are several pseudo localizers - those who add it little tidbits of local color into their global report. There are many companies who do this. This just gives us fragmented impressions of local impacts, and usually only the nice, bright colors.
So what about all the rest ? I can hear the big sigh of relief when a global report is published - phew! that's that for another year! - but surely the core aim of reporting is to engage stakeholders? And to do this by telling them stories about the work life balance of employees in another hemisphere is not all that engaging. Further, how do you write a global report? Bottom up or top down? There has to be local input into a global report - so formalizing this and creating a localized disclosure requirement - however minimal - is actually good basic practise for ensuring a balanced and representative global effort.

If you are a local stakeholder of an MNE operating in your country, demand to see their local report. Chances are they aint got one yet, but just in case they do, remember the words of that wonderful woman, Maya Angelou, who said: Ask for what you want, and be prepared to get it. Or something like that. I think she was referring to Chunky Monkey. But it could also apply to CR reports.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

Report, Review, Retweet

Report Reviews: here is a selection of the recent CSR report reviews that have been penned (keyboarded ?) by yours truly and appear on CorporateRegister.com. In reverse order (last published first).

Wal-Mart 2009: Did you know that Wal-Mart saves the average American household the sum of $3,100 per year, whether they shop at Wal-Mart or not! This, and more interesting insights in the review, or if you have the energy, the report itself. Careful, though, if you are looking for anything other than good news, best go to Wal-Mart Watch !

Marks and Spencer plc 2009 : Plan A, 100 commitments, 49 pages. You all know that Plan A is the Ultimate Plan. "because there is no Plan B". Notwithstanding (dont you love that word ?) , this review suggests that Plan B could come in quite useful to address those aspects of M&S activities which fell thru the Plan A cracks. The report can be viewed here.

Jumeirah Group 2008 : A first report by this hotel and resorts group in Dubai which succeeded in producing a charming report albeit a basic self-declared GRI C level. (that's CRspeak for CRfreaks) . A key area of materiality for this company is Emiratisation, given the 162 locals employed in a total of over 10,000 personnel in Dubai. View the report here.

Barclays plc 2008 : Bit of a disappointment this time around from Barclays whose Chief Exec describes the most significant financial crisis since forever as "distracting". However, the report contains positive content though there are some reporting GAPS. What are they? You can work them out for yourself or read the review. Want the whole report ? Here.

Aviva plc 2009 : How does an insurance company incentivize consumers to behave sustainably? Tough question. Another tough question is what happened to 3,000 missing employees? Read my review or try to locate the answers yourself in full the report here.


Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) 2008: Seriously successful fashion company with 76% of women in management positions. What can be wrong with that !? But still, I say, H&M needs to come off the fence. How ? Check out the review or read the report here.

You can also check out reviews by respected colleagues :

HSBC 2008 and Motorola Inc 2008 review by Michelle of True Blue Communications
and Total S.A. by Zoe of Context.

Whew! That's a lot of reviews. And a lot of questions. So clear your desk, order in the CM's (Chunky Monkeys, but you know that by now, right?) and seek the answers.

elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm . Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en