Csr-reporting: Three Big Ambitions at Tesco. I love retail. It's fascinating - so varied, so full of so many different ways of impacting and influencing our lives. So many different priorities and so many opportunities to drive change. The retail sector is highly visible and constantly in the public eye. Not surprisingly, as most of us interact daily with the retail sector for the products we consume, ranging from food, to personal care, clothes, home appliances, furniture and almost everything else. The choices that retailers make affect millions of lives each day. The retail sector is no stranger to scrutiny and it's probably true that corporate responsibility and sustainability leaders at the large retailers have a job that is anything but boring. First, Tesco announced it is to remove sweets and chocolate from checkouts across the full range of its stores by the end of the year.
Second, Tesco released its annual corporate responsibility communication, the 2014 Tesco and Society Report. Perceptions, Millennials and CSR: How to Engage the New Leaders of Tomorrow. The Millennial generation expects corporations to contribute to society – presenting new challenges for brands looking to capture these younger Americans' affinity and business. By Sarah Cahan, Cone Communications With graduation season well underway, thousands of Millennials* are getting ready to enter the workforce, diplomas and ideals in hand. Numbering more than 80 million Americans, they are the largest cohort the U.S. has ever seen. And they are the first generation to grow up alongside corporate social responsibility (CSR) – in fact, a large majority have never known a world without cause marketing and CSR reports. Millennials are hyperaware of, and have high expectations for, corporate social responsibility efforts to make the world a better place.
CSR can help companies grab the hearts and minds of this formidable segment, which accounts for more than $1 trillion of current U.S. consumer spending. CSR Matters The “Always Connected” Generation Doubtful of Impact About the Author: How to develop successful sustainable business communications. Engaging stakeholders, internal and external, requires clever targeted messages that are relevant and interesting Communications in the corporate responsibility field can be fraught with misunderstanding. Practitioners know how important authentic, well-targeted messages and dialogue are for deepening awareness and performance. But company stakeholders are often inclined to see such messaging as little more than cynical corporate spin.
Perhaps this scepticism is deserved, given early forays into CR-related reporting and marketing. There are signs, though, that the days of cherry-picked good-news stories and diversionary images of butterflies and happy villagers are behind us. But what is successful corporate responsibility communication today – and how is it done?
We spoke to leading practitioners to learn about how good comms is changing, and what it takes to do it well. More CR, less comms Beyond the comms department Find the right message Engage consumers Reporting still right. Six Tips to Increase Readership of your CSR Report. By Jonathon Hensley CSR reports are enormous undertakings. They are months in the making, involve high-level strategic planning, and require complex logistical coordination. Companies spend valuable time and resources putting reports together. Yet broach “reporting” with many CSR executives, and their eyes float off into the distance and a fleeting smile wipes across their face.
Ask these executives, “Who’s reading your CSR Report?” Well, hardly anyone… More and more companies are producing CSR reports. I believe that with a little creativity, companies can create CSR reports that attract, engage and inspire a broad audience of stakeholders and consumers. Tip #1: Develop a CSR Mission Statement. We will never claim to be a perfect company, but we will address difficult issues and strive to be honest about our ability or inability to resolve them.
Honest Tea’s mission statement ensures that all its CSR efforts, not the least of which is its report, have clarity, direction and purpose. City of Warsaw Integrated Sustainability Report 2013 – More haste, less speed. The first report to follow the new GRI G4 guidelines is welcome, but lacks a winner’s traits Announced with great fanfare and heralded widely as the world’s “first GRI G4 report”, the City of Warsaw’s integrated sustainability report 2013 may strive to honour the spirit of the Global Reporting Guidelines, but it falls way short of best-practice G4 adherence. Issued as a 13-page, minimally formatted document, the report both over-reaches in its claims and under-delivers in its execution. The rush to assume the mantle of “first” seems to have usurped the care needed to fulfil the intent of the guidelines. This haste relegates the city’s report to more of a curiosity rather than a true model for others to follow. The report adopts a line-by-line ticking-off of GRI G4 indicators, in tremendously abbreviated fashion.
In fact, a reader perusing the cover page’s environmental, economic/financial and societal highlights would hardly need to leaf through the rest of the document. Show Me the Impact: 5 Ways to Close the Perception Gap. Consumer perceptions of corporate and individual progress toward social and environmental issues vary – revealing an opportunity for marketers. By Sarah Cahan Part of the Consumer Perspectives: Turning Insights into Action series Ever since cause marketing broke onto the scene in the early 1980s, corporations have realized and embraced the brand-building power of supporting social and environmental issues, from breast cancer research to recycling.
When companies rally behind causes, consumers respond with increased trust, loyalty and purchase likelihood. With this passion also come increasing consumer expectations for brands to become driving forces in helping solve myriad issues. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, companies donated $5 billion to charities in 2012. And the uncertainty isn’t limited to corporations. Despite a near-universal feeling of responsibility to buy with a conscience, global consumers are also unsure of their own ability to make traction toward issues. 1. 2.
Women in CSR: Shannon Schuyler, PwC. Welcome to our series of interviews with leading female CSR practitioners where we are learning about what inspires these women and how they found their way to careers in sustainability. Read the rest of the series here. TriplePundit: Briefly describe your role and responsibilities, and how many years you have been in the business. Shannon Schuyler: I am a principal and the U.S. Corporate Responsibility (CR) leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC). In this role, I oversee the actions and programs that unite the firm’s internal strategy around social and environmental responsibility, aligning each initiative to PwC’s overall business strategy in order to increase employee engagement, differentiate the brand in the marketplace and drive operational efficiencies. I have ownership of PwC’s U.S. 3p: How has the sustainability program evolved at your company? SS: CR has always been part of PwC’s culture, but in the past it was more intuitive than it was strategic.
Are socially responsible and sustainable investment analysts worth investing time in? Yes, argues Rory Sullivan One of the favourite topics of discussion among corporate responsibility managers is the irrelevance of socially responsible investment (SRI) analysts. It is almost an article of faith that SRI analysts are out of touch with business realities. For example, SRI research requests are routinely criticised on the grounds that they are time consuming to complete and that it is not clear who is using the information being provided to these analysts.
Some corporate responsibility managers have gone as far – although rarely in public – as arguing that they would be much better getting on with their day jobs rather than wasting time talking to these analysts. Of course, there are elements of truth underlying these assertions. It is true that most SRI analysts are often not sector specialists (in practice, they tend to cover multiple companies in multiple sectors). It is also true that form-filling and information provision are inevitably time consuming (and dull). The GlobalEthicist – Take it from the top. It’s easy to think the reputational buck stops with the chief executive. But even the CEO is accountable – to the board, which needs to keep a close eye on more than just the money, says Andrea Bonime-Blanc The proliferation of scandals involving executive malfeasance that have graced countless global newspapers, book covers and websites in this century alone is mesmerising.
It began with Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat at the turn of the century, continued with Siemens, DaimlerChrysler and Boeing, and culminated (one hopes) over the past five years with almost every financial institution on Wall Street and in the City and beyond creating the second worst global financial meltdown in human history. Scandal and malfeasance may very well be one of the hallmarks of our time, perhaps only second to the massive disruption of the digital media age. So, in such a tumultuous world, who is responsible for creating and maintaining an organisation’s reputation?
One thing is clear. The promise? Younger generations driving demand for socially responsible investment opportunities | IW Financial. Most financial professionals have probably heard anecdotal evidence tying the growing demand for socially responsible investment opportunities to the changing composition of the investing community. Specifically, with members of younger generations emerging as major participants in capital markets, the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors has increased substantially.
In a recent article, Donald Liebenson, a contributor for Spectrem's Millionaire Corner, discussed some of the publication's recent research into the relationship between age and attitudes about the importance of ESG benchmarking and other responsible investing strategies. Among Millennials with more than $1 million net worth, nearly half—49 percent—said that they consider social responsibility as a factor when evaluating investment opportunities. This signals a noteworthy shift in priorities. Expansion of responsible investing already underway Related posts: Sustainability Innovations Could Generate $156 Billion for UK Firms. Photo Credit: Flickr/Elliott Brown UK businesses could secure £100 billion pounds (nearly $156 billion USD) in annual productivity gains generated by innovations designed to address environmental and social challenges, according to a new report by Accenture, Business in the Community and Marks & Spencer.
Fortune Favors the Brave argues that companies must go beyond conventional corporate and social responsibility programs and place sustainability at the heart of business strategies and operations to unlock the full commercial potential and sustainability benefits. “At a time of economic challenges and changing consumer expectations, there is an opportunity to make sustainable business practices a driver of growth and competitiveness,” said Olly Benzecry, Managing Director UK and Ireland, Accenture. “That requires companies to innovate and to embrace the disruption that new sustainable business models can create.”
Corporate Responsibility Report Released – Now What? By Tim Mohin, Director of Corporate Responsibility, Advanced Micro Devices This week, AMD released its 18th annual corporate responsibility (CR) report. After working for months and months to gather data, write the content and finalize the report, it is easy for the report’s release to seem like the end goal. And after all the work that goes into producing a CR report, it’s tempting each year to go into hibernation after it’s issued! However, an important lesson that we have learned in our 18 years of reporting experience is that the report’s release should actually be just the beginning. So, what’s next? 1. Today AMD’s newly released 2012/2013 “full report” weighs in at over 120 pages.
You don’t have to be a communications genius to know that this format will turn off most audiences. We're working on the premise that our content has staying power year-round to create new and engaging dialogue—ranging from infographics to videos— after the initial release. 2. 3. 4. Beyond G4: Connecting The Dots on Sustainability Reporting and Disclosure Practices. New ways of making sustainability reporting more relevant and accessible need to be developed and deployed.
By Monaem Ben Lellahom In contrast to financial reporting, the history of sustainability reporting is comparatively recent. Alternatively presented as non-financial disclosure, it has become the buzzword in business today. In order to make non-financial reporting possible, a variety of different standards and frameworks have emerged, both mandatory and voluntary. The vast number of these initiatives has made it difficult for reporters to decide which framework to pick and for the readers of reports to assess the quality and reliability of disclosed data.
S ustainability Reporting The De Facto Law For Business The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has emerged as the preferred international framework for reporting. More than 6,000 reports are published each year and the number keeps increasing. To financial performance, as the SASB team discussed recently on Talkback . Digital Reporting. Sustainability Matters in the Battle for Talent - Jenny Davis-Peccoud. Employees at semiconductor-chip-maker Intel recently devised a new chemistry process that reduced chemical waste by 900,000 gallons, saving $45 million annually. Another team developed a plan to reuse and optimize networking systems in offices, which cut energy costs by $22 million. The projects produced financial and environmental benefits, of course. But just as valuable is the company’s ability to energize and empower front-line employees. New data shows that sustainability is an increasingly important factor in attracting and managing talent.
Bain & Company recently surveyed about 750 employees across industries in Brazil, China, India, Germany, the UK, and the U.S. Employees expect employers to step up and nurture this growing interest. They also want to be involved in developing sustainability strategy. Yet many companies are missing the opportunity to fully engage their employees on this issue. Leaders in this area, by contrast, do a few things differently. Proposed Sustainability Disclosure Listing Standard for Global Stock Exchanges. This paper provides the basis for a consultation process designed to help build global investor support for a listing standard for stock exchanges on corporate sustainability disclosure.
The aim is to establish key elements of a minimum global standard for corporate reporting that would allow investors to access and use sustainability data, while giving companies and exchanges flexibility to address specific market regulations and cultures. Asset owners and asset managers are asked to review and comment on the paper’s recommendations by May 1, 2013. This feedback will help shape a document with investor recommendations that NASDAQ OMX and Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) will use to develop further support from global stock exchanges and the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE). Thus, NASDAQ OMX and other stock exchanges urged INCR members to develop clarity and consensus on a unified sustainability disclosure listing standard that could be adopted by all stock exchanges.
2013 Gibbs & Soell Sense & Sustainability Study. Sustainability Reporting: A GRI Certified Program. Engage radically - Future 500. Stakeholder engagement: a practical guide | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. CSR: why there's a difference between shared values and shared value | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. Global Stakeholder Engagement - Future 500. Engineers develop educational robot for children with learning difficulties | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. Reporting. Navigating the Sustainability Landscape in a Constant Game of Chase. 3BL CSR News - February 5, 2013. What Sustainable Brand Managers Can Learn From Homer Simpson. 100 - Celebration of Service.