Bill Baue, socialfunds.com
Can sustainability reporting be meaningful?
The list of companies in the world committed to measuring and reporting the sustainability of their operations using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework is growing. We applaud this trend, and are proud to have been an Organizational Stakeholder of GRI since our founding in 2004.
As an international standard for corporate sustainability reporting, however, GRI is not quite cooked yet. Strictly speaking, reports prepared in accordance with its guidelines do not actually make it possible to determine the sustainability of the organizations involved. This is because they usually fail to include what GRI itself refers to as ‘sustainability context’.
What makes for a good sustainability metric?
Most of what passes for mainstream metrics in corporate sustainability measurement and reporting, including GRI, arguably fails to do the one thing it purports to do, which is make it possible to understand the sustainability performance of an organization. What experienced practitioners are increasingly looking for is a better way. At CSI, we think we’ve found it in the form of what we call Sustainability Quotients!
Do companies have social contracts?
One of the biggest challenges companies face when it comes to developing their sustainability programs is deciding what should be on the agenda. No one company can address all the world’s problems, so how do we decide what’s in and what’s out? At CSI, we are working with several organizations to test and evaluate the concept of a ‘social contract’ as a strategy for resolving this issue.
In effect, a social contract is an agreement that already exists (at least implicitly) between a company and the various stakeholders it serves (or could serve). The content of the contract specifies a company’s own view of what it thinks its duties and obligations are to society, expressed in terms of its relevant stakeholder groups. The scope of its sustainability program can then be defined, accordingly.