CSR, Citizenship And Sustainability Reporting

Professor Hector R RodriguezSchool of BusinessMount Ida College

Course Map – Topics Covered in Course• Society

– The Corporation and Its Stakeholders– People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals– Corporate Citizenship– The Social Responsibility of Business– The Shareholder Primacy Norm– CSR, Citizenship and Sustainability

Reporting– Responsible Investing– The Community and the Corporation– Taxation and Corporate Citizenship– Corporate Philanthropy Programs– Employees and the Corporation– Managing a Diverse Workforce

• Environment– A Balanced Look at Climate Change– Non-anthropogenic Causes of Climate

Change– Sulfates, Urban Warming and Permafrost– Conventional Energy– The Kyoto Protocol– Green Building– Green Information Technology– Transportation, Electric Vehicles and the

Environment– Geo-Engineering– Carbon Capture and Storage– Renewable Energy– Solid, Toxic and Hazardous Waste– Forests, Paper and Carbon Sinks– Life Cycle Analysis– Water Use and Management– Water Pollution

Corporate Social Performance Audit

• Is a systematic evaluation of an organization’s social, ethical and environmental performance

• Demand for social auditing has grown in Europe and the US– In some European countries is required by law

• Can take 2 forms– Performance measured against the company’s own

mission statement or policies– Performance measured against a set of established

standards

Global Social Audit Standards

• The Purpose of a Sustainability Report– Sustainability reporting is the practice of measuring, disclosing,

and being accountable to internal and external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development.

– ‘Sustainability reporting’ is a broad term considered synonymous with others used to describe reporting on economic, environmental, and social impacts (e.g., triple bottom line, corporate responsibility reporting, etc.).

– A sustainability report should provide a balanced and reasonable representation of the sustainability performance of a reporting organization – including both positive and negative contributions.

Source: Global Reporting Initiative, “Sustainability Reporting Guidelines,”: (2006)

Global Reporting Initiative

• Upon finalization of their report, preparers declare the level to which they have applied the GRI Reporting Framework, this system aims to provide:– Report readers with clarity about the extent to which the GRI

elements have been applied– Report preparers with a path for incrementally expanding

application of the GRI Reporting Framework over time.• There are three levels in the system. They are titled C, B,

and A, reflecting an increasing application or coverage of the GRI Reporting Framework. An organization can self-declare a “plus” (+) at each level if they have utilized external assurance.

GRI Application Levels

Source: Global Reporting Initiative, “Sustainability Reporting Guidelines,”: (2006)

• The information in a report should cover topics and Indicators that reflect the organization’s significant economic, environmental, and social impacts, or that would substantively influence the assessments and decisions of stakeholders.

Materiality Assessment

Source: Global Reporting Initiative, “Sustainability Reporting Guidelines,”: (2006)

Trends in Corporate Reporting (non-Financial)

• Corporate Social Responsibility Annual Report – Starbucks

• Sustainability Report – Johnson & Johnson

• Corporate Citizenship Report - Microsoft

• Corporate Sustainability Report – Wal-Mart

• Corporate Responsibility Report - IBM

Links to Sample External Reports

Corporate Responsibility Report - Novo Nordisk

As the world leader in diabetes care, what is Novo Nordisk’s role?Our dream and our hope is that we can cure diabetes. Our commitment is backed by substantial investment in diabetes research, but finding a cure for type 1 diabetes and preventing type 2 diabetes are very difficult tasks. In the absence of a cure, we are leading the fight against diabetes, advocating and working for improvements in prevention, earlier diagnosis, better treatments and, eventually, a cure.