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By Keren Clark on 02 Jun, 2009 - 15:53 UTC

Controvery surrounds Florida's Department of Environmental Protection order that paper giant, Georgia-Pacific, renew its search to find ways to clean the waste water released from its Palatka, FL plant. The order is based on DEP February, 2009 findings that the toxic chemical dioxin is still being detected in waterways downstream from the plant. A company representative indicates that dioxin is not present at dangerous levels while enviornmental activists contend that Georgia-Pacific will simply fund studies that prove they are not culpable.

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A new survey by IBM Global Business Services found that companies concerned about supply chain issues are seldom collecting the data they need.

 

Some 29% of businesses weren't collecting any data at all. 80% of companies are not collecting data on carbon or water use.

 

The survey also found that 37% of companies had never asked their customers what kind of supply chain sustainability information they wanted.

It's a big strike against corruption in aid of enabling more people in resource rich, governance poor nations to benefit from their resource wealth.


Mining company Rio Tinto has published the total tax and royalty payments that it makes to the 13 countries in which it operates where such payments totalled over $10 million.


The Publish What You Pay coalition of non-governmental organizations take the opportunity to draw attention to a legislative development on transparency in the USA:


"Soon to be introduced in the United States Congress, the Extractive Industries Transparency Disclosure Act (EITDA) would require all companies registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to publish how much they pay each government for oil, gas and minerals. The EITDA would apply to American and foreign companies including 9 out of ten of the biggest international oil companies and 8 out of ten of the top mining firms."


Get your congressman or congresswoman to support this.

Penny Shepherd at the UKSIF blog hopes that financial market reform will heed calls for addressing the system as a whole.

 

Ms Shepherd cites a recent paper by David Pitt-Watson arguing that an economy is like a political system. Views polarised between regulation and market ignore the need for the following:

  • That the entities in it are responsible for their actions.
  • They will be responsible if they are accountable.
  • Those who call them to account will need relevant information.
  • That information must be independently prepared.
  • And just as a healthy political system hinges on the scrutiny of vigilant citizens, a successful financial system will need the oversight of vigilant market participants."
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It's only a first generation direct-impact sustainability report from a major consultancy that advises on sustainability reporting, but its a start.

A new proprietary standard for reporting corporate sustainability performance claims to make sustainability reports simpler and contextual.

 

The non-profit Center for Sustainable Innovation (CSI) has entered what has been a narrowing field of standard setting for corporate responsibility reporting with the launch of its True Sustainability Index(TM) (TSI).

 

Whereas there is much emphasis in other reporting standards on tracking trend data and internal efficiencies, the TSI claims to focus on a company's performance relative to the actual resources available. Performing better than last year or than peers is all very well, the rationale goes, unless the contextual information about resource availability suggests that resource use is clearly unsustainable.

 

CSI's Executive Director, Mark W. McElroy, argues that "Whereas GRI has long advocated for the inclusion of context in non-financial reporting, we have finally found a way to do it, and at the same time have reduced GRI-type reporting from 150 metrics to 15!"

Business Green looks at the role of stakeholder engagement, third party verification and standards in strengthening corporate responsibility reporting.

 

British American Tobacco, SAP, ITC, Skanska AB, AccountAbility, GRI and Tetra Pak all get mentioned.

The business, labor and civil society board members of the Global Reporting Initiative have called on governments to compel business transparency.

The so-called Amsterdam Declaration issued today states the signatories' belief that the financial crisis would not have occurred had businesses been required to report comprehensively on their environmental, social and governance risks.

The declaration goes on to call on governments to require business - including their state-owned businesses - to report on all these risks, and to Integrate sustainability reporting requirements within the emerging global financial regulatory framework being developed by leaders of the G20.
Another groundbreaking revision of the South African corporate governance code has been produced by the committee run by Mervyn King.

The second King report attracted international attention for its requirement that companies produce sustainability reports in line with recognised benchmarks such as the Global Reporting Initiative.

The new report takes the corporate responsibility agenda even further. It is no longer good enough simply to report on sustainability performance. Now sustainability is pushed as a principle so central to business operation that the report refers throughout to "integrated sustainability performance and reporting" i.e. the integration of sustainability into decision making and the annual report to shareholders.

The draft King 3 places South Africa back in the forefront of 21st century business thinking.

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