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A new set of sustainability reporting awards will be introduced next year based on the decisions of report readers, not a judging panel.
The Readers’ Choice Awards are co-ordinated by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which believes the new approach will give a better indication of the usefulness of reports.
From now until the end of December readers of non-financial reports are being invited to complete an online assessment based on five criteria – four relating to content (materiality, stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context and completeness) and one to the quality of data (taking into account comparability, accuracy, timeliness, clarity, reliability and ‘balance’).
Recognition will be given to reports that do best overall, and also to those found most useful by different groups of stakeholders, such as investors, trade unions, employees and journalists.
The winners will be announced at the GRI’s second international conference in Amsterdam in May 2008, with accompanying analysis by KPMG and SustainAbility.
‘There are other award schemes out there, but all are jury-based,’ said Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel, a GRI board member who chairs the committee overseeing the awards. ‘This time companies will hear a verdict straight from the mouths of their own stakeholders.’ Herman Mulder, senior adviser to the UN Global Compact, Aditi Haldar of the Confederation of Indian Industry, and Giuseppe van der Helm of the Netherlands Organization of Sustainable Investors are also on the committee.
The awards are backed by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which runs the widely recognized Sustainability Reporting Awards in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. ‘It’s a complementary approach and will be a major factor in driving best practice in reporting worldwide’, said Roger Adams, the association’s technical director.
Separately, another set of sustainability reporting awards has been established by the reporting database company CorporateRegister.com. The winners will be announced in spring 2008. Again eschewing the use of an expert panel, the Global Independent CR Reporting Awards will be judged by users of CorporateRegister.com, which lists 14,938 reports. Entry, which was restricted to 300 reports in total, has now closed.
Roger Cowe, director of the Context consultancy, which helps companies produce non-financial reports, told EP: ‘It would be a good idea to have awards based on what users think rather than experts. But I suspect that the people who vote will be experts rather than the target audience, and it’s a shame that the criteria don’t include effectiveness of communications, which users are the best judges of.’
Ruth Blumer Lahner, head of corporate quality, environment, safety and health at Sulzer, the Switzerland-based machinery and equipment company, told EP: ‘To get feedback from stakeholders is always very useful, but if there are too many award schemes the value can be diluted.’
The Readers’ Choice Awards are co-ordinated by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which believes the new approach will give a better indication of the usefulness of reports.
From now until the end of December readers of non-financial reports are being invited to complete an online assessment based on five criteria – four relating to content (materiality, stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context and completeness) and one to the quality of data (taking into account comparability, accuracy, timeliness, clarity, reliability and ‘balance’).
Recognition will be given to reports that do best overall, and also to those found most useful by different groups of stakeholders, such as investors, trade unions, employees and journalists.
The winners will be announced at the GRI’s second international conference in Amsterdam in May 2008, with accompanying analysis by KPMG and SustainAbility.
‘There are other award schemes out there, but all are jury-based,’ said Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel, a GRI board member who chairs the committee overseeing the awards. ‘This time companies will hear a verdict straight from the mouths of their own stakeholders.’ Herman Mulder, senior adviser to the UN Global Compact, Aditi Haldar of the Confederation of Indian Industry, and Giuseppe van der Helm of the Netherlands Organization of Sustainable Investors are also on the committee.
The awards are backed by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, which runs the widely recognized Sustainability Reporting Awards in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. ‘It’s a complementary approach and will be a major factor in driving best practice in reporting worldwide’, said Roger Adams, the association’s technical director.
Separately, another set of sustainability reporting awards has been established by the reporting database company CorporateRegister.com. The winners will be announced in spring 2008. Again eschewing the use of an expert panel, the Global Independent CR Reporting Awards will be judged by users of CorporateRegister.com, which lists 14,938 reports. Entry, which was restricted to 300 reports in total, has now closed.
Roger Cowe, director of the Context consultancy, which helps companies produce non-financial reports, told EP: ‘It would be a good idea to have awards based on what users think rather than experts. But I suspect that the people who vote will be experts rather than the target audience, and it’s a shame that the criteria don’t include effectiveness of communications, which users are the best judges of.’
Ruth Blumer Lahner, head of corporate quality, environment, safety and health at Sulzer, the Switzerland-based machinery and equipment company, told EP: ‘To get feedback from stakeholders is always very useful, but if there are too many award schemes the value can be diluted.’
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