The Co-operative Bank has won the main prize in the UK’s second annual Social Reporting Awards.
The bank was judged to have produced the best social report last year. Two large oil companies, Shell and BP, were joint runners-up.
National lottery operator Camelot won the award for the best first social report, and London and Quadrant Housing Trust was judged to have published the best community-based social audit.
The judging panel said the Co-operative Bank’s winning report had been ‘inclusive in the identification of stakeholders and key stakeholder issues’.
It had also set specific targets with completion dates, which the panel said provided ‘an element of real value to report readers and a benchmark for future reports’.
BP was praised for its ‘sound processes and governance systems’, while Shell’s report was picked out for its broad scope and global focus.
The Camelot report contained ‘good objectives, policy statements and performance measures’ and a particularly strong stakeholder dialogue process.
The awards, which are run by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability, were presented in London by Mark Leonard, director of the Foreign Policy Centre think tank.
The number of entries almost doubled in the second year, from 13 to 25. Last year’s overall award was also won by the Co-operative Bank, although it shared the honour with Shell (EP2, 2000).
Judges for this year’s awards were Carol Adams and Rob Gray, who are both professors of accounting at Glasgow University, Craig Mackenzie, director of the ethics unit at Friends Ivory & Sime, David Nussbaum, finance director at Oxfam, and Roger Adams, head of technical services and research at Acca.
At a separate awards ceremony last month, the Co-operative Bank was named joint winner of the 10th UK Environmental Reporting Awards. It shared the award with Shell.
The award for the best environment report from a small or medium-sized company was also shared - between the printing company Bovince and the consultancy Wastebusters.
Best first-time environmental reporter was the construction company Carillion, and a special award for ‘continued excellence in environmental reporting’ over the past decade was given to four companies: Anglian Water, BP, British Airways and BT.
The joint winners will now qualify for the European Environmental Reporting Awards, which will be announced at a ceremony in Brussels on 9 April.