The Finnish company Neste Fortum has been judged overall winner of the fourth European Environmental Reporting awards.
The oil, gas and chemical group took the first prize at a ceremony in Brussels. United Utilities, which won the UK Environment Reporting award earlier this year (EP10, 2000, p12) came second.
In subsidiary awards, the Danish water pump manufacturer Grundfos was judged to be the best first-time reporter in Europe and DaimlerChrysler was given a special commendation for its innovative efforts to communicate the details of its environment report.
The awards covered reporting in the UK, France, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, and – for the first time – in Finland, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. They were organised jointly by accounting organizations from each country, which studied entries from the best performers in national environment reporting awards.
Neste Fortum was judged overall winner for the ‘broad scope’ of its report, clear graphics, the inclusion of detailed financial information and its extensive verification.
Grundfos was singled out for its ‘impressive’ environmental indicators and DaimlerChrysler for a magazine-style section in its report that presented information in the form of interviews and journalistic reports.
Judges praised the standard of entries but called on companies to make greater use of the internet, to adopt a tiered approach to their reporting by looking at impacts on regional, national and corporate levels, and to include more social data in their reports, ‘preferably through a well-managed process of stakeholder dialogue’.
The award organisers announced that the Austrian accountancy body, Kammer der Wirtschaftstreuhander, had agreed to join the scheme in 2000, and that talks were taking place with other countries including Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway and Spain.