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By Michael Gutman, Founder of REACH The Future

Over the last month I have been comparing and contrasting corporate social responsibility reports from six major San Francisco Bay Area companies across different sectors.  Gap, eBay, Wells Fargo, SunPower, Chevron & Salesforce all make an effort to show their efforts to invest in environmental and community stewardship.  Now is my chance to share the insights and tips I've learned through this review process, including what a CSR report should include & exclude.

But first... this question must be asked.

Why develop a corporate social responsibility report in the first place?

I offer two main reasons.

• To benchmark a company's current operations and impact on society and the environment in order to know how and where they can improve.


• To show stakeholders that a company is investing in community and environmental stewardship.

With these motives in mind here are 5 things a good CSR report will do

1. Focus more on future goals, less on past successes:  The whole point of a CSR report should be to understand and showcase how business was conducted in the past so a company can plot a course to do better in the future.  While sharing the success of your CSR strategy is good, don’t make the mistake of dwelling on the past CSR successes and forget to focus on future goals. A CSR report without clear goals for the next year is like a boat with no compass.  If people are going to jump on board with your company, they will want to see where the ship is headed.

In addition, be absolutely clear about your future goals and how you plan to achieve them.  This helps you and your stakeholders measure the success of that plan.

Example of some measurable goals:

• 30 percent reduction in green house gas emissions in the next 10 years by putting solar on our buildings.


• Converting all office paper to 100% recycled paper within the next year by developing an environmentally preferable purchasing policy.

Set goals that are cautiously optimistic and still obtainable. This way, year after year your company can report progress and avoid setting goals that are weak.

2. Discuss the elephant in the room:  Every business, regardless of how irresponsible they are now, can move towards operating more sustainability.  But how should that company talk about their efforts when people know that the manufacturing process of their products leads to environmental devastation?  The question will always come up for any business that consumes more natural resources and produces more waste than it recovers.  It is important for a company to address these issues first.

This can be accomplished with a simple statement like:

"We are providing a valuable product or service that helps people with XYZ and while we acknowledge that the creation and the consumption of our product or service does have consequences on the environment and communities, we are looking at behaviors and technologies we can adopt and invest in to reduce our negative impact."

If you don’t feel comfortable acknowledging the negative impact of your business, then I would take another look at your motives for writing a CSR report.

3. Avoid a PR nightmare: Focus on sustainable business practices and responsible workplace conditions as opposed to philanthropy.  Corporate social responsibility is more about how a company makes a profit than what it does with its profit.  Don't get me wrong. Philanthropy is definitely part of the CSR story and my business, REACH The Future, or organizations like Universal Giving would not be in business if it weren’t. However, if a company focuses its CSR efforts on the donations it made and ignores its toxic chemical pollution and child labor practices, the media will have a field day.

4. Gain 3rd party credibility: Nothing will help build integrity, credibility and transparency to a company's CSR efforts like 3rd party reporting or certifications.  Many industries have unique reporting tools designed for a specific industry.  Here are some tools that work across industries.

-Global Reporting Initiative

-Greenhouse Gas Protocol

-Carbon Disclosure Project

5. Share stats and stories: Stories do a great job of showing the types of relationships CSR efforts have with community and the environment.  However, they don't give a company and its stakeholders baseline metrics to test against and evaluate the success of future CSR efforts.  A CSR report that is heavy on stories and light on stats comes across as more of a PR initiative than a sincere effort to invest in measurable results.  It is good to have both, but go heavier on the stats than the stories.

Here is a helpful tool from Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship that will help guide the creation of a CSR report.   How to read a corporate social responsibility report - a user's guide

Conclusions: Creating a CSR reports takes the effort of many to get all the data, discuss a communications strategy and get the sign off from everyone involved.  In the end it all comes back to why.  Why is any organization creating this report in the first place?  If your intentions are genuine, then people will be OK with your faults and interested in your efforts and strategy to do better.  This position yields a brand that is honest and has integrity. If your efforts are motivated by PR, than your CSR report could open up a can of worms that creates negative press and backfires.

These are just some of my insights and I would love to hear from people who have written CSR reports and/or have been part of the process.  Share a comment or let us know some best practices or strategies you have used when creating this type of a document.

Feel free to continue this conversation with REACH The Future’s Founder, Michael Gutman, by commenting below, or on Twitter & Facebook.

Image credit: Carl Heyerdahl/Unsplash 

The push for farmland by foreign investors engaged in industrial-scale plantation agriculture in Sierra Leone has increased poverty and food shortages among communities who have lost their access to land, new research shows.

An estimated fifth of the country’s arable land has been leased since 2009 to industrial farming concerns, many of them foreign companies producing biofuels from crops such as oil palm and sugar cane.

A report published today, ‘Who Is Benefitting? examines the impact large land leases held by three investors has had on local communities. It was commissioned by local joint initiative Action for Large-scale Land Acquisition Transparency, with support from Christian Aid and other agencies.? ?

The leases examined are held by Addax Bioenergy (SL) Ltd, Sierra Leone Agriculture and Socfin Agricultural Company Ltd.

As a result of its findings, the report calls for a review of all existing contracts, and a moratorium on further large scale land investment until existing concerns are addressed, and future contracts can be independently monitored.??The report says that in particular, government contracts with large investors, some who have been granted 99-year leases, need to be more transparent and respect the country’s laws, and government and companies must implement international guidelines that emphasise the protection of local people and the environment.

The report also criticises the tax breaks offered to foreign companies to persuade them to invest, which it says costs Sierra Leone many millions of dollars each year in lost revenue.

Kato Lambrechts of Christian Aid identified as a key problem government claims that just 11-15 per cent of the country’s arable land is being ‘used’ and that there is plenty of room for foreign investors.

"This shows a lack of understanding of the way the country’s smallholder farmers, who account for nearly half of working age Sierra Leoneans, use the land," she said.

"They rely on an extremely diverse and complex mosaic of land types - upland farms, land depressions prone to flooding, swamps, tree-crop plantations, fallow bush and riverine grass areas to grow a wide variety of crops.

"Much of this land is deemed ‘unused’ – but that is far from the case. Communities are promised development in various forms such as jobs and services if they sign over land, but only a few ever see real benefits."
 

In a new collaboration, the IKEA Foundation is donating a range of toys to UNICEF’s Early Childhood Development (ECD) kits to help meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable young children in the world.

The IKEA Foundation is the charitable arm of the Swedish home furnishings retailer.

Over the next two years, the kits will be distributed to an estimated 1.2m children living in emergency or post-conflict settings.

UNICEF’s ECD kit was designed for children under the age of six living in these difficult circumstances. It aims to focus attention on the needs of young children and to support the development of play and learning under extreme conditions.

The toys, with an estimated value of US$2 million, are a donation to UNICEF and will be used in 24,000 ECD kits that will be distributed around the world over the next two years. 

Each of the IKEA products was chosen by UNICEF’s educational specialists. The items include a shape sorter, a sort and stack set, finger puppets, hand puppets, school scissors, coloured building blocks, a paper pad and paper roll. It is estimated that 12,000 kits will be required annually by the UNICEF offices that implement programmes for children in conflict situations and emergencies.
 

The Salmon & Trout Association (Scotland) has called on Sainsbury’s to explain why it is still selling mainland farmed salmon labeled as being from Skye, Lewis or Uist, almost eight weeks after apologising publicly for the error.

Hughie Campbell-Adamson, Chairman of S&TA(S), said: “The almost unbelievable state of affairs, whereby Sainsbury’s is continuing to pass off mainland farm-reared salmon as having come from the Hebrides, is bad enough. The claims of responsible management at the farms concerned, as Sainsbury’s puts it, to protect and maintain the natural environment, need to be justified. If Sainsbury’s cannot justify their claims, then they must stop making them.”

Earlier this year the S&TA (S) made a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards concerning claims made on Sainsbury’s ‘Taste the Difference’ Scottish salmon in relation to the geographical origins of the product and the unsubstantiated claims of “responsible management to protect and maintain the natural environment” at the farms concerned.

Sainsbury’s admitted errors in attributing their product to the “fast flowing sea water locations around the Isles of Skye, Lewis and Uist”, but the S&TA (S) has found that Sainsbury’s in England are still stocking ‘Taste the Difference’ smoked salmon from mainland fish-farms in Argyll labeled as being from Uist, Lewis or Skye.

Today, Sainsbury issued the following response: “We would never seek to mislead our customers and would like to reassure them that this error has had no impact on our industry-leading sourcing standards. All our salmon suppliers have environmental management systems in place and are independently certified to the GlobalGAP standard for good agricultural practice. They also all participate voluntarily in the scheme relating to the Code of Good Practice for Scottish Finfish Aquaculture. 

"We have changed the design of the packaging and this new packaging will be in store from the beginning of next week.”
 

Picture credit: © Crp | Dreamstime Stock Photos

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Action Plan tackling multinationals’ tax dodging is a step forward but fails developing countries, the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, Christian Aid and Oxfam have warned.

The OECD’s just published Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan will be presented to G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Moscow this weekend.

Alex Prats, Principal Economic Justice Advisor at Christian Aid, said: “The Plan is a welcome and long overdue step towards tackling tax dodging by unscrupulous multinationals. The OECD clearly acknowledges that existing international tax rules make it easy for multinational corporations to avoid paying their fair share of tax – as shown by the recent Google and Amazon scandals. We all now agree – with the possible exception of some multinationals and tax havens - that the current situation is unfair and requires urgent reform.”

However, the NGOs point out that developing countries’ inability to participate in the reform process as equal partners is not acceptable.

Oxfam’s senior policy advisor Claire Godfrey commented: “International tax rules affect everyone and it is often the poorest countries that suffer the greatest losses due to tax abuse. Negotiations on new international tax rules must include all countries, including those that are not OECD or G20 members – from the very start.”

The OECD expects the United Nations Tax Committee to help facilitate the contribution of developing countries but Alex Prats warned: “This will only happen if there is a firm commitment to strengthen the UN Tax Committee. With the current level of resources, the UN Tax Committee will most likely not be able to meet the expectations.”

Picture credit © Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime Stock Photos
 

Submitted by Guest Contributor

By Gail Klintworth, Chief Sustainability, Unilever

In this third and last blog post responding to the many questions that came up during our recent Twitter chat, I will focus on questions related to partnerships and policies. Some questions that I will cover: 

• You can’t do it alone, so which partners are most instrumental to helping you achieve your Sustainable Living goals? [From @mccaffreymike]
• How have you been able to engage your supply chain in your Sustainability Living Plan goals? [From @csrconsultant]
• Have you shared #SustLiving secrets with competitors to magnify impact? [From @csrconsultant]
• What is Unilever's point of view for influencing government/regulatory to raise the bar? CO2? [From @howardconnell]

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we see considerable progress.

However, we also face challenges, which we cannot solve alone. To reach our goals and achieve large-scale change, Unilever believes even more collaboration is needed between companies, governments, NGOs and consumers. We firmly believe business has a big role to play in striving for more equitable and sustainable growth, but large-scale change will only come about if there is real collaboration between companies, governments and NGOs across all these areas.

Partnerships

This is exactly why we continue to work with others – governments, NGOs, customers, suppliers and other businesses – to drive progress in:

• Sustainable forestry and agriculture
• Improving smallholder farmers’ livelihoods
• Providing more safe drinking water
• Sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and
• Encouraging sustainable consumption

Sustainable Forestry and Agriculture

One example, which also answers the question of sharing ideas with competitors and working with peers is related to our work in sustainable forestry and agriculture. Unilever has actively led the process of building a public-private partnership between the U.S. government and the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a large industry body made up of almost all the world’s major retail and consumer goods companies, to reduce and eventually eliminate deforestation associated with the sourcing of palm oil and pulp and paper in the first instance.

The Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 was announced at the Rio+20 Summit and, in addition to the CGF and U.S. Government, the Dutch and Norwegian governments have signed up and we held our first Summit in July hosted by the Indonesian government in Jakarta. Many companies and NGOs came together with governments to agree a set of actions that will enable the scaling up of solutions to enable zero deforestation in Indonesia.

Improving Smallholder Farmers’ Livelihoods

Another example relates to improving smallholder livelihoods: Unilever, the Netherlands-based Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) and the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) co-fund farmer field schools. Between 2007 and 2012, 450,000 farmers have been trained to the Rainforest Alliance standard [in preparation for certification].

In 2012, Unilever, IDH and partners agreed to invest a further €4 million to take our sustainability initiatives to scale. This training will benefit not only Unilever but the tea industry as a whole.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

On water, sanitation and hygiene, Unilever and Domestos are working with UNICEF, the World Toilet Organisation and others to make toilets more accessible and affordable to those who need them through the Unilever Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to improve quality of life through the provision of hygiene, sanitation, access to clean drinking water, basic nutrition and enhancing self-esteem. 

Sustainable Consumption

To encourage sustainable consumption, we have worked on ‘A Better Future Starts at Home,’ a joint shopper program with Tesco for the last three years. It combines advice on sustainable living with promotions of sustainable products. Nine countries including the U.K. and China have run the program.

In 2012, we launched a joint program "The Living Project" with Walmart to help 200 million shoppers every week make sustainable choices. So far it has been implemented in Brazil, China and the U.S. Looking ahead, partnering with governments, kitchen and bathroom appliance manufacturers, retail customers and consumers will be key to making progress.

Policies: The Role of Business in Driving Legislation

I was pleased to see the questions on the role of polices and how these are part of driving the much needed large-scale change. Especially if you remember the outcome of Rio+20 and the recent vote in the European Parliament on addressing the carbon emission trading.

It is crucial that we actively engage with governments and regulators to create an environment that can help us achieve the commitments set out in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. The private sector, governments and NGOs can achieve a lot more if they work together in partnerships.

We believe that Unilever should play an active role in shaping legislation and regulations that enhance positive social and environmental outcomes. For example, the biggest contribution we can make toward tackling climate change is through supporting the call for ambitious reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions – as we did at the UNFCCC Conference in Durban in 2011 and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio in 2012, and as we will continue to do in preparation for future sustainability summits.

During 2011, we implemented a new approach to advocacy.

We created a new advocacy team with the aim of working together with other stakeholders to bring about changes in public policy in key areas of health and sustainability. We chose areas where we can make the biggest difference and which are most relevant to achieving the ambitious targets in our Plan.

These include:

• Influencing greenhouse gas policy to achieve a policy environment which promotes low carbon
• Promoting the importance of washing hands with soap in countries where this issue is not high on the public health agenda
• Improving recycling and waste infrastructures to increase national recycling rates, and
• Enhancing trade policy terms for sustainably sourced agricultural commodities to encourage a more systemic shift towards sustainable agricultural practices.

We are now actively engaged in these areas and working with a wide range of NGOs, experts, practitioners and intergovernmental institutions. We are also encouraging our companies to engage with local governments and other organisations to help inform public policy.

Post-2015: Looking Beyond the Millennium Development Goals

[@steveacohen asked: What policies would advance aggressive #sustainability strategies?] Last but not least, our CEO Paul Polman was invited by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to become a member of the UN High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP). The group comprised of 27 representatives from government, civil society and business was tasked with advising the Secretary-General on the future development agenda when the current UN Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015.

Their recommendations were presented in May in a report called A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development. This report sets out a universal agenda to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030, and deliver on the promise of sustainable development. The report also calls upon the world to rally around a new Global Partnership that offers hope and a role to every person in the world.

Well that wraps it up!

What started as an hour-long conversation on Twitter has evolved into an ongoing dialogue, thanks to your valuable questions and feedback. We believe in the power of engagement and I hope my posts gave you insights into how we are driving sustainability at the heart of our business.

I have no doubt that with resolve and inspiration we can together create solutions at scale that will enable sustainable living so that nine billion people will be able to live a quality life within the natural planetary boundaries. 

Keep an eye on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development Action 2020 process, this will also give you some ideas on the must-haves for 2020 and the initiatives that business can take to contribute to our bold ambition of ‘making sustainable living commonplace’.

Please continue to share your ideas on Twitter at #SustLiving.

_______________

Part II: Accounting for Impact: A Closer Look At Unilever's Value Chain

Part 1: Embedding & Measuring Sustainability: Unilever's Sustainability Chief Addresses Its Stakeholders

Dutch airline KLM has been recognised for its commitment to sustainability by scooping the Environment Award at the Airline Strategy Awards.

Taking home the accolade for the second time - having won in 2009 - KLM beat off stiff competition as a result of its efforts to become more sustainable as well as reduce its environmental footprint both on the ground and in the air.

At the heart of KLM’s environmental strategy is the airline’s Climate Change Action Plan which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2020.

Key achievements include the airline’s biofuel programme which earlier this year expanded to weekly long haul flights from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

Vincent Kas, commercial director, Air France KLM UK & Ireland, commented: “Our hard work and continued commitment has been recognised, after earlier validation from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in which we have been, together with Air France, the highest ranking airline for eight years running.”
 

British supermarket giant Asda and the University of Leeds are working together on a study that aims to create more affordable, sustainable products as well as help shape consumer behaviour.

Over the next two-and-a-half years, what the two organisations are terming “the largest conversation on green living in the UK,” will lead to the creation of a green lifestyle action plan that will save customers money and benefit the local and global environment.

Asda says the study is unique within the UK retail sector, and is part of its strategy to continue to build on its sustainability programme.

The study features what is thought to be the largest customer panel in Europe, solely focused on developing customer insight into greener, more affordable lifestyles and product choices. The panel called Everyday Experts, is made up of 7,500 customers.

Paul Kelly, Asda’s external affairs director, commented: "We’ve joined with University of Leeds in a UK first to help change attitudes to sustainability and to bring new, improved and affordable sustainable products to the shelf edge. Not only does this make sense for retail as a whole; it makes sense for customers and will continue to save them money in the long term.”

The University of Leeds will place a full time colleague into Asda to lead the research, help shape communications, new product development and examine large-scale shifts in customer behaviour.

Dr William Young, director of business and organisations for sustainable societies (BOSS) research group at University of Leeds added: "We’re looking at what will work for the mainstream customer, and not necessarily those who are already committed to a ‘deep green’ lifestyle. This means working within people’s busy lives, desires and needs, so that reducing food waste for example becomes a habit and a way to reduce household food costs.
 

For the full story see the August issue of Ethical Performance.
 

A new European Commission survey indicates that more than three-quarters of EU consumers are willing to pay more for environmentally-friendly products if they were confident that the products are truly environmentally-friendly (77%). However, only slightly more than half of survey respondents feel informed (55%) about the environmental impacts of the products they buy and use.

The survey, Attitudes of Europeans towards building the single market for green products, reveals a large majority of EU citizens believes that buying environmentally-friendly products can make a difference to the environment (89%) and that they are as effective as regular products (74%). Confidence that products labelled environmentally-friendly are less harmful to the environment is highest in Portugal (84%), Malta (82%), France (81%) and Belgium (81%). However, confidence is significantly lower in Germany (44%), Romania (46%) and the Netherlands (47%).

Just over half of EU citizens generally trust producers' claims about the environmental performance of their products (52%), but a majority of Europeans do not trust companies' reports on their own environmental performance (54%). EU citizens are most likely to believe that they have come across exaggerated or misleading statements in Romania (40%), Bulgaria (40%), Greece (39%) and Latvia (37%). This belief is least common in Malta (17%) and Estonia (20%). There is nonetheless strong support for obliging companies to publish reports on their overall environmental performance and the environmental performance of their products (69%).

Environment Commissioner Janez Poto?nik commented: "Of course we all want to see more green products on shelves, but this survey shows that most of us are confused by green claims and don't trust them. That's not good for consumers, and it is not rewarding those companies that are really making an effort. We are working with companies and other stakeholders to develop the credible information consumers are looking for when they buy products. This will help develop markets and open up opportunities for innovation and investment in the green economy."

You can view the full report here.

Picture credit: © Nelson Faria | Dreamstime Stock Photos

American drinks giant Coca-Cola is looking improve its water efficiency by 25% by 2020 as part of a new set of global environmental goals and an expanded global parternship with World Wildlife Fund.

The new goals, which complement other Coca-Cola well-being and community commitments, focus on sustainable management of water, energy, and packaging use as well as sustainable sourcing of agricultural ingredients through 2020.

“At Coca-Cola, we are deeply committed to working with partners to address our collective environmental challenges and responsibly manage the planet’s resources,” said Muhtar Kent, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Coca-Cola Company.

“We are witnessing unprecedented demands on natural resources around the world. Continuing with business as usual puts everything at risk, including the viability of business,” said Carter Roberts, President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund. “These problems can only be solved by working together, and our work with Coca-Cola has proven that collaboration can amplify and accelerate the impact we need.”

Under the renewed and expanded partnership, Coca-Cola and WWF jointly developed new 2020 environmental sustainability goals for the Coca-Cola system – the Company and its nearly 300 bottling partners in more than 200 countries.

The new goals also include reducing CO2 emissions embedded in ‘the drink in your hand’ by 25% and to reach a 75% recovery rate of bottles and cans in developed markets.

Read full details of Coca-Cola’s ambitious new targets in the August issue of Ethical Performance.

Pictured above: Bentho torches are used to establish water quality.