Sustainability Survey Overload – How to Deal

Mike Wallace, Director of the Focal Point USA office for GRI, wrote an article on Greenbiz.com last week about how to deal with the recent onslaught of sustainability surveys. By survey, he means requests from a variety of different sources inquiring about sustainability performance data. So how does an organization sift through all the paper? Here are Mike’s six steps:

1. Reality Check – mainstream investors are using sustainability information to make investment decisions
2. Get Your Story Straight – in the spirit of transparency, every department in an organization needs to be singing from the same sheet of music re: sustainability performance
3. Who’s Asking – know the key players in the ratings and rankings arena and understand their processes and how they serve respective markets
4. Bloomberg on the Block – sustainability performance data for nearly 5,000 global public companies exists in terminals on 300,000 desks around the world
5. Keeping it Real – organizations need to understand how they’re being compared to their peers; GRI is the most widely used reporting framework to standardize this comparison
6. Taking Your First Step – review the list of GRI reporters and determine where your company stands next to its peers before embarking on your first report

Do you think these are good tips for understanding the sustainability reporting arena and taking your first step towards reporting? Would you change or add any steps to the list? Discuss!

To read the full article please click here.

 

 

 

U.S. Green Building Council joins Global Reporting Initiative as Organizational Stakeholder

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced on Monday that they’ve joined the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as an Organizational Stakeholder (OS).

“Building performance metrics and reporting is crucial to our movement,” said Scot Horst, Senior Vice President of LEED, USGBC. “Data collection and reporting allows us to optimize the performance of our buildings in a transparent and teachable way. By working with GRI, USGBC can remain on the front lines of performance reporting technology, and offer state-of-the-art tools and procedures to our green building community.”

The GRI OS program broadens participation around transparency in sustainability beyond reporting in accordance with the GRI reporting framework. As an OS, the USGBC has the opportunity and privilege to contribute to the evolution of the reporting framework on a continual basis.

“We are honored to have USGBC become an Organizational Stakeholder of GRI. There is already a tremendous overlap in our efforts, in addition to the wide range of organization with whom we both work. We look forward to increasing this overlap as we work together to create a sustainable global economy,” said Mike Wallace, Director, Focal Point USA.

To read the full press release please click here.

 

 

World’s Largest GRI Training Under Way!

BrownFlynn and the Nance College of Business at Cleveland State University officially kicked off the world’s largest GRI training at 9am this morning in beautiful Cleveland, OH. Almost 200 students, faculty and administration have gathered to participate in the training, and things have gotten off to a great start.

Currently Mike Wallace, head of the Focal Point USA office for the Global Reporting Initiative, is speaking to the group. We’re thrilled to have him!

Check back for more updates, and follow us on Twitter @brownflynn.

GRI Focal Point USA hits the ground running

The GRI Focal Point USA office, led by Mike Wallace, has been building momentum since its announcement on October 13, 2010. The office is supported by donations from the Big 4 accounting firms (KPMG, Deloitte, PwC and E&Y), and is being hosted by The Conference Board in NYC.

Over the past year Wallace has been actively responding to the growing demand for ESG reporting in the USA through a range of outreach/engagement efforts, according to the press release. Since the announcement the office has participated in the Harvard Integrated Reporting conference and e-book (The Landscape of Integrated Reporting: Reflections and Next Steps), as well as presentations at events such as the GreenGov Symposium, NAEM Board of Regents, Triple Bottom Line Reporting, Justmeans – Social Media, SRI in the Rockies and the Canadian Investor Relations Institute.

The office and its founding sponsors are hosting the formal 100 Day Event for its inception on January 31, 2011. The event will highlight the latest developments in the sustainability and ESG reporting field, as well as outline plans for continued efforts in the U.S.

To read the full press release click here. To stay connected with the office’s latest developments, join the LinkedIn group or browse the web pages.

GRI opens New York Office, headed by Mike Wallace

The Global Reporting Initiative is opening an office in New York tomorrow, October 13, 2010, to be headed by former GRI Director, Sustainability Reporting Framework Mike Wallace.  The office’s official name is Focal Point USA, and was not only established to provide support to companies that produce sustainability reports, but also aims to increase the number of companies that produce reports.

Further, this new office will work to improve the consistency and quality of reporting, as well as increase organizations’ input into developing new guidelines for reporting.  The ‘big four’ accounting firms: Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have agreed to provide donations to sponsor the new office for its first two years.

In addition, The Conference Board has agreed to host the new office pro bono during these two years.  The Conference Board has a Center for Corporate Citizenship & Sustainability, and sees its relationship with the GRI as an asset to the Center’s core values.

The GRI hopes to make sustainability reporting mainstream by 2015.  They’ve been engaging more closely with companies, financial institutions, leading business associations, investors and government agencies in the U.S. over the past year on ways to better integrate ESG data into financial reporting.  Over the next 10 years, the GRI will be working with several other organizations to develop an integrated reporting framework.

Wallace will have staff on the ground in the U.S. to provide better support to organizations who produce reports by helping to identify best practices that are tailored to U.S. organizations’ needs while still complying with the GRI guidelines. 

To celebrate this extension of the GRI in the U.S., and to provide organizational stakeholders (OS) with the opportunity to meet Wallace, events will be planned for early 2011.  Nikki McKean-Wood, OS Program Manager, will join Wallace in the new office. 

BrownFlynn is proud to be the first U.S.-certified training partner of the GRI, and is looking forward to working with Wallace and McKean-Wood.  This is an exciting time for the GRI and sustainability reporting in the U.S.

For more information please click here.