The Way Forward

Reporting on these, or very similar, process and performance standards will almost certainly become routine for companies during this decade . Acceptance and recognition of this new social and environmental reporting framework, however, is very much dependent upon making the process both effective and affordable.

SustainAbility, the research and consultancy group , provides some worthwhile advice to companies contemplating a reporting program:

• Bust Silos. CSR requires thinking trans-functionally: breaking down those walls created to compartmentalise the daily tasks of the corporation. Start with a reporting kick-off meeting which includes all of those who are contributing perspective, stories or data to the CSR report. Then converse constantly, most often with those with whom you are most likely to disagree .

• Define What Is Relevant. Determine early on what issues really matter ” to the corporation and to its stakeholders ” and focus efforts on them. Then advise your readers why you chose not to go into detail on the rest.

• Go Beyond Reporting Results or Lauding Company Achievements. It s not just about past results. Readers want confidence that your company (a) knows where it is going, (b) has systems and processes in place to get there, and (c) understands the full impacts of its processes and products.

• Build Processes to Link Reporting to Business Decision-Making. Inevitably the process of creating a CSR report will uncover unforeseen risks and hidden opportunities. Don t let them go unaddressed. Use the report as a springboard to improvement, not as a final resting place for valuable information. ^{[19 ]}

Will this type of nonfinancial reporting truly become the norm in American companies? The GRI is not alone in believing that it will.

Yes, I do believe that it will soon be standardized, concludes John Brookes. I believe it will increasingly become normal for publicly held companies to at least make declarations and reports and have some sort of independent attestation of the validity of the data presented . . . ^{[20 ]}

Finally, if nonfinancial reporting and the GRI are not yet universally accepted, it is worth considering just how rapidly the triple-bottom-line rise to prominence has been.

I believe that GRI and CERES and a lot of the other efforts going on out there to focus companies on reporting . . . have been a fantastic effort, and very successful, says Nicholas Eisenberger, CEO of Ecos Technologies. If you were to use as a benchmark ˜What has been the increase in reporting over time?, we have gone from 3 public companies [ reporting] in 1992, to 3000 in 2003. I say that is a success. ^{[21 ]}

Allen White agrees. This is very new stuff, he says. If you rewind the tape of history and ask how, beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, the business world received financial accounting standards ” the balance sheet, the profit and loss, the income statement, the concepts of depreciation and amortization ” you would have witnessed the same type of confusion that one sees today in CSR standards. And because most CSR standards are so young ” in the range of 5 years old ” it points to the need to proceed with both care and optimism .

All of us in the CSR community ” the standards creators , standards users and their stakeholders ” must be patient and take the long view of this new and critically important dimension of accountability, he concludes. ^{[22 ]}

^{[19 ]} Alison Maitland, ibid.

^{[20 ]} The CSR Reporting Process ” Critical Success Factors, SustainAbility Web site at www.sustainability.com/services/tools-CSR-reporting-process.asp.

^{[21 ]} Interview, August 15, 2003.

^{[22 ]} Interview, August 25, 2003.