REPORTING AND FINANCE

Sustainability is a global issue and leadership is coming from around the world in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility, Integrated Reporting, Regulations, and Governance. We capture some of the relevant and important case studies, documents and tools in this evolving arena.

Case Studies and White Papers

Mobilizing Private Capital for Public Good
This report sets out seven key actions that Canada needs to undertake, in parallel, to mobilize new sources of capital, create an enabling tax and regulatory environment, and build a pipeline of investment-ready social enterprises.

ISSP Special Report Sustainable Professional Skills
This report identifies the critical competencies necessary to perform the job duties of a sustainability coordinator or sustainability consultant.

CSR: An Implementation Guide for Canadian Business
This guide is a primer on corporate social responsibility. As such, it contains information on how to assess the effects of business activities on others, develop and implement a corporate social responsibility strategy and commitments, and measure, evaluate and report on performance and engage with stakeholders.

Walmart Canada: Social Responsibility Report
This Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report takes an in-depth look at the environmental, social and economic impact of Walmart Canada and the actions taken to meet thier CSR commitments during our fiscal year from February 1st 2009 to January 31st 2010.

Readings

The One Report: Combining Financial and CSR Reports
The International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC), in partnership with GRI, is working to create a globally accepted framework for bringing together financial, social, environmental and governance information.

Opportunities and Obstacles for Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in Developing Countries
Because of the potential societal benefits associated with CSR reporting, the World Bank is now evaluating whether encouraging CSR reporting might be of interest and benefit to developing country governments. If sufficient data were avail- able, it is possible that developing countries could leverage the CSR achievements of local firms to attract investment and export opportunities, and also use CSR reporting of multinational corporations to support local economic development efforts. The extent to which a market exists for this information and how investors and manufacturers respond to this information requires further study. Similarly, attempts to aggregate firm level data on CSR performance for use at a national or international level are still quite new.

Future Expectations of Corporate Environmental Performance
This report offers a “point in time”’ assessment of the ecosystem services tools domain as well as potential interface points with existing corporate governance, strategy, and operations decision-making processes. The report should be understood as a snapshot, as many tools are still in development, and corporate applications remain limited, particularly in terms of publicly available, independent assessments of individual tools’ added value within corporate settings. The coming years will deepen insights.

Reinventing the Annual Report
The amount of detail and the level of complexity in the financial section have grown considerably in response to the increasing onslaught of accounting rules and regulations. What’s more, since going green is now red-hot, a growing number of companies — especially in Europe and Japan — are also starting to issue corporate social responsibility (CSR) or sustainability reports. Sometimes these are mailed with the annual report, but more often they have to be ordered separately or downloaded from the company’s Web site, and the two reports have little to do with each other. This is a huge problem. A sustainable society requires that all companies be committed to sustainable strategies.

Guide to the Business Case & Benefits of Sustainability Purchasing
This Guide helps organizations understand the triple bottom line benefits (financial, social and environmental) and costs of sustainability purchasing.

Walmart Global Sustainability Report
This Global Sustainability Report – 2010 Progress Update is designed to demonstrate Wal-Mart’s continued progress toward key initiatives and goals, and provide a snapshot of new endeavors launched between February 1, 2009 and January 31, 2010. As a global company, this progress update highlights the performance of all our international markets, as well as the efforts taking place throughout our supply chain.

CSA Environmental Reporting
This notice is to provide guidance to reporting issuers (other than investment funds) on existing continuous disclosure (CD) requirements relating to environmental matters under securities legislation.

Tools

CSR Europe’s Toolbox
CSR Europe’s Toolbox includes information, ideas and advice designed to help companies and their stakeholders address socio-economic and environmental challenges and integrate corporate social responsibility (CSR) into mainstream business practice. The Toolbox is based on the first results of the CSR Laboratories, cross-sectoral business-stakeholder cooperation projects under the umbrella of the European Alliance for CSR. Subjects include Sustainability Production and Consumption, Communication and Transparency, (R)Evolutionary Business Models, Human Capital and Integrated Workplaces.

CSR Hub Sustainability Ratings
Use ratings to see how company CSR performance and brand values are viewed by expert environmental, social and governance (ESG) raters. CSRHUB aggregates 80+ sources of CSR data to provide a simple, consistent rating. Register to customize ratings to match your social values, or set up a profile for your foundation, charity, or social network group. Inform others about the social performance of thousands of companies. Encourage the companies you track to behave responsibly and improve their sustainability.

Global Water Tool
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development offers this tool for companies and organizations to map their water use and assess risks relative to their global operations and supply chains.

The Dependence and Impact Assessment Tool
This tool from the World Resources Institute guides managers through the five dependence and impact questions for each ecosystem service and automatically develops a visual summary of the results.

Eco-efficiency Learning Module
This module by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development contains a test to determine eco-efficiency. The tool was developed by Industry Canada in Productivity Through Eco-Efficiency, Three Steps to Eco-Efficiency.

Global Water Tool
This tool from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development is free for companies and organizations to map their water use and assess risks relative to their global operations and supply chains.

Sustainable Forest Finance Toolkit
Tools on guidance for assessing prospective forestry sector clients on sustainability issues.