Environmental Leader

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has announced the winners of the Readers’ Choice Awards for sustainability reporting The winning reports, as selected by readers in eight categories, were as follows:

• Best Report: All Stakeholder Groups — Petrobras (Brazil)
• Best Report: Civil Society — Petrobras (Brazil)
• Best Report: Media — Gas Natural SDG (Spain)
• Best Report: Financial Markets — ABN Amro India (India)
• Best Report: Employees — ITC (India)
• Best Report: Non-Business Organization — Fundacion Emprendimientos Rurales Los Grobo (Argentina)
• Best Report: Not-so-big Business — Frigoglass (Greece)
• Best Report: Non-OECD Company — TGC-5 (Russia)

GRI also launched the first global survey (PDF) on exploring the views and wants of readers and non-readers of sustainability reports. The “Count Me In” survey, designed by KPMG and SustainAbility, investigates the impact sustainability reporting has on the public perception of companies, and direction sustainability reporting is headed.

Not surprisingly, key findings include:

• Publishing a sustainability report positively impacts readers’ perceptions of a company;
• Readers want to see a stronger role for stakeholders in reporting;
• Readers predict an end to sustainability reports because they want all information related to sustainability fully integrated into annual reports; and
• Readers agree that reporting guidelines improve sustainability reports, which, in turn, helps build trust.

As previously reported, the bottom line is that more and more companies realize they must attach a financial value to the environmentally responsible initiatives that undertake.

Advertisers

Benchmark Your Company's Sustainability Goals

Custom research and advice on corporate sustainability and clean tech >>