Bloomberg and Dow Top Rankings of GRI Application

Dow Chemical scored highest among Fortune 100 companies when it comes to applying the Global Reporting Initiative’s guidelines for sustainability reporting, according to a study by the iCompli division of BPA Worldwide and IRAS. Bloomberg topped the list of media sector companies.

The report — Applying GRI Guidelines for Effective Reporting: A Review of Global Media Companies’ CR Reports — is an analysis of top US and international companies’ annual reports to identify key corporate responsibility reporting trends. The study focuses on global media sector companies that issue corporate sustainability reports, and compares the level of reporting in the media sector against the larger universe of Fortune 100 companies issuing corporate sustainability reports.

The top media sector companies include: Bloomberg (US), Grupo Antena 3 (Spain), Publicis Group (France), Axel Springer (Germany), Mediaset (Spain), Media Prima (Malaysia), TC Transcontinental (Canada), Reel Elsevier (UK) and Lagardiere (France).

The top Fortune 100 companies in GRI compliance include: Dow Chemical, Johnson Controls, UPS, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, IBM, Hess, Dupont and Dell, all headquartered in the US.

Although the number of companies issuing corporate responsibility reports continues to grow, and along with it the number of companies using the GRI Guidelines, the research also found that nearly 26 percent of companies in the survey that issued corporate responsibility reports did not include any of the GRI environmental reporting indicators.

The report will be formally presented at a sustainability reporting reception hosted by BPA on April 23 at the Hearst Tower in New York City. Attendees can register here.

In other GRI news, Sustainable Brands has announced a partnership with Global Reporting Initiative’s Focal Point USA for its G4 Guidelines release in North America. GRI is preparing an updated version of its reporting guidelines, known as G4.

The North American G4 Masters Class Series will make its debut as the official “Local Launch of G4” during the Sustainable Brands 2013 conference on June 3 in San Diego, Calif. The class series aims to educate companies and other stakeholders about the G4 guidelines.

Companies in the US are less likely to obtain third-party assurance than their global peers, according to a report published earlier this week by the Global Reporting Initiative. The study found in the US, only 10 percent (26 out of 269 reporters) of GRI framework sustainability reports obtained external assurance in 2011 compared to the international percentage, which is 38 percent.