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Chris Milton

Chris Milton

Sustainability Reporting in the EU

A couple of weeks ago the EU published the 173 page report “The state of play in sustainability reporting in the European Union“. 

It really is, as Bill & Ted might say, a most excellent, triumphant and bodacious report.

Although it has no Socrates, Genghis Khan (who “enjoys Twinkies because of the excellent sugar rush”) or Napoleon (“a short dead dude”), it is thorough, comprehensive and in depth.

It’s also (unlike Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) down to earth and realistic. [Read more…] about Sustainability Reporting in the EU

Accounting for Sustainability | A Lost Jewel?

What does December 6th 2006 mean to you?  Is it that it’s the anniversary of the independence of Finland from Russia, or Eire from the UK? Or is it some event which happened on that specific date: NASA declaring that it had evidence of liquid water on the surface of Mars, or the election of Joseph Kabila as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Or is it just the day for giving presents to children: St Nicholas’ Day or Christkindl, depending upon your Christian denomination?

Or maybe, just maybe, you were one of 200 lucky people who were at St James’ Palace, attending the launch of The Prince of Wales’ “Accounting for Sustainability” (A4S).

You have to feel a little sorry for the Prince of Wales.  His heart is obviously passionate about so many things yet because of his constitutional position he can’t really follow through fully on some of his projects.

I’m not going to knife and fork the organisation’s output but the diagram above and the key elements from A4S’s 2007 report (PDF) are worth highlighting.

[Read more…] about Accounting for Sustainability | A Lost Jewel?

Planning Your CSR Content Strategy

It’s one of those big givens in life: if you’ve bought flat packed furniture, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS before you even think about picking up a screwdriver.

In fact, make sure there are instructions for understanding the instructions before you even buy that corner shelving unit which looks oh-so-lovely in the promotional picture.

And also, be prepared to count.  Count all the screws, widgets and little plastic bits in and out of their bags.  Get a ruler, so that you know exactly which ones are the 4mm and which the 4.5 mm long ones.

Finally, never EVER assemble on a carpet. EVER.  No matter how short the pile you’ll lose a bit, guaranteed.

Now that you’ve completed all those steps, you may think about getting your screwdriver.

Putting together a CSR website can be a little like putting together one of these confounded flat pack thingamabobs.

It seems so easy and the standards are pretty clear.  But in the end it can be soooo fiddly and time consuming (not to mention frustrating!) that you have an epiphany about why professional services exist in the first place.

One such professional service is iCrossing, one of the world’s largest digital marketing agencies and part of the Hearst Corporation.  Their UK offices have published an ebook titled ‘How to plan a content strategy’ and it may be worth taking note of. [Read more…] about Planning Your CSR Content Strategy

Measurement without Telling Anyone – Germany | CSR Around the World

Germany is often cast as the spiritual home of the Green movement in Europe, if not the world.  This is because it’s where the term ‘Green’ first entered common parlance as the name of the West German political party founded in the late 1970s: Die Grünen.

The vast industrial behemoth that is Germany seems an unlikely birthplace for what is now a worldwide political and social movement.  Based on the country’s huge coal and iron deposits a massive manufacturing base has grown up.  Today its exports are worth over $800 billion, of which nearly 30% comes from vehicles and industrial and electrical equipment.

However, it’s precisely this manufacturing base which has ensured green issues became embedded into everyday German life.  Concerns about the management of waste has made Germany one of the foremost proponents of recycling and has led the field in Europe for some time ever since the EU’s Waste Directive was introduced in 1975.

To put this into context, in the UK the amount of household waste recycled has risen from 11% to just over 15% in the last 10 years.  In Germany it’s boomed, going from an already impressive 46% to over 75% in the same period.

Because of this ingrained green-ness you may think that Germany has a natural predilection for CSR, and you would be right.  Sort of. [Read more…] about Measurement without Telling Anyone – Germany | CSR Around the World

Automated web reporting | Changing the nature of CSR

So GRI 3.1 has been released.  I’ve been so excited by this development it’s taken me a couple of weeks to get around to actually looking at what the changes are.  Yep, that excited.

Actually, it’s a bit more than that.  a) I was busy on other things, and b) there are other far more qualified people who will have far more interesting things to say about GRI 3.1.

However, while reading through the changes I was struck once again by how simple it should be for large corporates to gather these statistics, and how easy it should be to publish these statistics in real time on the web.

Why this doesn’t happen yet remains a mystery to me, but then again I’ve always looked at how technically feasible something is rather than the politics which is required to get it to happen. [Read more…] about Automated web reporting | Changing the nature of CSR

Shell and Oracle : Sustainability’s Ashoka Chakra

It should have been the major news story of the decade, but it was buried.

This is partially because there was a lot of embarrassed coughing by all sides involved (meaning no one really wanted to publicise the event); but it’s also because your everyday business journalist hasn’t got a clue about sustainability and doesn’t understand the impact the event has upon the business world.

Which event is this, you ask?

Why, Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) being removed from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).

This was a seismic event in the world of corporate sustainability practices and reporting, and was followed up by Oracle being removed from the FTSE4Good.

Shell have been attacked on all sides because of their environmental and human rights record in Nigeria.  They’ve refuted many of the allegations and have sought to make good where evidence of corporate malfeasance is irrefutable.

What’s more their transparency on various sustainability indices has for a long time been of a leading nature, and their online interactive charts have often been cited as an example for others to follow second to none.

Yet despite all this the DJSI decided the company’s sins in Nigeria were too great and threw the company out in August last year.

This led to a rather difficult impasse within the company’s governance.  Shell’s remuneration committee had promised its executives bonuses linked to the company’s performance within the DJSI.  Yet, now the company is no longer a member of the DJSI … this means no bonus, right?

[Read more…] about Shell and Oracle : Sustainability’s Ashoka Chakra