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December 31, 2001
Consulting Firm Promotes Online Reporting of Triple Bottom Line
by William Baue
SustainAbility, a British research and consultancy firm, recently released a report on how
companies, their stakeholders and customers use the Internet to communicate about sustainable
development.
SocialFunds.com --
While most people now accept the premise that the Internet is changing the world, fewer people
understand the dynamics of how this transformation is taking place. SustainAbility, a London- and New York-based consulting
firm, recently released a report on the mechanics of how companies use, and do not use, the World
Wide Web to advance sustainable development initiatives.
 The report, entitled "Virtual Sustainability: Using the
Internet to Implement the Triple Bottom Line," documents examples of how companies communicate
their social and environmental performance online. The triple bottom line refers to the economic,
environmental and social value companies add to, and detract from, society.
While some
companies have incorporated online sustainability reporting strategies successfully, many companies
have yet to exploit the Web's potential for this purpose. The report offers numerous suggestions
on how companies can improve their online efforts.
The report is part of the "Engaging
Stakeholders" series, a collaborative project launched in 1994 by SustainAbility and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). "Virtual
Sustainability" picks up where "The Internet Reporting Report," the previous study in the series,
left off in 1999. The earlier report focused on web-based corporate reporting on sustainability,
while the new study broadens its scope to include stakeholder and consumer engagement in the
sustainability dialogue. Online orders for the new report testify to its popularity.
"The sales so far have been higher than in the first weeks of our other reports, which shows
that there is a need out there [for this type of study]," said SustainAbility Senior Adviser Oliver
Dudok van Heel. "And of course more and more companies today are really moving toward Web-based
corporate reporting, so it's a very timely report in that sense," he continued.
Remaining
true to the subject of the report, SustainAbilty published the entire document exclusively online.
A triangle of icons allows for navigation to the report's three main sections. "The Reporting Web"
presents issues and best practice examples of corporate sustainability reporting. "The Stakeholder
Web" discusses how the web has transformed relationships between businesses and their stakeholders.
And "The Wider Web" addresses the larger implications of web-based reporting, such as online
activism.
"A variety of stakeholders, whether they're activist organizations or whether
they're investors, use the Web in a very intelligent way . . . to gather a lot of their information
and to organize themselves," Mr. van Heel stated. "Business has been very slow responding to that
. . . placing them in a situation of disadvantage, which they need to rectify--not only to improve
the quality of the information that they put out there, but also to improve the level of engagement
they do with other stakeholders."
In order to identify the availability of information on
sustainable development, SustainAbility researchers conducted a "navigation survey" of corporate
web-sites. Most of the companies examined, all of which use Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
standards, mentioned sustainability reporting on their homepage. However, most of these companies
buried their sustainability reporting beneath several levels of navigation from the homepage,
obscuring the transparency of this information.
For example, visitors to the Intel (ticker: INTC) website must navigate through
three levels, first clicking on "Investor Relations," and then on "Social Responsibility," before
accessing information on the company's sustainability reporting. SustainAbility cites BASF, BC Hydro, and Novartis (NVS) as best practice examples. Their information on
sustainability is accessible via menu options visible throughout their sites.
"As a body
of research, and as a learning tool, we believe that this report is unique. We also hope--and
believe--that the web-site will continue to evolve as expectations and state-of-the-art reporting
evolve," wrote Jacqueline Aloisi de Larderel, Director of UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry
and Economics, in the report's Foreword. "Virtual Sustainability shows us that there is real (and
growing) potential for increased dialogue and understanding through Internet connectivity."
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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