by Marc Bernhardt, Partner at Invenio Rocks.
Sustainability is becoming one of the most used and misused words in today’s world. No corporation or organization can operate without some mention of their sustainable efforts. However, there are some practical problems along the path to sustainability. For the sake of this article, we have excluded corporations that are misusing sustainability to simply greenwash and turn our attention to entities which are genuinely trying to inject sustainability in their operations. The challenge starts with all the different standards and guidelines that exist. We will in a future article attempt to shed light and clarity behind the myriad of guidelines and metrics that constitute -CDP, GRI, SDG, SASB, IIRE etc.
Every Company is different
At Invenio we recognize that every company is different and CSR in general, and specifically as far as CSR-reporting is concerned, must have an element of customization. CSR programs are driven by diverse factors including the company’s context and environment (industry, geography, market position, workforce, etc.) that it operates in. To use the same type of CSR-program-for-all is neither practical nor logical. For example, a manufacturing company will have more opportunities to reduce its environmental impact compared to a service company which will probably find fewer issues, but in turn, will have many more social impacts to manage. Another difference will arise by the geographic location. The need to reduce the CO2 footprint in Australia even for a non-producing retailer is much larger than for a similar retailer in Switzerland, because Australia uses predominantly coal to produce its energy.
How can we help?
At Invenio, we therefore will first ask a lot of questions to understand your business. Then we will proceed to take stock of your current CSR-programs and uncover gaps, align the different programs and optimize the entire process. The goal is to build a robust and efficient CSR-program which includes a meaningful reporting that helps management and staff make more informed decisions.