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Reporting corporate responsibility:

2007 Corporate Responsibility Index

by Julia Lipton

May 2008 saw the completion of the fifth Corporate Responsibility Index (CRI) in Australia and New Zealand. Forty companies participated in the project, representing almost a million employees and more than AU$600 billion in revenue, writes Julia Lipton.

The Corporate Responsibility Index (CRI) is a strategic business tool, ensuring a systematic approach to managing, measuring and reporting on the various impacts that companies have on society and the environment. Designed by UK charity Business in the Community, St James Ethics Centre manages the CRI in Australia and New Zealand. The process includes online, self-assessment via a survey that is then validated by an external auditor – Ernst & Young. Results were published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in May 2008.

The thirty-four companies participating in the full 2007 Index achieved an average overall score of 78.3% reflecting a 5% decrease on the 2006 average of 83.3%. The significant strengthening of the Index, including the re-weighting of disclosure from 5% to 1%, coupled with the fact that ten companies entered the Index privately, may have contributed to the decrease in scores.

Business in the Community has introduced a number of changes to the 2007 Index in keeping with its commitment to continuous improvement and ensuring that participating companies aspire to best practice. For this reason, this year’s results cannot be directly benchmarked with those of last year.

A new Marketplace section was launched and a third Workplace Module is now available.

Companies can now choose from four flexible entry options – Community, Environment and/or Workplace modules or the full Private Benchmark. The flexible entry options have proven to be effective in allowing companies to transition to the full public Index.

Participating for the first time in the Index, Ergon Energy Acting Chief Executive Ian McLeod said:

The process challenged us to not only have the policies and strategies and resulting programs, but be able to measure, analyse and report on the effectiveness of them. Opportunities for improvement were revealed, but that’s what we wanted – improvement is the focus of our involvement.

Best performance of Australian Companies was achieved by Energy Australia. Speaking of the achievement, Managing Director George Maltabarow said:

The hallmark of excellent performance by a company is not just the results it achieves, but how it achieves them. The CRI is our independent measure of how we’re going about providing support to our community and minimising our environmental footprint. It pushes us to improve our performance every year.

To date, sixty-three companies have used the Index in Australia and New Zealand. Of these, nine companies have participated in all of its five iterations.

Those companies who have been early adopters in corporate responsibility with consistently high scores on the CRI have been invited to join the newly established CRI Leaders’ Network. The Network will collaborate with St James Ethics Centre in driving the uptake of responsible business practice across Australia.

According to Dr Simon Longstaff, Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre:

For such companies, continued leadership may require something more than completing the CRI on an annual basis. The CRI Leaders’ Network will form a vibrant laboratory within which a series of innovative developments have begun.

The 2007 Index saw a broadening of sector engagement – Financials (7), Energy & Utilities (6), Materials (6), Consumer Goods & Services (5), Support Services & Telecommunications (5), Food & Beverage (4), Accountants & Consultants (3), Healthcare (1), Real Estate (1), Media & Entertainment (1), Software & Computer Services (1).

St James Ethics Centre would like to congratulate all of the companies who have submitted themselves to this rigorous, voluntary examination of their corporate responsibility practices and their commitment to improve.

Full results of the 2007 Corporate Responsibility Index are available at www.corporate-responsibility.com.au.

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