Title: Task 13: Sustainable reporting
Course: Corporate Social Responsibility online > Section: Part 4: Evaluating CSR impact

/1 hour/

Sustainable reporting requires that a firm inform on specific aspects of the business, regardless of whether this information is positive or not. The paradigm of objectivity and transparency requires that a firm show both  positive and negative changes that occur in a given period.

The idea behind sustainable reporting is also that a firms shows how it contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Please go to the Sustainability Disclosure Database https://database.globalreporting.org/search/ and follow the instructions:

In the database, look for at least one brand* that you like or that you are a customer of. Explain what brands you looked for and if you could find the sustainability reports published by them.

  1. Have you found a report published by the company you looked for? Specify how often this brand publishes sustainability reports. Do you think it is done sufficiently , or should the brand publish reports more frequently? Explore the latest report. Can you find any information that is interesting for you as a customer? Can you find any interesting or surprising information in the report ? After reading this report, are you more/less or equally likely to be a customer of this company? Explain why.
  2. You cannot find a report from your favorite brand? Please look for another brand . When you have found one, please continue with the questions from [1].
  3. If you have looked through the base and you still cannot find any brands that you like, please use the example of Nike or any other famous brand that you know, and continue with the task described in [1].

Please look once again at the brand's sustainability report (from the previous task) and:

  1. Describe 3 initiatives (one social, one environmental and one economy directed) that this firm describes in the report.
  2. Explain what kind of indicators this firm uses to monitor the impact in a given field.
  3. Are these initiatives in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? (Check the SDGs on https://sdgcompass.org/sdgs/ and information about indicators at the https://sdgcompass.org/business-indicators/ )
  4. If the chosen initiative is in line with the SDGs, explain how it matches up with them (please use the above link to show specific indicators). If this initiative is in conflict with any of the SDGs, explain why and look for at least one initiative from Nike that is aligned with SDGs. Describe also the specific indicators for progress monitoring. Use the Nike's website: https://purpose.nike.com/sustainable-development-goals-sdgs

Indicate at least one aspect, where the firm admits that their development has been going in the wrong direction (look for an aspect with unfavorable score as compared to the settled goals or the previous reporting year). Please explain how you can interpret this 'failure'. Does the firm explain it in the report?

      - If you cannot find any unfavorable scores in the report you've choosen, look for some in the Nike's (FY2020) report, https://purpose.nike.com/fy19-nike-impact-report

Write your answers to all the above questions in ca. 800-1000 words.

* In the database, you can mostly find big multinational brands from many different sectors, but you can also look for an organization from you region (using the available search tools).