mean better corporate results – expert
Canadian
companies are producing some good environmental and sustainability reports, but
have yet to become world leaders in this field. But, coming from a country with
a good track record on environmental and social justice, the companies have an
opportunity to improve their reporting, and that will help their triple bottom
line.
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John Elkington |
This was one
of the key messages from a historic summit on Corporate Environmental and
Sustainability Reporting held May 18, 2001 in Toronto. The meeting, organized by
the Sustainability Reporting Program and the Schulich
School of Business at York University, drew 76 people from Canada and
abroad, including those responsible for reporting in some of the biggest corporations.
John
Elkington, an international pioneer of green business strategy and
chairman of the world-renowned think tank SustainAbility,
said that good reporting is essential for the effective management of pressing
environmental and social challenges such as global climate change and social
exclusion. He said no country has yet demonstrated integrated reporting at the
government and corporate levels.
Companies
that are effective in communicating their environmental and sustainability
performance will have a competitive edge.
These were
messages echoed by other speakers at the meeting, including David McGuinty, head
of the National Round Table on the Environment and the
Economy, Alan Willis, a Canadian accountant involved in the Global
Reporting Initiative, and others from corporations, and accounting and
management companies.
The conference was sponsored by three Federal Government departments, Industry Canada, Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada; the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy; and two of the ‘big 5’ accounting firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte and Touche.
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