Csr Report Review | FabianPattberg.com

After spending some time over the past few months discussing other Sustainability topics I would now like to add another review of a Sustainability Report. Todays review will be on the Proctor & Gamble 2008 Sustainability Report.
This is the third Sustainability report review I have done so far. Here is the link to all the reviews and an introduction to how I review Sustainability reports.

Titled ‘Designed to innovate…sustainably’ is Proctor & Gamble’s 10th Sustainability Report was published roughly 2 months ago. I will assess the report with the help of my rating system.

But here are some overall comments on the Website and the Report itself before I will move on to the rating system.

General Comments

Placement on the overall pg.com website
The sustainability section of the website is very hard to find through the navigation (after looking around for a while I found it in the Company section). I also think that the navigation on the left side is a little awkward and the content is really all over the place in most cases.
The Sustainability Report itself does not seem to be part of the actual pg.com website. It seems to be a separate microsite. This is not a good positioning in my opinion. A company should provide a clear navigation for the user to find what they are looking for. But you are not able to find the term „innovating sustainability“ anywhere on the website. This is misleading and not easy for anyone looking the Sustainability Report.

Good feature – The Sustainability Report Front Page
The large banner is a nice feature and the ability to scroll over links is very use friendly. Interesting structure with Defining, Investing, Managing, Delivering and Leading. I like the approach.

Nice Idea -Strategy and Goals
I like the strategy and goal section. Really useful to see the progress against their targets.

A Good Way to present the P&G Goals – The Report Card
I also like the idea of a Sustainability report card. This is very useful for the user to get an overview of the P&G Sustainability Goals.

So here we with a more detailed report review on the basis of this rating system. I started this rating system to make reports more comparable.

Fabians Sustainability Points System

Reporting Period – 10/10
They report annually. Full marks.

Topics & Clarity – 7/10 points
Well I think they have chosen their topics very well in order to make their enormous product lines somehow fit into topical areas. But the navigation lets it down as it is hard to find what you are looking for right away. Everything seems to be hidden away somehow. Starting with the fact that the user needs to click on “Company” first and then on “Our Commitment” to get to the relevant sustainability pages.

Reporting Of The Material Issues – 8/10 points
This is done in a good and satisfactory way. Well done.

Reporting On Performance Indicators? – 3/10 points
Well there is some sort of a performance indicator section. And there is the GRI Performance Indicator section. But this is by no means sufficient information for a global company as important as P&G. A lot more could be done there.

Reporting According To The GRI G3? – 4/10 points
P&G only provide information about the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in the PDF Sustainability Report document but not on the website. This is not best practice and does no provide sufficient access to interesting GRI related data for the users.

Reference To Other Parts Of Their Website – 5/10 points
P&G could do more with linking the other parts of the PG.com website and connect these parts more with the content of the Sustainability Report. This has been done in some places but not enough in my opinion.

Which Communication Tools Are They Using? – 4/10 points
Not many. There are some parts of the website with a good visualization and random interactivity tools. But P&G could do a lot more in terms of interactivity.

CSR Report Contact: An Actual Contact person or Just An Email Address? – 3/10 points
Here P&G is only providing an email address: sustainrep.im@pg.com This is not enough for one of the largest firms in the world. An stakeholder section with an easy and more direct way to contact P&G would be the ideal solution.

Do They Provide Information What They May Have Omitted? – 2/10 points
No. But they at least they report on how they are doing on some of their targets. That is a start.

Assurance: Has The CSR Review been Assured By An External Auditor? – 1/10 points
P&G have decided to not have the report and its content assured. No external verifier and no checks by the GRI. This is not best practice and devalues the report to a better marketing tool. But they are stating that this is their view. That is why they get one point out of ten here.

Total points for the Proctor & Gamble 2008 Sustainability Report: 47/100 points

Overall Opinion: This report including the website have some good and interesting sides to it but this is does not make this report a good report. I am of the opinion that this report is below average in terms of the sustainability information provided, stakeholder communication tools and the decision to not seek external assurance for their content and data. This on its own devaluates this good effort to nothing more then a marketing tool, unfortunately.

This is the first review of a CSR report and I will follow a clear format every time. I will have a headline with the key factor that is being reviewed followed by the text and a 1 out 10 points rating. At the moment I have 10 review points in total. This review is not intended to be academic or systematic but rather a good look into the topics and issues that matter for you as the reader and stakeholder. In the end every individual has a different opinion. This is mine.

I am also following one important premise: Keep it short and simple.

So here we go.

The 2007/2008 CSR Report of AllianceBoots – a large is a leading international pharmacy-led health and beauty group in the UK.
CSR Report URL: AllianceBoots CSR Report 2007/2008

Reporting Period
10/10
Alliance Boots reports annually. This is best practice. Well done.

Topics & Clarity
7/10 points
The categorization of the four areas of reporting in: Marketplace, Environment, Workplace and Community is very rigid and really not very innovative. This would need to be changed to provide more stakeholder focused information in my opinion. Best practice shows that this is not the ideal way of structuring a CSR report.
But this is a globally accepted approach to categorize your activities in this manner. Not the best choice in my opinion but still worth 7 out of 10 as they are showing that they approach CSR in a structured fashion.

Reporting Of The Material Issues
5/10 points
They have pretty much included all material issues in their business but the discussion is not extensive enough to give full marks. Addressing all the topics is one thing. Discussing them in an appropriate way is another.

Reporting Of Performance Indicators
4/10 points
Alliance Boots has chosen to report on their performance from last year to this. This is a shame as they should thrive for reporting that includes previous years as well. This would have given the user a better indication how they are doing in the long run. In terms of where the performance is reporting is Alliance Boots okay but not really special. They have a special performance section in the navigation and a 2007/08 in every category. But this is not useful in my opinion. Especially as the seperate performance section is not extensive enough to provide appropriate insides in their performance.

Reporting According To The GRI G3
8/10
Very extensive and well presented. This is best practice. The only thing that is missing are the comments. This would have given us more insights.

Reference To Other Parts Of Their Website
5/10
The important thing here is to provide further links inside the specific CSR sections to other places on the corporate website. This is not the case with this report. 5 points because this is a micro site within the corporate website which is a start to linking it within the website.

Which Communication Tools Are They Using?
2/10
Another weak point in my opinion. They are not using anything in terms of communication tools. Not even a feedback page. 2 points for having a micro site and not just an integration in their corporate website.

CSR Report Contact: An Actual Contact person or Just An Email Address?
0/10
Just a anonymous email. Not a good idea.

Do They Provide Information What They May Have Omitted?
0/10
I have not seen anything stating that they might have omitted something. I think this is a must

Assurance: Has The CSR Report been Assured By An External Auditor?
0/10
No assurance. This is not good. Their stakeholders will ask themselves as a consequence: How credible is this report? Are they telling us the truth?

Total points for the AllianceBoots 2007/2008 CSR Report:

41/100

Overall Opinion: The report is not bad but not good either. Just below average. And when we take a look at the reports of AllianceBoots over the previous years (CSR Report 2006) then we need to ask them what their intention with this latest report is. They are definitely taking a step back with this report in my opinion.

Fabian Pattberg

Tag Archives - csr report review