Page 190 - Performance Leadership

Chapter 10 The Social Role of Organizations • 179

regulations, has corporate philanthropy policies, and focuses on prod-
uct safety.
Further, the indexes track corporate governance issues, such as board
composition, policies on ethical behavior, and processes for risk and
crisis management. As FTSE (Financial Times and the London Stock
Exchange) states, “A broad range of stakeholders are challenging the
corporate sector to take more responsibility for the ethical, environ-
mental, and social impacts of their business operations. These stake-
holders range from local communities to shareholders, customers,
company employees, and even business partners. As companies respond
to these challenges, many are finding that good corporate responsibil-
ity performance mitigates risks and brings opportunities that can have
a positive impact on a range of key measures of business success: share-
holder value, revenue, operational efficiency, customer attraction and
retention, competitiveness, brand value and innovation.”

Sustainability Reporting

Corporations today are being evaluated in almost every aspect of their
performance. They are facing growing pressures to track and disclose
nonfinancial metrics as well as financial metrics. A more environ-
mentally and socially aware culture—a global community of stake-
holders and average citizens—are demanding to know the impact a
company has on the environment, the regions it operates in and serves,
and its employees, among other things.
External reporting on social and environmental issues is not new.
Particularly in the mining and manufacturing industry, health, safety,
and environmental reporting has been required for many years. Today,
integrated external reporting on economic, environmental, and social
issues is called sustainability reporting (SR). With over 2,000 organi-
zations using it, the leading framework for SR comes from the Global
21
Reporting Initiative (GRI). The GRI has representatives from busi-
ness, accountancy, investment, environmental, human rights, research,
and labor organizations from around the world. Started in 1997, the
GRI serves as an official collaborating center of the United Nations
Environment Programme. External reporting is either something we’re
forced to do, or it is something we choose to do, or embrace. If external