The document summarizes a sustainability reporting conference held in St. Louis in 2012. Over 200 delegates from North America and other countries discussed trends in sustainability reporting, how reporting adds business value, stakeholder engagement, and the continuous improvement of reporting. Key topics included the growth of reporting in the US and globally, how reporting can improve performance and competitiveness, and the role of frameworks like GRI in standardizing reporting.

1. Executive Summary
St. Louis Conference 2012
Making Sustainability Count:
Tracking Progress, Driving Opportunity
May 22–23, 2012 | St. Louis
This event was organized by
GRI’s Focal Point USA and its
Strategic Partners:

2. About the Global ­
Reporting Initiative (GRI)
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) produces a comprehensive
Sustainability Reporting Framework that is widely used around the
world, to enable greater organizational transparency. The Framework,
including the Reporting Guidelines, sets out the Principles and Indicators
organizations can use to report their economic, environmental, and social
performance. GRI is committed to continuously improving and increasing
the use of the Guidelines, which are freely available to the public.
GRI, a multi-stakeholder foundation, was set up in the US in 1997 by
CERES and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). In 2002, GRI
moved its central office to Amsterdam, where the Secretariat is currently
located. GRI has regional ‘Focal Points’ in Australia, Brazil, China, India and
the USA, and a worldwide network of 30,000 people.
Website: www.globalreporting.org
About GRI’s Focal Point USA
GRI established its Focal Point USA in 2010. The objective of the Focal
Point is to improve the uptake, usefulness, consistency and quality
of sustainability reporting, while enabling stakeholders in the US
to participate more actively in the development of the global GRI
Sustainability Reporting Framework.
Since the launch of the Focal Point USA at the New York Stock Exchange
in January 2011, reporting in the US has grown in quantity and quality, as
has the participation of US stakeholders in global developments.
A group of companies leading the growth of reporting in their respective
industries support Focal Point USA: The Sector Leaders. For more
information about the program, please contact the Focal Point team at
griusa@globalreporting.org.
RCGA
The St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association (RCGA) connects
business and civic communities in the 16-county, bi-state region.
Whether supporting public policy and infrastructure initiatives, or
attracting new jobs, capital and talent - the RCGA is leading the way
to a Greater St. Louis.
SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY
The Mission of Saint Louis University is the pursuit of truth for the
greater glory of God and for the service of humanity. The University
seeks excellence in the fulfillment of its corporate purposes of teaching,
research, health care and service to the community.
2 Making Sustainability Count:
Tracking Progress, Driving Opportunity

3. About the Conference
The St. Louis GRI Conference – Making Sustainability Count: Tracking
Progress, Driving Opportunity – was held by GRI’s Focal Point USA on
May 22-23, 2012. More than 200 participants – including delegates from
North America and international guests – represented business, financial
markets, legislative bodies, professional service firms, academia and the
non-profit sector.
Increasingly complex and pressing sustainability issues mean there manage their performance and impacts responsibly, and report
is a greater need than ever for effective reporting to play its part in transparently.
the transition towards a sustainable global economy. Corporations, The Conference was the largest multi-stakeholder conference in
stock exchanges, governments and other organizations are the region to date focusing on sustainability and reporting, lending
recognizing the value of integrating sustainability into core strategy broad support for the adoption by business of transparency and
and business practice, and are adjusting their reporting accordingly. accountability for sustainability issues.
The St. Louis Conference aimed to progress North America’s This document provides an account of the Conference drawn from
contribution to a sustainable global economy, where organizations the views of speakers, and discussions with participants.
IN A NUTSHELL
6 panels
High level breakfast for 20 local business leaders at the RCGA, with GRI’s Chairman
1 CONFERENCE > 200+ delegates > 4 COUNTRIES: Canada, US, Mexico, The Netherlands
over 30 expert speakers
2 Master Classes – over 90 attendees at each
Growth of USA reporting – Estimated over 45% growth and still counting
The financial markets panel discussion was distributed by 3BL Media through
Reuters on. Further video materials and interviews conducted at this event are
available at: http://3blmedia.com/CSR-Profiles/Global-Reporting-Initiative
3 Making Sustainability Count:
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4. Sustainability reporting trends
Around the world, sustainability reporting continues to grow. In 2011, an estimated 5000
organizations published a sustainability report. Recent research by KPMG* shows that 95%
of the largest 250 companies in the world publish a sustainability report, up from 83% in
2008. Of these reports, 80% reference the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
Reporting is also growing in the US. The same KPMG survey shows externally assured, and that 19% of reporting organizations call their
that 83% of the largest 100 US companies reported in 2011, up from report integrated. Interestingly, the US percentages are much lower,
74% in 2008. This puts the US in ninth place out of 34 countries at 28% and 8% respectively.
surveyed, behind the UK, Japan, and Brazil, and ahead of China, India
and Russia. Furthermore, sustainability reporting is increasingly incorporating the
performance of companies’ supply chains, making transparency part
GRI’s Sustainability Disclosure Database tracks all reports GRI is of the supplier-customer dialogue. A much-highlighted US example
aware of, including – as of 2011 - non-GRI reports. To populate the of this is Microsoft’s recent announcement that all of its core suppliers
database, GRI receives information from 25 local Data Partners. For must produce a GRI-based sustainability report.
the USA, the Data Partner is Governance & Accountability Institute,
Inc. (G&A). Analysis of US reports in GRI’s database shows tremendous Also, the General Services Administration (which oversees the
momentum for sustainability reporting. majority of the US government’s procurement activities) announced
that it received GRI Certified Training to enable operations and
A few trends are clear: increasingly, sustainability reports are procurement staff to understand therelevance of sustainability
externally assured, and there is also growth in the number of performance for its own activities, as well as those of its suppliers.
companies striving to create what they consider to be an integrated
report. Analysis of the GRI-based reports in the Sustainability
Disclosure Database shows that, globally, 45% of reports are *KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2011
“I believe that sustainability reporting can indicate thought
leadership and facilitate trust between companies and stakeholders.
Market developed frameworks such as GRI are helpful to investors
because they provide for comparability and standardization, which
are critical components to meaningful analysis.”
Chad Spitler, Global Chief Operating Officer – Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment, BlackRock
“Reporting is a good way of looking in the mirror.”
David Dowell, Sr. Director Internal Audit & Quality Assurance and Chief Sustainability Officer, Novus (GRI
Organizational Stakeholder)
4 Making Sustainability Count:
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5. How does reporting add value?
Delegates and speakers said:
• Transparency drives better performance
• Reporting drives profitability
• hat matters is the sustainability strategy;
W
reporting is secondary
• Sustainability is part of core values
• he market rewards pro-active sustainability
T
management
Missouri is known as the ‘show me’ state, and it was clear that stakeholders. Competitive advantage and supply chain
the speakers and the audience at the St. Louis Conference were requirements are key business reasons
willing to show, share and learn more about the business case for to report.
sustainability reporting.
The GRI reporting process enables companies to focus their
Leaders from business, local government and the investor sustainability strategy and set goals. Tracking and analyzing
community highlighted the benefits of both sustainability and performance helps to identify opportunities and manage risks.
reporting. The report comes at the end of this cycle, enabling companies to
Companies with experience in GRI reporting, like Novus, AB share the sustainability strategy and goals; to make the data tell a
Inbev, Johnson Controls, Microsoft and Doe Run, shared how story. The financial markets panel highlighted that sustainability
the reporting process has helped them improve performance, reporting was a way to get investors positively engaged, and that
creating value for the company, the shareholders and other the market rewards pro-active sustainability management.
“Reporting drives
profitability as it helps
to identify areas for
operational improvement
within a company.”
LaRee DeFreece, Commissioner, Missouri
Environmental Improvement Energy
Resources Authority
5 Making Sustainability Count:
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6. “As a privately held
c
­ ompany we do not
have to report much
publicly, but our
customers are increasingly
demanding disclosure
on sustainability
topics. Proactively
providing this type of
information provides
us an opportunity to
differentiate ourselves.”
Sustainability
Lee Broughton, Head of Corporate
leaders
Sustainability, Enterprise Holdings
(GRI Organizational Stakeholder)
Materiality and stakeholder engagement
Delegates and speakers said:
• Your brand is really controlled by others
• Effective reporting starts or drives a focused strategy
• Materiality depends on the sector
• Materiality also differs per investment class, depending on its time horizon
• Different advocacy groups have different definitions of what is material to a company
MATERIALITY AND STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Masterclasses on these crucial in this development process, ment class. The consensus in the
reporting topics were led by GRI and different stakeholders can financial markets panel was a call
Certified Training Partners. have different ideas about what for better sector guidance in the
is material. To a large extent, GRI Framework, with relevant in-
To assess what the focus of a corporate reputation depends dicators per industry. GRI is now
company’s sustainability strategy on the ability to engage multiple working on a project to update
should be, organizations need stakeholders. sector guidance, and aims to
to define what is relevant – or publish a proposed list of mate-
material – to their operations. It For investors, materiality is rial topics for different sectors in
is vital to engage stakeholders influenced by sector and invest- May 2013.
6 Making Sustainability Count:
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7. “We created our first
report last year and
issued it internally to
engage one of most
important stakeholder
groups – our people.
We will build on this
learning process as
we continue on our
sustainability journey.”
Kristine MacPhee, Canadian
Sustainability Practice Lead,
Environmental Resources
Management (ERM)
(GRI Organizational Stakeholder and
US Sector Leaders with Eric Schneider (RCGA), Herman Mulder (Chairman of the GRI US Training Partner)
Board of Directors) and Mike Wallace (Director, GRI Focal Point USA)
The journey of continuous improvement
Delegates and speakers said:
• usiness respects what it inspects
B
• eporting becomes easier over time
R
• ou have to keep telling the story of progress, it’s a continuous investment of time
Y
and resources
• nnovative ideas and technology help drive employee engagement and data collection
I
• he ingredients of a good report: Multi-disciplinary team, time, focused strategy, and
T
critical assessment
Sustainability and reporting have moved from defense to offense: Employee engagement is a key element of a company’s
sustainability can drive innovation and help companies seize sustainability strategy, and employees are a key audience for
business opportunities, rather than just mitigate risk. sustainability reporting. To continue to drive change and improve
performance, the sustainability strategy and performance need
In his opening plenary, Herman Mulder, Chairman of the Board of to be shared regularly; the sustainability report and the reporting
Directors of GRI, highlighted the reporting process as a key driver process can help with this. Some speakers commented that going
for change in organizations. Sustainability reporting is a journey of through the reporting process improved employee satisfaction
continuous improvement. and morale within the company.
7 Making Sustainability Count:
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8. “In the last 6 months
of 2011, over 30 million
Environmental, Social and
Governance datapoints
were downloaded from the
Bloomberg database. The
environmental indicators
and the disclosure score
are the datapoints most
frequently looked at.”
Rina Levy, SG Analyst, Bloomberg
Who reads these reports?
Where individual companies are concerned, relatively
little is known about the readership of full sustainability
reports. But it is clear that the data and stories captured
in sustainability reports are used time and again in
other ways.
“Those of us working
on corporate Investment support provider MSCI tracks information about more than 2000
listed companies; their strongest focus is on risk management. The issue of which
citizenship and companies are reporting and which are not is also very visible on over 300,000
sustainability issues Bloomberg data terminals.
in companies are a The sustainability team at the New York Stock Exchange not only looks after the
horizontal function in exchange’s own sustainability strategy and reporting but also engages listed com-
panies on the topic. But disclosure is not just relevant for listed companies.
a vertical world.”
The use of performance data and stories captured through the reporting process
Steve Lippman, Director Corporate
can be used beyond the report. They can be used to engage multiple audiences,
Citizenship, Microsoft
through multiple channels. For example, social media provide an excellent oppor-
(GRI Organizational Stakeholder)
tunity to draw attention to the sustainability performance of an organization, and
to engage stakeholders and gather their feedback.
8 Making Sustainability Count:
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9. Changes in the reporting environment
In the US, sustainability reporting is voluntary. In several other countries, large companies
do have a reporting obligation. In Sweden and China, all state-owned companies have to
report. In Denmark, the largest companies have to report their sustainability performance, or
explain why if they do not. And increasingly, stock exchanges are integrating sustainability
or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosure into their listing requirements –
examples include the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa, BMF Bovespa in Brazil,
and SGX in Singapore.
Integrated reporting Continuous development
of the GRI Sustainability
While the percentage of self-declared Reporting Framework
integrated reports is relatively low in the US, this
did not make for less discussion on the topic. The GRI Guidelines, and its wider Framework,
provide guidance for organizations that want
Speakers and Conference participants alike agreed that
integrated reporting will become popular, but there is still to report their sustainability performance.
hesitation to blend financial and non-financial performance Comparability, consistency and the reporting
data. Some believe this hesitation will diminish the visibility of
process are repeatedly cited by organizations
non-financial performance information, and so make reports
less engaging for stakeholders. Others are concerned about as valuable features of GRI reporting.
the potential costs of assuring an integrated report, but at the
same time it is expected that integrated reporting will lead to As corporate reporting evolves and the context continues to
higher levels of assurance in the USA. change, GRI is committed to the continuous development
of its Sustainability Reporting Framework. GRI is currently
Speakers and Conference participants look to both GRI and working on the next generation of the Sustainability
the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) for Reporting Guidelines –G4 – which will be launched at
guidance on integrated reporting. Both Clorox and Prudential GRI’s upcoming Global Conference on Sustainability and
are keen to be pioneers in the integrated reporting field, and Reporting in Amsterdam in May 2013. To find out more
have joined the IIRC’s Pilot Program, where organizations are about G4 and the development process, visit the G4 pages
trialing integrated reporting. on GRI’s website.
9 Making Sustainability Count:
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10. GRI’s Goals
To make sustainability reporting standard practice, GRI is:
• reating capacity through training and outreach
C
• nnovating and continuously improving its guidance
I
• romoting a report or explain approach to sustainability
P
reporting policy
• upporting the development of integrated reporting
S
To achieve these goals, GRI works with strategic partners including the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Global Compact
(UNGC) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
GRI’s global network includes hundreds of Organizational Stakeholders –
organizations that support GRI’s mission – and some 30,000 professionals
from different sectors and constituencies.
Join GRI’s Global Conference on
Sustainability and Reporting
Growth and prosperity depend on our ability now report their economic, environmental, social and
to meet today’s most pressing sustainability governance performance.
challenges. More than ever, we need a robust reporting framework that
enables companies to account for their impacts; communi-
Climate change, resource scarcity, financial corruption, human cate how they will create value; and give investors, govern-
rights abuses: these interlinked challenges need joined-up, col- ments and consumers the information they need to make
laborative solutions. Creating these solutions gives us an opportu- better decisions.
nity - to build a sustainable global economy founded on long-term
profitability, social justice and environmental care. It’s time to make sustainability reporting standard practice.
Leading organizations are showing the way with greater Join GRI and 1500 sustainability leaders at the Global
transparency and more responsible practices. Sustainability Conference on Sustainability and Reporting in May 2013.
reporting adds value. Around the world, thousands of organizations Visit www.griconference.org for more information.
Join the Focal Point USA at the GRI Canada
Conference, 16 and 17 October 2012, Toronto.
Visit griusa@globalreporting.org for more
information
10 Making Sustainability Count:
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11. GRI Focal Point
USA is grateful
for the ongoing
support of:
FOUNDING SPONSORS
Deloitte, Ernst Young LLP, KPMG and PwC U.S.
– for providing founding donations
US SECTOR LEADERS
Bloomberg, Clorox, Dell and The Mosaic
Company – for committing to showing
leadership in their sector when it comes to
sustainability reporting and working closely with
GRI to turn that leadership into action
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Mark Cohen, Vanderbilt University; Julie Gorte,
PAX World; Sean Harrigan (Chairman), Past
Executive Director, States Council, Region 8; Peter
Westra, Stichting Global Reporting Initiative;
Heather White, New Standards
ADVISORY GROUP
Mark Cohen, Vanderbilt University; Eric
Hespenheide, Deloitte LLP; John Hickox, KPMG
LLP; Kathy Nieland, PwC US; Steve Starbuck,
Ernst Young LLP; David Vidal, The Conference
Board
GRI’s US Organizational Stakeholders, the US
Certified Training Partners, the GRI Secretariat
and GRI’s global governance bodies.
Conference organizing committee
Marjella Alma, Diana Carlin, Nitish Singh, Eric
Schneider and Mike Wallace.
11 Making Sustainability Count:
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12. This conference was made possible by
platinum sponsor
gold sponsors
SustainEdge
www.globalreporting.org
GRI Focal Point USA GRI Global Secretariat
529 5th Avenue Weesperstraat 95
New York, NY 10017 1018VN Amsterdam
USA The Netherlands
griusa@globalreporting.org info@globalreporting.org
12 Making Sustainability Count:
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