Thousands of companies issue sustainability reports each year – but who reads them? What do these readers think of reports? Do reports meet the needs of communities, investors, employees, customers, journalists, and non-governmental organizations?
The GRI Readers Choice Award was designed to find answers to these questions and give all sustainability report users worldwide a voice on sustainability reporting today. After extensive preparations by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and their partners, KPMG, ACCA, SustainAbility – all leaders in the field - the first world wide online sustainability reporting awards scheme is close to launch.
There will be five main awards issued – based on the perspectives of the key user communities: Financial markets; Labor; Civil Society; Employees/Management; and Media. A special award will be given to the report from a non-business organization with the highest score, a second to the report from an organization headquartered in a non-OECD country with the highest score, and finally one for the small enterprise with the best report score. There will also be an award for the overall winner. KPMG and SustainAbility, the leading global sustainability reporting trend monitors, will conduct a survey in conjunction with the award.
Both the Global Readers’ Choice Awards and the survey results will be presented during ‘The Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency’, which will be held 7 - 9 May, 2008 and hosted by the City of Amsterdam. This second international GRI conference is supported by the Netherlands Government, UNEP, and with the involvement of businesses, NGOs, labor, and investors active in GRI’s worldwide network.
From 1 October 2007 you are invited to score the sustainability reports issued by companies that you work for, own stock in, are neighbors with, or do business with at: www.globalreporting.org
To find out more read the press release.