Sustainability reports gain traction [News]

By Lynn Kan, The Business Times, 21 Dec 2011.

Sustainability reports are increasingly becoming a must-have for businesses instead of just being a nice-to-have aside.

Experts that BT spoke to say that companies which take stock of their sustainability efforts help with innovation, mitigate risk in supply chains, and ultimately enhance their reputations.

‘We are familiar with the old management adage – ‘what gets measured gets managed’,’ said Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)’s head of policy for Asia Pacific, Chiew Chun Wee. ‘By measuring and collecting data for disclosure, an organisation is better equipped to improve their performance in many areas as well as drive efficiencies in its operations.’

‘If it’s supposed to be relevant to business operations, it should be available already. If it’s not there, you should worry because you’re not addressing all the risks,’ said Graham Owens, KPMG’s director of climate change and sustainability. Read more

Making sustainability an ‘action item’ in boardrooms [News]

By The Business Times, 22 Nov 2011.

When the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint (SSB) was launched in 2009, it no doubt was considered by many to be an ambitious challenge that the government was setting for Singapore.

After all, the 10 goals outlined under the blueprint, set out to cover a relatively comprehensive range of activities and outcomes in four major areas, comprising: boosting resource efficiency; enhancing the urban environment; building capabilities and expertise in sustainable development solutions; and fostering community action.

Two years on, adjunct associate professor Bob Fleming of the National University of Singapore Business School, notes that there is ‘directional progress in an appreciation of the need for sustainability and the consequences for not achieving the targets’. Read more

Still some way to go for sustainability reporting here: poll [News]

By Jamie Lee, The Business Times, 16 Nov 2011.

When it comes to corporate responsibility reporting, Singapore companies not only lag their global peers in numbers, they are also falling behind in certain standards, according to a KPMG survey.

Singapore was included for the first time in KPMG’s International Corporate Responsibility Reporting Survey – a global study conducted once in three years that reviews the corporate responsibility reporting of the top 100 companies in 34 countries between mid- 2010 and mid-2011. More than 3,400 companies were surveyed.

Of the top 100 Singapore companies by revenue, just 43 offered reporting on their corporate responsibility, or matters relating to the environment, society or governance.

This puts Singapore among the bottom 20 per cent of the countries surveyed – a group that includes New Zealand and Chile, India and Israel – and offers a telling sign that Singapore needs to play catch-up, and fast. Read more

More top firms report on CR activities [News]

By Avelyn Ng, Channel NewsAsia, 14 Nov 2011.

Singapore: A report by KPMG has higlighted that corporate responsibility reporting among the top companies in the world is on the rise.

KPMG said corporate responsibility (CR) or sustainability reporting is now the norm with 95 per cent of Global Fortune 250 (G250) reporting on their CR activities.

According to its International Corporate Responsibility Reporting Survey 2011, this has also increased 15 per cent compared to the last reading in 2008.

Singapore has, however, lagged behind with only 43 per cent of respondents doing corporate reporting.

The survey sampled 16 sectors across 34 countries. Read more

Integrated Reporting is here to stay despite the challenges

A high-level roundtable discussion on integrated reporting concluded that integrated reporting is here to stay despite the challenges involved. The roundtable discussion on Integrated Reporting: The Future of Corporate Accounting? was organised by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and moderated by CSR Asia Singapore. The roundtable panelists included representatives from ACCA, Responsible Research, SGX, Ernst & Young, PowerSeraya, Arisaig Partners, KPMG, and the Nanyang Business School.

Integrated Reporting is the integrated representation of a business’ financial performance and non-financial performance including environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) measures. Integrated Reporting helps businesses make more sustainable decisions, and enables investors and stakeholders to understand the sustainability and ethical impact of an investment in a business. Read more

Keppel Land wins the 2011 Singapore Awards for Sustainability Reporting

Keppel Land Limited emerged as the winner of the 2011 Singapore Awards for Sustainability Reporting (SASR), at the awards ceremony organised by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and attended by more than 100 business leaders. The annual awards is to identify and reward companies for their excellence in sustainability reporting, and also serves to encourage more companies to begin sustainability reporting.

The other 9 finalists for the SASR Awards include: ComfortDelGro Corporation Limited; CapitaLand Limited; Cerebos Pacific Limited; Keppel Corporation Limited; Swire Pacific Offshore Pte Ltd; The China Navigation Co Pte Ltd; Origin Exterminators (S) Pte Ltd; SMRT Corporation Limited; and Wilmar International Limited.

ACCA chose Keppel Land as the winner because its Sustainability Report 2010 was comprehensive, concise and credible. The report clearly articulated the company’s sustainability strategies and practices in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 Level B+ guidelines, and highlighted the economic, environmental, and social aspects of the company’s activities and developments across its properties in Singapore and overseas. Read more

The business of being green [News]

By Robert Fleming, The Business Times, 16 Jul 2011.

The Singapore Exchange (SGX) recently issued its latest policy statement on sustainability reporting. This is a significant event as it positions sustainability as a core strategic corporate activity. These broad principles should be a call to action for both listed and unlisted companies, and creates an opportunity for coordination and collaboration for both the private and public sectors.

Consequently, sustainability activity and reporting should move up in the priorities in the executive office, and cascade throughout the organisation. In many cases, sustainability has been a board room ‘agenda item’ but must now be shifted to an ‘action item’ with well defined tasks, responsibilities and time lines. The SGX policy statement can be the catalyst for that transition. Read more

Human rights impact a big area in sustainability reporting [News]

By Annabelle Yip, The Business Times, 22 Jul 2011.

SUSTAINABILITY and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are issues that have come to the fore with the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) move to issue a guide to sustainability reporting for listed companies, and the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) endorsement of the guiding principles for business and human rights.

Sustainability reporting in Singapore remains in its early stages and its development lags behind that in other Asean countries, according to CSR Asia in a statement in February.

When releasing the policy statement and the guide to sustainability reporting in June, SGX noted that the way businesses operate can have long-term effects on the environment and society, and that global investors and other important stakeholders have called for companies to espouse sustainability and report on such initiatives. Read more

Sustainability reporting a rising trend [News]

By The Business Times, 22 Jul 2011.

THERE has been a marked increase in sustainability reporting among listed companies in their annual reports this year.

‘More companies have made efforts to discuss business sustainability and there was a significant increase in the number of annual reports that contained a separate section on sustainability reporting,’ says Kevin Kwok, senior partner at Ernst & Young LLP, who chairs the judging panel.

While this is an encouraging sign, Mr Kwok feels that many of these reports have been a narration of past activities.

More could be said about how the company will undertake new initiatives in the area of environmental and social accountability and permeating these into its business processes. Read more

A long way to go in sustainability reporting [News]

TOO few listed companies here are reporting their environmental, social and governance risks, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) signalled yesterday at the launch of its sustainability reporting guide.

SGX – which has not ruled out mandatory reporting of such risks later – urged companies to follow the guidelines that can boost Singapore’s global standing in this area and draw more investments for their individual businesses.

‘Let’s be honest here. There is currently limited mainstream sustainability reporting beyond corporate governance here in Singapore,’ said SGX chief executive Magnus Bocker.

‘We have the ambition to be a leading global exchange and we will never succeed to be that unless we are leaders when it comes to reporting.’ Read more

Next Page »