Slide- CH 9

• Corporate reputation is the perceptual representation of a corporation's past actions and future prospects, describing its overall appeal to stakeholders compared to rivals
• Corporate reputation is often associated with corporate image and is influenced by factors like customer service, ethical conduct, community involvement, and environmental stewardship
• Stakeholders who influence CSR reporting include shareholders, financial institutions, employees, consumers, society at large, service professionals, NGOs, charities, media, and government
• The relationship between profitability and CSR has mixed conclusions: expenditures on CSR may or may not contribute to profits
• Comprehensive guidelines for corporate social reporting include:

  • Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards
  • International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC)
  • Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)
  • OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprise
  • United Nations Global Compact
  • ISO 26000 CSR Standard
• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a comprehensive and widely used guideline for sustainability reporting, providing standards for benchmarking, assessing sustainability performance, and comparing performance within and between organizations
• GRI Standards cover areas like economic performance, environmental standards, and social standards including employment, health and safety, human rights, and community impact
• CSR and sustainability reports cover economic, social, and environmental responsibility initiatives identified in the auditing process
• Best practices for CSR reports include transparency in codes or standards, better explanation of measures, efforts to reduce compliance costs, improved data quality, and sophisticated methodology for measuring social indicators
• Corporations are increasingly setting social and environmental objectives and reporting on their accomplishments in corporate annual reports

  
• The concept of the triple bottom line refers to measuring a corporation's performance not only in terms of financial profit but also in terms of social and environmental impact
• Social reports are comprehensive reports prepared by corporations that outline their social and environmental objectives and performance
• Sustainable guidelines are sets of economic, social, and environmental criteria and performance indicators used to measure a corporation's sustainability performance
• Best practices for CSR reports include:

  • Identifying stakeholders
  • Describing trends, risks, challenges, opportunities
  • Prioritizing issues
  • Reporting on objective accomplishments
• Efforts must be made to communicate CSR reports to stakeholders through various channels like newsletters, corporate websites, and word of mouth
• The continuum of future commitment to CSR includes categories like CSR Lite, CSR Compliant, CSR Strategic, CSR Integrated, and Deep CSR
• The future of CSR and reporting is expected to become a required management function with a minimum baseline standard being established