Environmental reporting guidelines

The subject of health and safety is reported in all under five parameters - fatalities (43%), lost time accidents (86%), occupational illnesses (51%), transport incidents (49%) and emergency preparedness (63%). This suggests a fair coverage of health and safety is building in chemicals CERs, which no doubt has been assisted by the inclusion of this aspect in the CEFIC environmental reporting guidelines. 

The move by the CEFIC to issue environmental reporting guidelines should help address many of these shortcomings. At the same time, attention should be given to the universal standard for sustainable reporting issued by the CERES in June 2000 and the work of the ISO in the area of environmental performance standards. Such moves could lead to a number of benefits, in particular ... 

CEFIC issues new sets of health, safety and environmental reporting guidelines... 

Most of these award schemes utilise certain guidelines/criteria. In nomenclature terms, there is often considerable overlap between these CER award schemes and environmental reporting guidelines. For example, the ACCA criteria are also referred to by some as guidelines, which is fair enough as they are every bit as comprehensive and relevant as some of the so-called guidelines (see section 4.3). 

Confederation of British Industry (CBI) UK Introducing Environmental Reporting-Guidelines for Business (1993)... 

Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattel (FEEM) Italy Company Environmental Reports-Guidelines Preparation (1995)... 

However, it is now felt by the CEFIC and its members that there is a need to communicate the achievements of the whole of the chemicals industry at national and European level. As a result, in November 1998, new sets of health, safety and environmental reporting guidelines were issued. These offer a common reporting framework for both national chemical industry federations and individual chemicals companies, bringing in health and safety for the first time. 

CEFIC, Health, Safety and Environmental Reporting Guidelines, Brussels, 1998. 

In the second edition, 64 new validation SOPs are added to describe documentation required for sterility assurance, qualification and requalification template reports of major sterile equipments, critical applicable procedures, templates for certification guidelines, media fill procedures, environmental control guidelines, training, and critical environmental performance evaluation procedures. 

Of the three categories of sustainability performance measurement, the social area may be the most difficult to address. Where financial and environmental indicators lend themselves easily to quantitative performance measurement, many of the social issues that are the subject of performance measurement are not easily quantifiable (GRI, 2002). Social indicators must often rely on qualitative measures of the organization s operations. This is an area where further research will be needed. An example of the core social indicators and metrics from GRI s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines is illustrative of this difficulty ... 

Is There a Professional Certification for Sustainability Auditors There currently is no accredited, professional certification scheme specific to sustainability auditors. In the United States, the Board of Environmental, Health and Safety Auditor Certifications (BEAC)31 offers a Management Systems Certified Professional Environmental Auditor (CPEA) certification. This certification is not specific to sustainability, but does include the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines in its exam for the Management Systems CPEA certification (BEAC, 2004). 

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines set a globally applicable framework for reporting the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of an organization s activities, products, and services. 

Until recently there has been no universal standard for environmental reporting. However, in March 1999, CERES launched the first draft of a universal standard at a London conference. This is to be known as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and the CERES has worked on this in conjunction with a substantial number of the international organisations involved with guidelines. 

Signing of UNEP statement on the environment and development Cadbury code on corporate governance The fifth European action programme covering sustainability CEFIC publishes the first issue of Guidelines on Environmental Reporting for the European Chemical Industry ... 

There is considerable variation in both the quantity and quality of environmental reporting across the business/industrial sectors, which is linked to a number of factors, such as level of environmental sensitivity and availability of guidelines. 

As far as the chemicals sector is concerned, environmental reporting has been much assisted by the introduction of the Responsible Care Programme and the issue of appropriate guidelines through the CEFIC. 

Bearing in mind the coverage to be achieved by the CER to fulfil the requirements of the main guidelines, an environmental report needs to be more than just a page or two to acquire some degree of credibility with the readers. The UNEP/SustainAbility surveys state that a report must be at least three pages in length to qualify as a CER. 

A Federation des Experts Comptables Europeens (FEE) survey of European verifiers highlighted the point that progress on verification of environmental reporting was severely hampered by a lack of proper standards. It stated that the added value normally derived from an expert statement was very limited under the present circumstances. One of the FEE s recommendations was that given the absence of generally accepted guidelines on both how to report and how to carry out the audit, expert statements should at least contain a description of the scope of the audit and its objectives. The FEE has issued a set of recommendations for the format of verification statements. 

All this has resulted in an assorted array of guidelines, standards and indicators in use, leading to a severe lack of comparability even within sectors. Despite this, current reviews of environmental reporting practice would suggest that the overall quality of reporting is improving. 

Deutsche Institutfur Normierung (DIN) Germany Guideline Environmental Reports for the Public (1997)... 

In drawing up the guidelines, many aspects of environmental reporting were evaluated. Included was the work of the WBCSD, Deloitte Touche, the CERES, the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) and the GEMI. 

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