Sustainability Reporting – what Facilities Managers should know

Reana RossouwNext Generation Consultants

September 2010

Facilities Managers have the ability to significantly influence sustainability outcomes in a wide range of activities such as campus planning and design, building construction, waste management, environmental management, purchasing, and building and grounds maintenance.

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The Sustainable Organisation

“As we face a sustainability crisis that could ultimately even threaten our very existence as a species, we need to know how organisations are positioned to rise to the challenges, provide solutions and adapt to coming changes.”

Ernst Ligteringen, CEO, GRI

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It’s not all about

reporting…

It’s about management

and

business practices

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The roadmap to sustainability’s biggest priority by far is

performance.

Organisations must produce tangible results that put them on a truly sustainable path.

Performance will be the ultimate measure for

evaluating a company’s progress towards achieving sustainability.

Richard LockeDeputy Dean and Professor of Entrepreneurship,

MIT Sloan School of Management

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Integrating Sustainability• Go Deep

– Integrate and embed sustainability into the company strategy and standard operating practices

• Go Wide– Engage and leverage the value

chain

• Go Long– Short-term focus – long-term

objectives

• Go Local– Shared responsibility that needs

local action and commitment

Model: UN Global Compact

Sustainability and Facilities Management

• While the heart of any green building project is minimizing the impact that the built environment has on the natural environment, green buildings also offer healthy, productive workspaces that cost less to operate and maintain than conventional buildings

• Typical issues facility managers should consider are:

– Reduced Costs Through Energy Efficiency

– Water Efficiency Savings – Savvy Waste Management – Increased Occupant Health

and Productivity

Incorporating Sustainability • Incorporating sustainability into facilities

management will require Facilities Managers to:– Gain commitment from senior

management.

– Find a champion at senior level to support the change.

– Identify material risks, issues and priorities.

– Set policies, objectives and targets (long and short-term) in conjunction with stakeholders.

– Develop a plan to implement the process.

– Allocate resources to action the plan.

– Effectively communicate those details to all internal and external stakeholders through sustainability reporting.

Value of sustainable facilities management – Internal Operational Benefits

• Helps identify opportunities for saving energy, water, materials, and money.

• Helps identify opportunities for waste minimization and reuse.

• Helps identify and address risks, potentially lowering facility costs.

• Adds rigor to internal data gathering and information systems (including environmental management systems) to ensure facilities have the baseline information necessary to measure and drive continuous improvement in their operations.

• Facilitates opportunities to benchmark environmental and social performance against other entities.

• Promotes organisational learning by making linkages across typically independent functions within a facility more apparent, such as finance, quality control, procurement, facilities, environmental and safety compliance, etc.

• Opens value-generating internal conversations that would not otherwise occur.

Value of sustainable facilities management – External Stakeholder Benefits

• Helps strengthen partnerships and build trust with local communities, regulators, suppliers and customers.

• Supports proactive engagement with regulators.

• Supports supply-chain performance reporting expectations.

• Positions a facility to take advantage of performance-focused, regulatory approaches.

• Sharpens management’s ability to assess a facility's positive and negative impacts on the environment and society.

• Provides advance warning of potential liabilities and performance problems, and highlights “triple bottom line” opportunities.

• Helps a company achieve external value from its environmental management system.

• Assist with overall organisational sustainability reporting processes.

Incorporating Sustainability into Facilities Management

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Sustainability Reporting• Sustainability Reporting is the

practice of measuring, disclosing and being accountable to internal and external stakeholders for organisational performance against specific economical environmental, social and governance goals and metrics that support sustainable development, and for how sustainability is incorporated into the overall organisational strategy and policies.

Value of Sustainability Reports

• Report users– Sustainability reports can be a rich and empowering source of

information whether you are a consumer, employee, investor, researcher, community member, or just an interested individual. The best reports should provide a balanced and reasonable representation of the sustainability performance of an organisation – including both positive and negative results.

– Use reports issued by companies, non-profits, public agencies, and others to:

• Assess sustainability performance with respect to laws, norms, codes, performance standards, and voluntary initiatives;

• Create a continuous platform for dialogue about expectations for responsibility and performance;

• Understand the impacts (positive and negative) that organisations can have on sustainable development; and

• Compare performance within an organisation and between different organisations over time to inform decisions.

Value of Sustainability Reports

• Report makers • Sustainability reporting is a living process and tool, and

does not begin or end with a printed or online publication.

• Reporting should fit into a broader process for setting organisational strategy, implementing action plans, assessing outcomes, and communicating continuous improvements.

• Whether a key element in risk management, the main vehicle for external reporting, or a platform for stakeholder dialogue, sustainability reporting is fast becoming an essential part of management practice for successful organisations of all sizes worldwide.

• Reporting should be a focused exercise that supports the needs of management and stakeholders.

The GRI Reporting Framework• The Sustainability Reporting Guidelines are the

cornerstone - provides guidance for organisations to disclose their sustainability performance.

• It is applicable to organisations of any size or type, and from any sector or geographic region, and has been used by thousands of organisations worldwide as the basis for their sustainability reporting. 

• It facilitates transparency and accountability by organisations and provides stakeholders a universally-applicable, comparable framework from which to understand disclosed information.

• The Guidelines contain principles and guidance as well as standard disclosures – including indicators – to outline a disclosure framework that organisations can voluntarily, flexibly, and incrementally, adopt.

The GRI Guidelines

• Principles and Guidance• Define report content by

applying the Principles of materiality, stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, and completeness.

• Ensure report quality by applying the Principles of balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, reliability, and clarity.

• Set the report boundary by determining the range of entities that should be included in the report.

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The GRI family of documents

• The GRI Guidelines • Sector supplements – providing guidance that

captures sustainability issues faced by specific industry sectors, e.g. financial services, telecommunications, auto manufacturing, mining

• Technical protocols – providing detailed measurement methods and procedures for reporting on indicators contained in the core guidelines e.g. energy indicators providing definitions (e.g. direct vs. indirect energy) and measurement methodologies (e.g. conversions, units)

• National annexes – providing national (local) country perspectives and particular influences, nuances and contexts to sustainability i.e. South Africa – BEE Legislation

• Issue guidance documents – on topics such as ‘diversity’; ‘productivity’; and HIV/Aids

Performance Indicators

Category Economic Environmental Social Process

Aspect Economic performance

Market presence

Indirect Economic impacts

Materials Energy Water Biodiversity Emissions,

Effluents, Waste Products &

Services Compliance

Labour Practices

Human Rights Society Product

Responsibility

• Materiality Principle

• Sustainability Context

• Completeness Principle

• Stakeholder inclusiveness process

Indicators EC1 EC2 EC3

EN1 EN2 EN3, etc

LA1 HR1 SO1 PR1

Core Indicators

Additional Indicators

Sector Supplements

Technical Protocols

Typical Indicators for sustainability reporting

• Economical Indicators:

– R/Supplier/pa

– % Suppliers/area

– Energy R/m2

– Water R/m2

• Environmental

– % recycled materials/m2

– Energy kWh/m2

– Water kL/m2

– CO2 emissions/m2

– % change in natural area due to operations & activities

– % recycled product/pa

– No of spills/volume of product/pa

– Waste/tonne/pa

• Social

– % level of involvement with the community

– % of student involvement in activities of FM

– % of involvement of FM in student research programs

– Average hrs training

– Absentee rates

– % compliance with legislation

Assisting you with Sustainability ReportingRefer to hand out/ worksheet

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Reporting Structure1. Strategy & Analysis

Statement from CEO about the relevance of sustainability to the organisation and its strategy.Description of key impacts and opportunitiesThis should be a concise section of a few pages in length. This is about the impacts of the organisation BUT is also about how sustainability trends affect the organisation

RG 1.1 – 1.2

4. Governance, commitment and engagements

Governance External Initiatives Stakeholder Engagement This section explains how

the reporting organisation is governed, who the decision makers are, and how stakeholders have been engaged.

It also describes how external initiatives are supported

RG 4.1-4.17

3. Report Parameters

Report Scope and BoundaryThis section includes a description of how the report content has been determined, the prioritization of topics and a list of the stakeholders that are expected to use the reportRG 3.1 – 3.11

GRI Content IndexTable identifying the location of all standard disclosuresRG 3.12AssuranceThis section covers the policy with regard to any external assurance of the reportRG 3.13

2. Organisational Profile

Organisational Background information

RG 2.1 – 2.10

5. Management Approach and Performance IndicatorsThis provide a brief overview of how the organisation manages aspects under the indicator categories – economic, environmental and social (labour,

human rights, society and product responsibility) separatelyRG 25-36

Environmental

Disclosure on Management Approach

Goals and PerformanceOrganisational ResponsibilityTraining and AwarenessMonitoring and Follow-upAdditional contextual information

Performance IndicatorsRG 25-36 + Protocols

Economic

Disclosure on Management Approach

Goals and PerformancePolicyAdditional Contextual Information

Performance IndicatorsRG 25-36 + Protocols

Social

Disclosure on Management Approach

Goals and PerformancePolicyOrganisational ResponsibilityTraining and AwarenessMonitoring and Follow UpAdditional Contextual Information

Performance IndicatorsRG 25-36 + Protocols

Application Level GridFor a report to be recognised as GRI-based, self declaration of a level is required

Application Levels

G3 Profile Disclosure

G3 Management Approach Disclosures

G3 Performance Indicators & Sector SupplementsPerformance Indicators

Report on1.12.1 – 2.103.1 – 3.8; 3.10 – 3.124.1 – 4.4; 4.14 – 4.15

Not Required

Report on all criteria listed for Level C plus:1.23.9; 3.134.4 – 4.13, 4-16 – 4.17

Report on a minimum of 20 Performance Indicators, including at least one from each Economic, Environmental, Human Rights, Labour, Society, Product ResponsibilityCore + Additional Indicators

Management Approach Disclosures for each indicator Category

Report on a minimum of 10 Performance Indicators, including at lease one each of Economic, Social and EnvironmentalCore Indicators

Report on each core G3 and Sector Supplement Indicator with due regard to the Materiality Principle by either: a) Reporting on the Indicator orb) Explaining the reason for its omission

Not applicable is not valid – Must explain i.e. not material, no data, no commitment, proprietary information

Management Approach Disclosures for each indicator Category

Same as requirement for Level B

Report Application Level

C C+ B+B A A+

Report E

xternally Assured

Report E

xternally Assured

Indicator Guidelines:1. Depend on what level of report (A, B, C) you are aiming for2. Always core, then additional, then sector supplements, then others (industries, new, other)

Report E

xternally Assured

Additional Resources for Facilities Managers:

• Tertiary Education Facilities Management – TEFMA – A guide to incorporating sustainability into facilities management – www.tefma.com

• FRP: Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for Facility Managers: (Pilot Draft:2005) – www.facilityreporting.org

• GRI – Global Reporting Initiative – www.globalreporting.org• Sustainability Report – City Development – Singapore –• http://ir.cdl.com.sg/phoenix.zhtml?c=60774&p=irol-reportssustain