Mark McElroy
Mark McElroy is tagged in 43 stories.
Page 2 of 3.
New Metrics /
In part one, Mark McElroy examined three types of integrated report structures, as identified by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), along with their limitations. Here, he explores a new methodology that puts stakeholder primacy front and center in integrated reporting.Shareholder Primacy
- 9 years ago
New Metrics /
Last year, prior to the release of the IIRC’s Integrated Reporting (<IR>) framework, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) published an interesting report on integrated reporting trends between 2010 and 2012. Over 750 self-declared integrated reports were studied.One of the key research questions in GRI’s analysis involved the structure of the reports examined and whether or not they could be broadly categorized by type. This would have obvious implications in terms of how the authors of integrated reports interpret the concept of integration itself, while also revealing the approaches they took to measure, analyze and report performance.
- 9 years ago
New Metrics /
In part 1, the Center for Sustainable Organizations’ Mark McElroy provided a refresher on the thinking behind context-based sustainability (CBS) and materiality. Here, he elaborates on ways companies can define and use materiality for themselves.The Context-Based View
- 9 years ago
New Metrics /
With all of the airtime being given to materiality and integrated reporting these days, I am increasingly asked to explain what the context-based sustainability (CBS) perspective might be for each. Indeed, the implications of CBS are quite profound on both fronts. But before I explain them, let me first take a moment to remind readers of what CBS is and how it is defined.
- 9 years ago
The Next Economy /
Late last month, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and the Global Initiative for Sustainability Ratings (GISR) announced their signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in which the two groups pledged to work together to promote and support the global alignment of corporate reporting and ratings frameworks.
- 10 years ago
Leadership /
As 2013 comes rapidly to a close, it is worth noting, I think, that this was arguably the three hundredth anniversary of sustainability management, the formal discipline, as we know it. Indeed, the concept of sustainability management in commerce first appeared in 1713 in a book written by Hans Carl von Carlowitz (Sylvicultura Oeconomica, 1713), a Saxon tax accountant and mining administrator who more or less invented the practice of sustainable forestry.
- 10 years ago
New Metrics /
In part one, Mark McElroy discussed the idea behind, and the need for, eco-immunity. Here, he sheds light on how to achieve it.
- 10 years ago
New Metrics /
For most of what passes for mainstream business today, it is still lamentably the case that profits trump sustainability, and thereby put natural resources and human well-being at risk. The only incentive for managers to do anything that even remotely resembles sustainability in business is to either lower costs or comply with the law -- or so the prevailing zeitgeist tells us.
- 10 years ago
New Metrics /
A new study of carbon emissions highlights striking differences between conventional and new, context-based sustainability metrics. Cabot Creamery Cooperative, a well-known dairy company, last month concluded a retrospective study in which the reliability and usefulness of both varieties of metrics were examined. The Center for Sustainable Organizations in Vermont conducted the study.
- 11 years ago
New Metrics /
We’re scratching our heads over the Global Reporting Initiative’s recent release of the Exposure Draft of its fourth generation of Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (dubbed “G4”).
- 11 years ago
New Metrics /
“Now, explain it to me like I’m a four year old,” says Denzel Washington to Tom Hanks in the 1993 film Philadelphia. We pose this same question to the Global Reporting Initiative, the standard-setter for sustainability reporting.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
Michael Porter and Mark Kramer once wrote: "No business can solve all of society’s problems or bear the cost of doing so." Striking a similar chord, Aneel Karnani later said: "...the idea that companies have a responsibility to act in the public interest and will profit from doing so is fundamentally flawed."
- 12 years ago
Leadership /
When was the last time you saw the CEO of a world-class company wading knee-deep in the specification and design of sustainability metrics? Dr. Richard Stammer of Agri-Mark, Inc. (d.b.a. Cabot Creamery Cooperative) is one such person.
- 12 years ago
Supply Chain /
Most of us who visit these pages are quite familiar with how Walmart used its influence to drive sustainability improvements in its supply chain. But were the gains really about sustainability at all? Strictly speaking, no.Indeed, the most anyone can say about the effects of Walmart’s strategy on its supply chain is that improvements in eco-efficiency, ethical sourcing or what have you may have been made (all good things), but not necessarily in sustainability performance, per se. Costs, too, may have declined and that's always a good thing as well. But to equate decreases in, say, the carbon or water intensity of products with improvements in sustainability performance is to make a serious category error.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
While it is common practice now for corporate sustainability reports to include materiality matrices, whether or not they actually serve their purpose is debatable. Indeed, we (the Center for Sustainable Organizations) don't think they do, and have some suggestions for how to improve them.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
GRI has now formally responded to the Enforce or Explain campaign we (the Center for Sustainable Organizations) launched last month in which we suggested that it either enforce the ‘sustainability context’ principle in its Guidelines, or explain why it doesn’t. Motivated, in part, by GRI’s own Report or Explain Campaign, in which GRI exhorts businesses around the world to issue sustainability reports or explain why they don’t, our campaign was aimed at GRI itself.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
Earlier this month, we (the Center for Sustainable Organizations) issued a press release in which we called for GRI to either enforce the ‘sustainability context’ requirement in its standard, or explain why it doesn’t. Motivated, in part, by GRI’s own Report or Explain Campaign, in which GRI exhorts businesses around the world to issue sustainability reports or explain why they don’t, our campaign is aimed at GRI itself.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
Despite the growing use of LCAs (life cycle assessments) to measure the sustainability of products, a strong case can be made that the one has less to do with the other than most people think. By design, LCAs provide a way of quantifying the environmental impacts of products and services from cradle to grave.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
As some readers of this column may already know, I have for the past several years been advocating for the adoption of an approach to sustainability management known as context-based sustainability, or CBS. CBS is not only the most intellectually rigorous form of sustainability management, it is the one upon which the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) explicitly relies in the form of what it refers to as sustainability context.
- 12 years ago
New Metrics /
Ahead of his breakout session on Strengthening Your Brand with Context Based Sustainability at Sustainable Brands '09, Mark McElroy writes on The Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) call for context in all sustainability reporting. While even award-winning sustainability reports have a hard time putting their achievements into context, their relevance relies upon it.
- 15 years ago