CorporateRegister Awards Let Peers Vote for Best CSR Reports

Published November 22, 2011

Hewlett Packard earned kudos earlier this year for its sustainability disclosure, with a report that its peers found to be thorough, transparent, innovative and interactive. The report also seemed to do something that so many others lack: connect sustainability to the company's business strategy.

HP took top honors in CorporateRegister.com's Reporting Awards in March. The company, which boasts the world's largest directory for corporate sustainability reports, kicked off its annual Reporting Awards last month. The question is: Who will succeed HP with the best overall report?

This year's awards see 93 companies vying for nine awards in the following categories:

• Best overall report
• Best first time report
• Best SME report
• Best integrated report
• Best carbon disclosure
• Creativity in communications
• Relevance & materiality
• Openness & honesty
• Credibility through assurance

With so many entrants, CorporateRegister.com tried to make it easier for voters by having each company also submit a short document listing the highlights of each report, according to Director Paul Scott.

I spoke to Scott on Monday about the awards, which he called the only global annual reporting awards (some, he said, are held every other year or are restricted to a region). Voting on the 2012 award began last month and continues through Jan. 27 for CorporateRegister.com's 36,000 registered users, comprised of sustainability professionals, consultants, investors, analysts, students and academics. Winners will be announced in March.

The awards are subject to what Scott called an integrity procedure to ensure that stakeholders independently vote for the reports they believe to be the best, rather than allowing a company to win an award because all of its workers voted for their own report.

About 15 percent of "bad" votes are removed every year, he said, and offending companies, which aren't invited to participate in the contest again, often coming from the same three countries: Portugal, Brazil and India.

Also, companies that win two years in a row must wait one year before entering again in the same category, to avoid what CR called an "automatic repeat performance."

Entrants, of course, gain a lot of visibility participating in the contest, but also get input from their peers on the quality of their reports. CorporateRegister.com delivers an individual report to each company with any feedback from voters.

I asked Scott about the business value of voting for the awards, which, with 93 entrants, represents a sizable time commitment. He told me that it represents an opportunity for people to get involved and help define best practices in non-financial reporting.

Plus, voting helps users earn credits on the CorporateRegister.com website. It's a free site but its system tells users how much "credit" they have -- credits that can be earned by interacting with the site, such as leaving comments. If credit runs out for a user, they can't continue to use the site without paying for a subscription.

"By contributing to the CorporateRegister.com community," he said, "you keep it going."

Reports image via Shutterstock.

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