Diageo has asked the assurers of its annual corporate citizenship
report to provide more commentary on the document’s strengths and
weaknesses rather than just on the accuracy of the information provided.
The latest non-financial report from the UK-based drinks multinational
includes an expanded section from its assurers, The Corporate
Citizenship Company, at its specific request.
Diageo believes an informal, wide-ranging assurance statement ‘is more
useful to our readers than the more common limited opinion of
veracity’. It says this viewpoint was endorsed last year by its
stakeholders.
There has been criticism recently that the assurance statements of
corporate responsibility reports are often limited in scope or adopt
legalistic language that does not help readers. A Vodafone discussion
paper late last year suggested many stakeholders feel assurance
statements ‘add little to CSR reporting’ and are ‘inaccessible to most
readers’ (EP8, issue 7, p4).
The new-look assurance statement is published in summary form in
Diageo’s 40-page hard copy report and in full online. The report urges
Diageo to ‘offer more robust measures’ on diversity, where it says the
company has clear data only on gender, and on responsible drinking,
where the long-term impact of its efforts should be quantified,
according to the statement. Diageo also needs to ‘report more fully’ on
supplier relations.
Around half of the FTSE 100 provide third party assurance in some form for their non-financial reports, according to Deloitte.
