Rabobank has won this year’s award for Europe’s best CSR report. The
Dutch bank came top in the European Sustainability Reporting Awards
with a 2005 web-based document that judges said was especially easy to
navigate despite being longer than the average.
The report was also praised for its ‘completeness’, for summarizing
targets and achievements in every chapter, and for describing the
business rationale for corporate responsibility – something that judges
have long complained is often ignored by reporters.
The runner-up spot was taken by BT, which was picked out for its ‘well
balanced’ approach, giving highlights and lowlights and setting out its
challenges in a ‘frank manner’. The German office supplies company Memo
was specially commended for a report that was ‘a pleasure to read’.
Judges said they were pleased to see reports entered this year by
non-corporates, including the Austrian paper industry trade association
and Senaatti-kiinteistot (Senate Properties), a government-owned
enterprise that manages the Finnish state’s real estate assets. They
are particularly keen to encourage more industry bodies to begin
reporting ‘as they have the ability to provide an overview of the
sustainability activities of a whole industry’.
Nike shared the equivalent award for the best sustainability report in
North America with Hewlett-Packard, which was the winner last year. The
award is a notable achievement for Nike, given that its reporting
regime was suspended for two years by the Kasky v Nike case, in which
an environmental activist tried to sue the sportswear retailer over its
comments on sustainability issues. Nike last year resumed reporting
after the lawsuit had been settled out of court.
Judges noted the ‘unprecedented disclosure’ of the company’s comeback
report, which listed names and locations of more than 700 factories
that make Nike-branded products worldwide.
Dofasco (steel, Canada) and Gap (clothing, US) both received
commendations – Dofasco, in particular, for its its integration of
sustainability information in its annual report. Reports submitted in
the US this year numbered a record 87, up nearly 30 per cent
