A Canadian ski resort has begun to show the way for corporates on
‘real-time’ web-based reporting of social and environmental indicators.
The town of Whistler in British Columbia, which will host part of the
Winter Olympics in 2010, has created a website showing dozens of social
and environmental key performance indicators related to the
municipality, including affordability of local housing and services,
the health of eco-systems and figures on visitor satisfaction. Data can
be updated as soon as it is collected, using backroom technology from
the UK-based non-financial data management consultancy credit360, with
facilities for comparing performance over time.
Mark Shields, operations director of credit360, said he expected
Whistler’s continuous reporting model to be picked up by companies
around the world. ‘It’s something that’s been talked about a lot, but
here it’s actually happening,’ he said. ‘Whistler is in the vanguard of
what the corporates will do in a few years’ time. Currently some
companies are doing real-time reporting, but only to employees on the
intranet. We think that public-facing real-time reporting will come
soon, and that some corporates will see what Whistler is doing and go
down that route.’
Whistler has started its website to enable stakeholders to monitor
progress against a Whistler 2020 plan listing social and environmental
goals. The town also wants to make sure that Winter Olympics activities
do not damage the environment or split the community, and hopes public
disclosure will help raise awareness.
