Practitioners report preparation checklist

A Peer Learning Group drew up a basic checklist for preparing a corporate responsibility (CR) report, and concluded that the areas where companies can improve most are how they communicate with their audiences, engage with stakeholders, measure performance, assure the quality of their reporting and make use of existing management systems.

The group, which comprised Abbey, Alfred McAlpine, Camelot, Centrica, Co-op Group, EDF Energy, E.ON UK, Marks and Spencer, Northern Rock, Provident Financial, RWE npower, Sainsbury’s and Veolia Water, drew up the following checklist for report preparation:

• Describe the company, its relative size and activities.
• Communicate what responsible business means to the company.
• Provide a clear description of the scope of what has and hasn’t been included, and define the reporting period.
• Describe how senior management provides leadership on responsible business issues and how the company monitors its performance.
• Deal with issues that are important to key stakeholders.
• Explain how the important issues have been identified.
• Avoid obscuring the important stories by providing too much information on less-important issues.
• Be honest and provide balance – the good, the bad and the unclear.
• Provide insight into the views of stakeholders.
• Describe how the accuracy of the information in the report has been assured.