Reporting

Every edition we report on another batch of corporate reports. Go back a few years, and it was news when a community report included any numbers at all. Cheers went up when an environment report mentioned human beings. Now, the London Benchmarking Group approach to valuing community contributions is almost becoming routine. Environmental impact has grown into sustainability, with the inclusion of social and economic factors, even if a holistic triple bottom line is still some way off.

We seem to have reached a key milestone in this process of gradual improvement. The third Shell report shows it really is possible to get commitment from a huge global business to do the numbers. Until now, companies listed in London have led the way, but with the Ford report (and Procter & Gamble's cited in our last edition), we can say the Americans have arrived. Although the Asians (with some notable exceptions) are still largely absent, it won't be long.

In this spread of practice internationally, the Global Reporting Initiative has been important; as we go to press, the results of its 18 month pilot are eagerly awaited. But looking forward, is going global the right course? In fact, very few stakeholders are global; perhaps only capital, which is already well served by the annual report and accounts, plus elements of the green agenda. Most are essentially local - employees, communities, customers, supply partners, governments. A single global report can never include enough detail for them to know what is really going on in their own backyards. For stakeholders of global businesses, Rio Tinto's approach of separate local reports may well be the most effective. Real engagement locally is what being a corporate citizen is all about.