Press Release
from SRI World Group, Inc.
| April 20,
2004 |
| Contact: |
Jay Falk,
President |
SRI World Group Unveils OneReport™, Revolutionizing
the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Process
New
Reporting Network Enhances Corporate Transparency
Brattleboro,
VT—April 20, 2004—SRI World
Group, Inc., a leading provider of social investment and corporate
responsibility information services, today announced the launch
of OneReport™ (www.one-report.com).
This new global electronic reporting network enables companies to
more efficiently report their social, environmental, economic and
corporate governance information to investors, the financial community
and other stakeholders. Over 50 multi-national companies from around
the world, including 22 Fortune 100 companies, participated in the
development of OneReport.
"OneReport will
help DuPont distribute its corporate sustainability data in a common
format for analysis and ratings," according to Dawn Rittenhouse,
Director of Sustainability at DuPont. "OneReport will also
save us time and money," continued Rittenhouse.
"Shell is proud
to be a founding member of OneReport, which we see as a promising
way to help companies report more transparently, consistently and
efficiently on their environmental and social performance,"
said Mark Weintraub, Director Sustainable Development Strategy,
Policy & Reporting at Shell. "We believe it can develop
into a powerful tool to help the financial community recognize and
more accurately assess how companies are managing their non-financial
risks and capturing the business opportunities from sustainable
development."
Over the past 10 years,
specialized corporate research firms and other organizations have
been using social and environmental surveys to collect much of their
data. While these surveys have helped to provide important insight
into corporate sustainability, their growing numbers, complexity,
and overlap have created a headache for companies trying to manage
their reporting in a systematic manner. This problem is commonly
known amongst companies and the research community as “survey
fatigue.”
“OneReport is the
first true solution to survey fatigue,” said Jay Falk, President
of SRI World Group. “In addition to streamlining the reporting
process, OneReport will reduce the overall cost of reporting sustainability
information to the marketplace,” he added.
OneReport is the world’s
first reporting system that seamlessly connects publicly traded
companies with the firms that research corporate social and environmental
performance for institutional investors. More than 20 research firms
worldwide have made a commitment to collect sustainability data
through OneReport. These firms cover over 4,000 companies in 25
countries and will use the data to construct stock indexes and create
institutional-level research products that are used to help make
investment and proxy voting decisions.
OneReport offers companies
online data and knowledge management capabilities that facilitate
the reporting process. For example, OneReport enables companies
to collect, review and approve a wide range of sustainability data
from different departments and facilities. Companies can also use
OneReport to establish an audit trail, thereby making information
on sustainability policies, programs and performance metrics more
readily audited and easier to report in future years.
In addition to reporting
to research firms, OneReport can also be used to create reports
based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The tools
featured in OneReport help companies understand the scope of GRI
reporting and identify data that can be included in their GRI report.
AccountAbility’s AA1000 Assurance Standard provides the basis
for additional functionality that will assist users in determining
the extent and quality of assurance of the data.
Data distribution services offered through OneReport disseminate
the data to research firms and other organizations via the Web or
through standard or customized XML data feeds.
Many companies have been
demanding greater "materiality" from the research community.
In response to this trend, OneReport features a feedback system
that will help improve the relevancy of data requests on an ongoing
basis. “OneReport should provide a flexible platform for companies
to deliver material information about their sustainability performance,
a crucial piece of the accountability puzzle going forward,”
according to Simon Zadek, CEO of London-based AccountAbility.
SRI World Group,
Inc. is a leading provider of online social investment and corporate
social responsibility information services. The company was founded
in 1999. SRI World Group is the parent company of CSRwire (CSRwire.com),
a global newswire service for corporate responsibility press releases.
The company is also the publisher of SocialFunds.com,
the Web’s largest personal finance site devoted to socially
responsible investing and InstitutionalShareowner.com,
a social investment news and resource center for institutional investors.
For more information about OneReport, please visit www.one-report.com.
SRI World Group, Inc. is a financial information and
consulting services firm. The company operates SocialFunds.com and
InstitutionalShareowner.com, which serve individual and institutional investors,
respectively. SRI World Group is a news, research, and consulting
firm that advises clients regarding sustainability investment issues
and corporate responsibility practices. It also operates CSRwire,
a globally syndicated newswire service that specializes in distributing
corporate social responsibility reports and press releases.
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