Tag: sustainability reporting

Sustainability reporting in tech companies – the hardware vs software divide

Nature's fragility
Photo credit Koshyk

I wrote (and subsequently updated) a post a few weeks ago reviewing the Sustainability Reports of various companies in the technology space.

I updated the review again this afternoon (see the updated review below) with the 2009 reports from IBM, Adobe and SAS.

Something which struck me previously, and which hasn’t changed with the new rankings, is the yawning chasm in attitudes to sustainability reporting between hardware versus software companies.

Obviously this divide has a lot to do with risk – hardware companies who have significant manufacturing facilities, with massively complex supply chains, often containing toxic substances have far more exposure to risk than software companies.

This is reflected in the table below where eight of the top ten listings are hardware companies.

On the other hand, the bottom of the table is all software companies (with the exception of Apple – because they refuse to produce a sustainability report!).

The real odd one out though is the leader, SAP. Their sustainability reporting is out on its own. It is way ahead of any other organisation I have come across and this despite the fact that they are a software company!

One factor may be that they have a significantly European representation in senior management – they have a very different thought process when it comes to sustainability. SAP say they want to be an exemplar and an enabler – and, so far, they seem to be delivering on that.

None of the other software companies seem to take sustainability reporting anywhere nearly as seriously as the hardware companies.

Why do you think that is?

Global telco’s sustainability reports reviewed

Nature's fragility
Photo credit WTL photos

When I published my review of tech company sustainability reports a couple of weeks back, it was suggested that I should add in telco’s as well. Instead, for clarity, I decided to publish a separate review of telco sustainability reports here.

Company Latest Report Format Remarks External Audit GRI Index CEO involved
BT 2009 Online and PDF Granular links and multiple PDF download options Yes Yes – A+ Rated Yes
Telefonica 2009 PDF Comprehensive document with lots of charts and numbers (Spanish only) Yes Yes – A+ Rated President
T-Mobile 2009-10 PDF In an otherwise good report, it was disappointing to see the Chairman’s involvement was a cut & paste of an online discussion he had about sustainability on another site as opposed to something specific to the report. Also, the fact that it contained a photo of the Chair using bottled waste doesn’t speak well for his commitment to sustainability Limited Yes – A+ Rated Chairman – kind of!
Swisscom 2009 Website Very confusing layout. Very difficult to find any meaningful information No Yes – A Rated No
Vodafone 2009 PDF Very comprehensive PDF only report Yes Yes – B+ Rated Yes
Orange 2009 PDF Very comprehensive PDF only report Yes Yes – B+ Rated Yes
China Mobile 2009 PDF China Mobile is the 1st mainland Chinese co. listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the thoroughness of this report is a testament to that (in English) No Yes Yes
Telecom Italia 2009 PDF Excellent report with the information well presented and hugely transparent (wrt objectives achieved, objectives missed and targets) Yes Yes Yes
Verizon 2009-10 PDF Good supporting website and report but let down by lack of GRI adherence and no external auditing No No Yes
SK Telecom 2008 PDF Download procedure for PDF is not straightforward and commitment to produce 2009 report by May 2010 has not been met. Also the report is short on numbers and more especially targets. Yes Yes – B+ Rated Yes
AT&T 2008 PDF with options to download individual sections Nicely laid out with goals, numbers and pretty pictures! A very good report – a shame it was only to GRI level C and not externally assured. No Yes C Rated Yes
Telenor No date Online Telenor have a CR section on their site. This section is light on numbers, specifics and targets. No No No
3 (owned by Hutchinson Whampoa) n/a n/a No Environmental or Sustainability site I could find n/a n/a n/a

Some points to note from the review:

Friday Green Numbers round-up 04/23/2010

Green numbers
Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

And here is this week’s Green numbers:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

by-sa