Corporate Environmental Report Score
Card
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a "Big Five" accounting, auditing, and
consulting firm, has developed a guide for companies to use in preparing
corporate environmental reports (CERs). The firm's Corporate Environmental
Report Score Card is based on guidelines established by a variety of
nongovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations Environment Programme.
The Score Card was designed to help companies ascertain how their CERs measure
up against current best practices and international criteria, says Deloitte.
One problem with CERs has been the inconsistency in identifying, measuring, and
presenting environmental information among companies issuing reports. That’s
frustrated shareholders, activists, regulators, and others interested in
reviewing companies’ environmental performance -- both compliance and
beyond-compliance activities.
Deloitte’s Score Card is more like an evaluation tool than a standardization
tool. It was based on a manual created by the firm’s Scandinavian consulting
practices, as well as on surveys of more than 2,000 CERs and in-depth
assessments of 50 CERs.
The Score Card contains 40 questions categorized into eight groups of criteria:
- corporate profile (how well the company defines and explains its operations),
- report design (the report’s content and parameters, including performance indicators),
- environmental impact/data (the thoroughness of reporting environmental performance),
- environmental management (the description of the environmental management system),
- finance/eco-efficiency (dealing the financial implications of environmental performance),
- stakeholder relations (evaluations, with both internal and external stakeholders),
- communications (the report’s readability), and
- third-party statement (its existence and adequacy).
The Score Card can be found online, or contact Elizabeth Loprest at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu: 212-492-3683; 212-492-4235 (fax).
