How DJSI Industry Group Leaders Report
The results have arrived for the 2017 Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) review. It’s fair to say the DJSI is the index provider we pay the most attention to, as the exclusion of a particular company can have a direct effect on investors (and stock values). If you aren’t familiar with the DJSI, check out this great plain-language intro to what the DJSI is and how it works.
Part of the DJSI ranking process is to identify a regional and global sector leader in 24 Industry Groups. Those firms must be “prepared to seize the opportunities and manage the risks deriving from economic, environmental and social developments.” They also, naturally, achieve the highest score among their peers against selected criteria: Risk & Crisis Management and Human Capital Development, to name a few.
Several 2017 DJSI Group Leaders are companies we audited as part of our Sustainability Reporting Trends research, so we wanted to share our thoughts on how a few of them are reporting sustainability this year.
Mirvac: Real Estate
Mirvac has a robust sustainability strategy with clear, measurable targets – our analysts liked how the report visualizes these targets and achievements in a single-spread view. Strategically, Mirvac’s ambitious goal is to be net positive in resource consumption and it has launched an SROI (social return on investment) brochure that includes online updates and helps the company better understand and communicate its social impacts. Mirvac’s work, in the words of our intern Sonam, “is pretty cool.”
In addition to outlining substantial research undertaken with Deloitte, Mirvac’s SROI brochure asks some big questions. For instance, what does it mean to instill “a sense of place”?
We also appreciate Mirvac’s commitment to transparency. It reports on missed supplier commitments and identifies where supply chain sustainability has much room for improvement. Mirvac applies a trend we call “honest reporting”. For us, that involves confronting limitations and mistakes head on, highlighting (rather than glossing over) the big challenges and frequently reframing them as opportunities.
Honest Reporting is a growing trend we are keeping an eye on. Of the companies we audited as part of our research this year, 62% included case studies or stories relating to a negative event.
From a design perspective, Mirvac’s microsite is a real work of art with effective application of colour and judicious use of parallax scrolling. These bring the “Everything’s Connected” theme to life. Infographics and icons are impressive and support the content nicely. One recommendation we do have for Mirvac is to introduce captions to its photography, highlighting its assets and its people.
LG: Consumer Durables & Apparel
As an electronics manufacturer, LG acknowledges all the usual risks and opportunities in its industry, including green investment, conflict mineral management and customer privacy. Consequently, LG tracks the percentage of suppliers deemed to have a low CSR risk level (61%) as well as the percentage of smelters certified as conflict-free (68% – which is relatively high, by the way). Our analysts appreciated LG’s approach to conflict minerals and considered it to be a best practice.
We were also impressed that LG shared eight separate Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for each one of LG’s major products. For us, this added to the sense that we were getting a full and clear picture of LG’s operations and not experiencing a greenwashed partial view of its business. Like Mirvac, it also presented the facts transparently, reporting on non-compliance violations related to ESG issues.
Our analyst team felt LG’s inclusion of eight LCAs was commendable and contributed to the report’s transparency.
On the whole, the report content is extremely robust. To take things to the next level, we would be excited to see LG embrace Smart Reporting, particularly as a company in the technology space. There were also print techniques (specifically, a “mini booklet”) represented digitally in the PDF report, which did not translate effectively to the screen. We would have preferred to have that idea translated online.
LG’s PDF report includes a visual representation of a mini booklet with copy hidden underneath. We were stumped by how to interact with this content.
Curious to know how we’d score your stakeholder reporting? Email our Director of Sustainability, Wesley Gee.
