Two Major Sustainability Guidelines - Essay Example

4 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 4 Introduction and Overview This study was started with the aim of finding out how sustainability can be measured. This aim was approached through a qualitative research which reviewed two major sustainability guidelines which are GRI and RepRisk. At this point in the study, several primary and secondary data have been collected in line with the research question which was set for the study. The specific objectives used in the study also acted as very good guide in collecting primary and secondary data. In this chapter therefore, the researcher’s major concern is to present the findings that were made and also undertake a critical analysis of the findings. In terms of the findings, much focus will be given to primary data collected, as that was the basis for establishing an empirical background to the study. The primary data collection focused on three major companies which are Veolia, Suez and UBS. These companies were selected because they are active in different areas of corporate operations including water, energy and sustainability management, and banking and Investment. This makes the study have a diversified sample. As part of the qualitative research approach, much emphasis was placed on the use of document review. This means that the findings that will be presented are based on sustainability activities and reputation exposure as outlined in various public reports of the companies. The analysis section will be the most detailed of the chapter, where the secondary data collected will be used to critique the outcomes of the study’s findings. Also as part of the analysis, the hypotheses were set during the literature review. It will be noted that the hypotheses were set based on the specific objectives of the study. Consequently, both the findings and analysis sections of the chapter shall be subdivided into sections that reflect each of the four hypotheses. This will make it easier to test the hypotheses with the findings and also with the analysis. Overall, there will be two major areas being focused on in the chapter, which are sustainability activities and reputation exposure. 4.2 Findings As explained earlier, the findings section of the chapter is specifically dedicated to presenting the results that were gathered from the three companies used in the study. Even though this is a qualitative study, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the use of statistical and mathematical presentation of findings. This was done to give the findings an empirical interpretation. What this means is that because the statistical and mathematical presentations such as graphs, ratios and percentages have the same universal meaning, it will be easier for any person using the findings of the study to interpret the results in exactly the same way. The findings are presented in four major divisions according to the specific objectives of the study and as reflected in the various hypotheses set for the study. 4.21 Assessment of reputation risk To assess the reputation risk of the three companies, their RepRisk reports were sourced and used. It will be noted that as a private organisation, RepRisk measures reputation risk for companies by quantifying environmental, social and governance risks posed to firm’s reputation (RepRisk AG, 2014). In line with this, the findings for reputation risk are presented in three major divisions or areas, which are environmental, social and governance. Below is a presentation of key areas of the RepRisk report that assesses the reputation risk faced by the various companies. Figure 1: Overall RepRisk Index for the 3 Companies Adopted from RepRisk Report of Companies From figure 1, it can be seen that the three companies have different levels of reputation risk as measured with the RepRisk Index. These are showed by the current scoring, which is an average of scores in the past 2 years, and peak scoring, which is the highest point ever reached in the past 2 years (Adams and Geoffrey, 2008). Among the three, the company with the highest risk was UBS AG, which was followed by Veolia Environment, and then Suez Environment Co. By the interpretation of the index, it can be seen that by the current index, two companies fell in the categorisation of low exposure. These were Suez Environment Co and Veolia Environment, as the range for low exposure is from 0 to 25. UBS AG on the other hand was in the range for high exposure, as high exposure ranges from 50 to 75. To understand the exact composite of the index’s scoring, each company was investigated for the three major areas, which are environmental, social and governance. The index breaks the three areas into 27 major issues. In Table 1 below, the issues for each area where the companies are classified as having major issues are presented. By issues, the RepRisk is making reference to issues about the various companies that are commonly reported in the news. News as used in this context refers to both print and electronic media. By major issues also, reference is being made to a collection of issues that make up social, environmental and governance perspective of the issues. In the table, there are some issues that are repeated under the three major issues. This is so because under each major issue, the same set of issues are described, making it possible to default on one issue in more than one area or major issue. In the appendix section of the study, all 27 issues and how they are distributed for the three major areas is presented. Table 1: Major issues affecting the companies in 3 major areas Company Major Environmental Issues Major Social Issues Major Governance Issues Suez Local pollution Violation of national legislation Impacts on communities Violation of national legislation Anti-competitive practices Violation of national legislation UBS Global pollution and climate change Local pollution Impacts on ecosystems and landscape Water issues Violation of international standards Violation of national legislation Supply chain Human rights abuses, corporate complicity Impacts on communities Local participation issues Violation of international standards Violation of national legislation Supply chain Forced labour Child labour Freedom of association and collective bargaining Discrimination in employment Health and safety issues Poor employment conditions Violation of international standards Violation of national legislation Supply chain Corruption, bribery, extortion, money laundering Misleading communication Fraud Tax evasion Anti-competitive practices Veolia Local pollution Impacts on ecosystem and landscapes Overuse and wasting of resources Water issues Violation of international standards Violation of national legislation Human rights abuses, corporate complicity Impacts on communities Social discrimination Violation of international standards Violation of national legislation Discrimination in employment Health and safety issues Poor employment conditions Violation of international standards Violation of national legislation Corruption, bribery, extortion, money laundering Misleading communication, Fraud Anti-competitive practices Adopted from RepRisk Report of Companies Table 1 is an exact reflection of Figure 1. This is because the higher the index score of companies, the more major issues they had in the 3 major areas outlined. However, the most significant thing that the table exposes is the fact that there are issues which were common with all 3 companies in all the 3 areas that were investigated. For example the issue of violation of national legislation run through all the three companies and for all the 3 areas. Local pollution was also seen to be an environmental issue which affected 2 out of 3 companies. Impact on communities was also a social issue which affected all the three companies. Good. 4.22 Sustainability assessment To have a detailed sustainability assessment of the 3 companies, the annual and sustainability report for each company was utilised. This report was used as it outlines the companies’ sustainability issues, visions and efforts over the past few years. As part of the hypotheses set in the literature review, the focus on sustainability assessment was placed on stakeholder involvement in sustainability programmes of the companies. From the annual and sustainability reports of the companies, the number of named stakeholders engaged in the companies’ sustainability initiatives is presented in the chart below. Figure 2: Recognised Sustainability Stakeholders of Companies From figure 2, it will be seen that the maximum number of stakeholders by a company in terms of sustainability was 6. This was used by UBS AG. The remaining companies had 5 stakeholders each. Very interestingly, the 5 stakeholders reported in the companies with 5 stakeholders only run through all the other companies. These stakeholders were suppliers, customers, employees, government and regulators, and local communities. Such stakeholders have been used by several other global companies but it is common to have more stakeholders included for other companies. Such other stakeholders could include pressure groups, creditors, trade unions, owners, and investors (Altman et al., 2011 and Andersen, 2010). UBS AG which had one additional stakeholder included shareholders as part of stakeholders for its sustainability agenda. Having known the number of identified stakeholders, the researcher looked for the level of improvement for first tier stakeholder satisfaction survey for 2012 and 2013. This data is displayed below. Figure 3: Improvement in Stakeholder Satisfaction on Sustainability Figure 3 shows that there were 2 companies that experienced increases in the level of stakeholder satisfaction on sustainability. These 2 were Veolia and Suez. From 2012 to 2013, the level of stakeholder satisfaction for the sustainability practiced by UBS AG decreased from 55% to 53%. As part of the assessment of sustainability based on stakeholder satisfaction therefore, it can be said that Veolia and Suez has better stakeholder endorsement than UBS AG (Aragon-Correa and Sharma, 2013). The reasons and implications for this assessment have been given in the next section of the chapter. 4.23 Implementing sustainability measures To assess the actual sustainability strategies that are used by the companies, and as reflected in the research question, the GRI sustainability reports of the companies were examined. GRI (2011) emphasises that a sustainability report is a form of published document of a company which outlines the company’s economic, environmental and social impacts caused by its everyday activities (Brady, 2011). From this perspective, this subdivision of the section measures 3 major areas of sustainability as given in the GRI reports of the companies. Table 2: Sustainability Measure for the Companies Company Category Indicators Total Economic Economic Performance Market Presence Indirect economic impact Veolia 2 1 2 5 UBS 1 0 2 3 Suez 1 2 1 4 Environmental Materials Energy Water Biodiversity Emissions Products and services Compliance Transport Veolia 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 13 UBS 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 11 Suez 1 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 12 Social (Labour) Employment Management relations Health and safety Training and education Equal opportunity Equal remuneration Veolia 2 1 2 2 1 2 10 UBS 2 1 2 2 2 1 10 Suez 1 2 2 1 2 1 9 From the table, each of the indicators represents one crucial area under that particular category. At the appendix, there is a detail of the full indicators for each category. For each indicator, there are 3 possible outcomes. These are ‘fully’, ‘partially’ and ‘not’. These indicate the extent to which the companies produce reports on these. Companies that are ranked ‘fully’ on a particular indicator are scored 2. Those that are ranked ‘partially’ are scored 1; and those ranked ‘not’ are scored 0. From this form of scoring produced in the table, the following breakdown can be achieved. Figure 4: Summary of Sustainability Reporting in Companies From figure 4, it is noted that there is a different attitude towards sustainability reporting for the 3 companies. This was based on the GRI index used for the companies. From the 3 major areas measured, it was noted that the score for the 3 companies were not very different and wide apart from each other. This is because the highest scoring was 28, which was followed by 25, and closely followed by 24. The most important fact to note however is that there was a total of 34 points that a company could score since the number of indicators were 17 in all. By implication, the highest scoring was only 6 points away from the total score. The remaining companies were 9 and 10 points away from the total respectively. 4.24 Comparison between RepRisk and GRI From table 1 and figure, the difference and similarities between RepRisk and GRI are clearly outlined. This makes it possible to focus on the hypothesis that tried to compare the two forms of sustainability guidelines. In comparing the two, it can be seen that all the two guidelines focus on environmental and social perspectives of corporate management. However, whereas the RepRisk looks very directly into the reputation exposure of the companies, the GRI looks at the actual sustainability practices in these two areas. However, there is a new dimension with each of the guidelines. The new dimension with RepRisk is the governance perspective, while the GRI introduces the economics perspective. This means that a company that uses these two guidelines in the measure of sustainability and reputation can be focusing on four major perspectives of corporate management, which are environmental, social, economic, and governance (Broughton, 2009 and Chanda, 2007). The analysis section will look into details as to which of the two help to answer the research question of which of the two is more comprehensive in measuring sustainability strategies. 4.3 Analysis The analysis section of the chapter is dedicated to giving detailed critique to the findings that have been presented above. This is mainly done by comparing the outcomes in the findings with literature and other secondary data to find how universally applicable the findings that have been made are in comparison to other companies. This means that for this section, a lot of premium shall be put on the individual analysis of the three companies according to the diverse areas in which they operate. In line with the research question of the study, the analysis section will be attempting to answer the simple question of how universally accepted the sustainability strategies used by the three companies are in their different areas of operation. This measure of universal acceptance shall however be given in light with the use of the RepRisk and GRI. This is because of the research question which was asked as “How Sustainability Strategies can be measured? A review of GRI and RepRisk in regards to Veolia, Suez and UBS” 4.31 Assessment of reputation risk The analysis of the findings on the theme of assessment of reputation risk is directly based on the third hypothesis of the study. This hypothesis is given below: H3: Companies can use reputation to develop sustainability Whiles measuring the reputation exposure of the three companies, it was noted that Suez Environment Company scored the least in terms of overall RepRisk Index. The current index for the company was 14 whiles the peak index was 23.To have a very good understanding and interpretation of this, it is important to look at the index from the perspective of the industry in which the company operates (Franklin, 2010). From the RepRisk report of the company, it is seen that the industry level average of current index is 17 whiles the peak for the industry is 49. This means that in both areas, Suez performed creditably well. Meanwhile, Haugh and Talwar (2010) and Nikolaeva and Bicho (2010) agreed on the importance of reputation in developing sustainability. Christensen (2009) also added that sustainability within a particular industry is developed when there are fewer reputational risks that a company is exposed to. From the results in the RepRisk report of Suez, it is confirmed that indeed the company’s lower reputation risk helps it to develop sustainability. This is because in terms of major issues that drive sustainability initiative, it was noted that there were only few of these areas that the company fell short. Consequently, it can be deduced that Suez is well positioned to become a leader in its sector or industry in terms of sustainability once the company continues to keep its reputational risk very low (Pink, 2009). The reputational risk for Veolia Environment was also relatively low when compared to the two other companies. Among the two other companies, it was only Suez that scored lower risk than Veolia. But to have a better understanding of the company’s position in terms of the sector or industry it operates in, it is important to look at the company’s index in line with its competitors (Orts, 2013). From the RepRisk report of the company, the industry average current risk is 16 whiles its peak is 86. This means that in terms of current risk, Veolia has higher risk than what prevails for the collective industry. This cannot be a good indication for the company especially when arguing from the perspective of sustainability (Elkington, 2014). This is because according to Doz (2011), companies are regarded as being more controversial when their current risk falls 5 units higher than the industry average. The effect of this on sustainability however is that because the risk exposure index is based on sustainability initiatives, the companies become questioned on their commitment to sustainability. One other important indication that the results of Veolia gives is that even though the risk exposure of a company may be rated as low, this does not guarantee that the company is doing well or that it is not controversial (Post, 2002 and Higgins and Green, 2011). This point is further reiterated in major issues of Veolia when there were several areas that the company fell short. From a more quantitative perspective, it can be said that between the three companies, UBS AG was the one that performed worse in terms of risk exposure. This is because the overall risk exposure of the company was rated as high, which falls in the range of 50 to 75 (Hart and Milstein, 2009). What may be particularly worrying is that in the industry where UBS AG operates, the current average risk index is 37 whiles its peak risk index is 70. Those for UBS AG as a company however are 62 and 64 respectively. This makes the company one of the most controversial in the finance industry. Meanwhile, Prior (2009) noted that the banking and finance is one that is expected to have lower risk exposures given the fact that they are less exposed to sustainability issues such as environmental pollution. In its current form however, UBS AG should be very worried because as long as reputation is used as an indicator in measuring sustainability, it can be said that the company has been less committed to sustainability in the past two years as captured in the report. According to Sen (2013), a major evidence of the impact that reputation risk has on sustainability is the major sustainability issues that the companies are exposed to. From table 1, it is seen that UBS AG is exposed to almost all the named issues. 4.32 Implementing sustainability measures The central research question that the study focused on was how sustainability can be measured with a review on GRI and RepRisk. From the first theme analysed above, the hypothesis has been justified that company reputation impacts on sustainability (Hart, 2012). Since company reputation is measured by the use of RepRisk, it is right to state that the RepRisk is one of such ways in which sustainability can be measured (Shiller, 2003). In this theme, focus is given to GRI as a tool for measuring sustainability. This is guided by the first hypothesis in the literature review, which is repeated below. H1. Sustainability reporting has a correlation with reputation. Under the second theme in the findings, the GRI was used to calculate the measure of sustainability that exists in the three companies. In the first theme also, the RepRisk was used to calculate the measure of risk exposure of the companies. To validate the hypothesis that sustainability strategies have a correlation with reputation, it is expected that companies that scored high for reputation will do same for sustainability and those that scored low for reputation will do same for sustainability. As far as reputation risk was concerned, Suez was the best performing company. This is because it was the company with the lowest risk exposure. In terms of sustainability measure however, Veolia outperformed Suez. This means that between Veolia and Suez, the hypothesis given above will be rejected. This notwithstanding, there are some extents of practical correlation that can be found between reputation for Veolia and its sustainability score. This is because even though the company was not the best performing in terms of reputation risk, it had a very impressive risk exposure, which was generally related as low. Focusing on the sustainability reporting score for Veolia, the company’s approach to sustainability can be commended in that it has focused on all three areas of sustainability which are economic, environmental and social (Jermier, 2008) with almost the same level of attention. By so doing, Veolia is better placed to become an all-round company in terms of sustainability (Pogue, 2010 and Missimer et al., 2010). Having scored the lowest reputation risk among the three companies, Suez was ranked second in terms of sustainability reporting among the three companies. Porter and Kramer (2009) noted that there are a number of factors that could be responsible for a situation of this nature. Most commonly, the company can be said to have a weak sustainability reporting system which refuses to be very thorough in its reportage. Karl-Henrik (2010) cautioned that such a situation could affect companies negatively, given the fact that the sustainability practices they carry out is what external stakeholders base on to judge their levels of sustainability. In effect, the less detailed and frequent a company’s sustainability may be, the less likely that such a company will b regarded as sustainable (Nidumolu, Prahalad and Rangaswami, 2009). With this said the importance of the GRI in serving as an effective sustainability strategy and tool can be reinforced in line with the aim of the study. This is because it is through the GRI that Suez has been exposed as having a weak sustainability reporting system, which has also been noted to give a negative influence to the company in terms of its known sustainability agenda (Hopkins, 2011). In the next them of this section, the impact of Suez’s sustainability reporting will be viewed in line with how it has affected stakeholder endorsement. The score obtained by UBS AG in terms of sustainability reporting could be said to be a clear reflection of the company’s reputation risk. This is because in terms of reputation risk, UBS AG was noted to be the one with the highest exposure among the three companies. In terms of sustainability reporting also, the company had the least score. Sparkes and Cowton (2013) and Newton (2012) agreed that companies that have reluctant sustainability reporting attitudes can be suspected of having a lot to cover or hide in terms of adherence to sustainability initiatives. It was against this backdrop that Szejnwald, de Jong and Levy (2009) and Huntington (2013) both agreed that one important way in which companies can be assessed on their extent of sustainability is to focus directly on their sustainability reporting. Given the fact that the GRI is used mainly to measure the extent of sustainability reporting performed by companies, it will be right to say that the GRI is not just a sustainability strategy but a useful sustainability measure (Khan, Kunz, Kleijnen and Antes, 2003). While accepting this position, the need for UBS AG to focus more efforts on improving its sustainability in all three areas as captured in the study will be admonished. This is because the more sustainable the company is, the more lucrative it would become to stakeholders (Fried, 2011). 4.33 Sustainability assessment Whiles analysing the theme of sustainability assessment for the three companies, the second hypothesis was used as a reference point. The hypothesis is stated below: H2: Highly sustainable companies have higher levels of trust among their stakeholders Based on the hypothesis and the results gathered for sustainability reporting for the three companies, it is expected that the hypothesis will be accepted if the stakeholder satisfaction among the companies is highest for Veolia, followed by Suez, and then UBS. This is because the sustainability scores for the three companies were ranked in that order. True to this, Veolia had the highest stakeholder satisfaction for both 2012 and 2013, which were 62% and 65.5% respectively. Writing on stakeholder satisfaction and sustainability, Gladwin, Kennelly and Krause (2012) and Willis (2013) all agreed to the fact that the success of companies in the larger industries in which they operate is largely dependent on their stakeholder trust for sustainability. Explaining why this is so, Freeman and Reed (1983) stated that stakeholders of today, including customers, policy makers, employees, local society, shareholders, and suppliers are all becoming highly inclined on the need to support the course of sustainability. This means that the higher the level of stakeholder satisfaction, the higher the chances with the company on getting stakeholder endorsement for most of its activities. For Veolia however, what may be particularly worrying is that it has a lot of major issues that it has not tackled yet as seen in the first theme. Yet, its stakeholder satisfaction is high. This could either imply that there is influence within the stakeholder base of the company or that the company is making a lot of strives from previous records, for which it has gained stakeholder endorsement (Hopwood, Mellor and Obrien, 2005). In support of the second hypothesis, Suez was scored the second company with highest stakeholder satisfaction. The values for 2012 and 2013 were 59% and 62.8% respectively. Like Veolia, the company gained 3 percentage points more. This should not be a surprising or controversial situation for Suez at all. This is because, already, it has been seen that the company has put in a lot of efforts in minimising its major issues in the news. In such a situation, Labuschagne, Brent and Van, 2005) noted that the company becomes very attractive to its stakeholders because it is seen as one that is making efforts to promote sustainability. The stakeholder endorsement and satisfaction that is given to Suez also helps in answering the research question of how companies can measure sustainability in another way. This other way is that sustainability can be measured by the extent of stakeholder satisfaction that companies have (Nidumolu, Prahalad and Rangaswami, 2009). This is because as stakeholders are constantly becoming inclined on the need to promoting all forms of sustainability including environmental, economic and social, one would expect that the only situation under which a company will improve in its stakeholder satisfaction as Suez and Veolia did is when they are taking sustainability more seriously. The results obtained by UBS AG go on to confirm the second hypothesis even better. This is because as a result of the low sustainability score of that company, it recorded the lowest stakeholder satisfaction. This means that as much as highly sustainable companies have higher levels of trust among their stakeholders, low sustainable companies have lower levels of trust among their stakeholders (Sen, 2013). For UBS AG, what is particularly outstanding is that its stakeholder satisfaction reduced from 55% in 2012 to 53% in 2013. This is certainly a claim to the effect that the company is losing out on the trust of its stakeholders (Stevens, 2012). Indeed, this is an appropriate position to be taken by the stakeholders given the very high numbers of major issues that the company has involved itself in over the past 2 year and as captured in the company’s RepRisk report. From this position, companies seeking to be global leaders in their areas of operations will be admonished to make stakeholder trust through sustainability a major priority (Baumgärtner and Quaas, 2010). Particularly for UBS AG which includes shareholders as part of its stakeholders, the risk is that a refusal to win stakeholder trust would mean that its in-flow of shareholder capital can be negatively affected (UNCSD 2007 and Dyllick and Hockerts, 2002). 4.34 Comparison between GRI and RepRisk and Chapter Conclusion H4: Using GRI offers a much involving measure than RepRisk as GRI involves sustainability, which includes reputation. To give a generalised assessment on which of GRI and RepRisk is more detailed and most suitable strategy for measuring sustainability, reference will be made to the various areas and dimensions of sustainability that they cover. From this, the fourth hypothesis in the literature review can be accepted that using GRI offers a much involving measure than RepRisk. This is because whiles RepRisk generalises most of the dimension of sustainability initiative, GRI spreads these out in a more elaborate manner as showed in the appendix. For companies that want to have the real measure of their sustainability status therefore, it would be concluded that the best strategy to use will be the GRI. With this said, the relevance of having a combined strategy by using the two can also be said to be an effective way of approaching sustainability (Epstein and Roy, 2001 and Hopwood, Mellor and Obrien, 2005). 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