WBCSD MONTREUX 2015 – LIAISON DELEGATES MEETING, April 2015

WBCSD’s 20th Birthday celebrations, the meeting in Montreux was a big event for Redefining Value with the plenary presentation of the work program and seven well attended sessions providing engagement opportunities.

For those who could not attend, or who could not make all of the sessions they would have liked to, please find here (*see below) an update of the recent developments in the Redefining Value work program and below summaries for each individual sessions in Montreux.

 

Finally, although there wasn’t a Reporting Matters session in Montreux, we are eagerly anticipating Reporting Matters 2015. Please ensure that you send your report to Anaïs Blasco (blasco@wbcsd.org) no later than 1st August 2015.

Rodney Irwin
Managing Director, Redefining Value

 

Redefining Value – Cross cutting program – update

Dated 1 May 2015

This document summarizes the latest developments in the Redefining Value program, including new additions such as the SDG Compass and the projects funded by The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Contact: Rodney Irwin (irwin@wbcsd.org), Managing Director

 

Natural Capital

The Natural Capital Coalition (NCC) is progressing with the development of an early working draft of the Natural Capital Protocol (NCP), led by WBCSD’s consortium. See overview here. Companies from the NCP business engagement programme will review and pilot test it from June 2015 before a wider, public consultation which is planned for early 2016.

Key highlights from the NCP workshop on 20 April included:

o NCP should aim for comparability of process as a minimum at this stage, as there are many variables yet to be addressed that may discount the comparability of results.

o To satisfy the range of users, the NCP aims to be applicable at different levels of detail: basic, intermediate and advanced.

o The group recognized that although monetization can be helpful for capex and investment decisions, it is not as helpful for operational management.

Companies wishing to get involved, incl. pilot testing, are welcome to do so through the structured process managed by the NCC.

WBCSD is on the Advisory Committee for the second World Forum on Natural Capital, to take place 23-24 November in Edinburgh. The Forum brings together business leaders, government representatives and environmental experts to examine developments in the natural capital field.

Contacts: Eva Zabey (zabey@wbcsd.org) and Hannah Pitts (pitts@wbcsd.org)

 

Social Capital

o “Towards a Social Capital Protocol: A Call for Collaboration” will be launched externally, along with a dedicated webpage and supporting material in the week of May 25. See here for the latest draft.

o Through the course of the Montreux meeting, a series of workshops were held to discuss and progress three initiatives which contribute to the development of the Social Capital Protocol (SCP):

A Social Capital Charter which will clarify the overall ‘rules of the game’ in applying measurement and monetization of Social Capital. The WBCSD will continue to develop a draft text, with input from members and partners.

A Social Capital Protocol Deep-Dive on the topics of skills, employment and safety, which will serve to inform and build momentum in developing the SCP. A project and engagement plan will be developed and shared with the group within the coming weeks.

The Social Capital in Decision Making project which will bring to life how social capital measurement is used to support business decisions, based on in-depth interviews with over 20 member companies. The publication will be released at the end of June.

Contacts: Kitrhona Cerri (cerri@wbcsd.org) and Janne Dietz (dietz@wbcsd.org)

 

NCP and SCP Alignment

At the request of members, the Social and Natural Capital teams have been liaising on process and structure of the Protocols. Following an alignment workshop in January, a short session took place in Montreux to update members. We explored 1) the similarities of business applications for the respective Protocols, and 2) what key milestones were necessary on the road towards true value and natural & social capital accounting in 2050.

 

Reporting

Reporting Matters 2015

Heads up! The review of members’ sustainability or integrated reports will start on 1 June 2015.

We will not be able to review reports published after 1 August 2015.

The report is planned to be released at the Paris Council Meeting in December.

Individual dashboards incorporating scores against WBCSD’s methodology will only be distributed to members upon request.

After 10 years at WBCSD, Anne-Léonore Boffi will be leaving WBCSD at the end of May 2015. We would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank her for her extremely valuable contribution to the organization, where she focused on the global network, water and in recent years, reporting and financial capital.

Action for members: Please send us the report you would like us to review. We recognize that corporate sustainability information is published through a variety of communication and reporting channels (e.g. sustainability, annual and integrated reports, regulatory filings, websites) but, while doing our best to consult several sources when clearly cross-referenced, we would like to ensure we focus most of our efforts on providing you with feedback on the report that will bring you the most added value. If we do not hear back from you, we will use our best professional judgement to identify the fullest source of your company’s sustainability performance information. Please send the report (or link to) to Anais Blasco (blasco@wbcsd.org).

Contact @wbcsd.org) May 1, 2015 redefining value – post montreux summary page 3 of 4

 

Business Action on Sustainable Development Goals

The name of the project is now SDG Compass. The project aims to publish a guide right after the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are adopted by member states (Sep 2015), on how business can contribute to the SDGs through understanding which SDGs are relevant for their company, impact assessment, KPI selection and goal setting.

In Montreux, a plenary parallel breakout session aimed to further increase awareness of the SDG Compass among members and to solicit member feedback on certain elements of the guide. Three members – Nestle, Novozymes and Acciona – also presented what their companies are doing to align their programs with the SDGs.

The session was very well attended. An entry poll showed that SDGs are important for most attendees in informing their business strategy, but that they are currently not very well informed about the SDGs – underlining the need for the SDG Compass guide for business.

Discussions on the target audience, guide outline and indicator selection, among others, yielded constructive feedback from session attendees.

The next step is the finalization of the first draft of the guide and a subsequent member consultation period (early May). In June or July there will be an open consultation on the second draft of the guide.

Contact: Mark Didden (didden@wbcsd.org)

 

GHG Management

At the Climate and Energy program update session in Montreux, an update of GHG Protocol Standards and Guidances was presented (slides)

Since the CM in November 2014, the following three GHGP publications were published for (local) governments: the Mitigation Goal Standard, the Policy and Action Standard and the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories.

In addition, the Scope 2 Guidance was published to help companies account for emissions from purchased electricity, responding to the rapid growth of renewable energy and other major shifts in the electricity market.

Finally, the scope 3 evaluator tool was launched. This is a freely available on the GHGP website and helps companies with an initial assessment of their value GHG emissions.

Ongoing work includes: The Portfolio Carbon Initiative (Finance sector) and the Product Innovation Standard (accounting for ‘avoided emissions’ of use of provided goods and services, to be started in 2016).

Contact: Mark Didden (didden@wbcsd.org)

 

Reporting Landscape Mapping

The new Reporting Landscape Mapping project was introduced to WBCSD members, Global Network Partners and external reporting stakeholders for the first time at Montreux with positive feedback.

The project aims to bring clarity in the reporting landscape by developing a pioneering web based tool which will guide business on the reporting frameworks, regulation, policies, standards, or guidance which are applicable to them at national, regional and international levels.

The immediate next steps are to:

o establish a technical working group consisting of WBCSD members and GN partners to help guide the software development process.

o recruit of software developer to partner with on application development.

The first pilot of the tool with limited dataset and functionality will be available by the end of 2015.

Contact: Andy Beanland (beanland@wbcsd.org)

 

Assurance

This project aims to cast light on existing assurance practices, what regulations are in place in which countries, what business is demanding, what the roles of various actors are (assurance providers, “standard setters” etc.), what reservations are heard and what solutions can be proposed, so that all stakeholders can speak a common language to set the landscape for future rationalization of approaches.

Following a member experience survey of nonfinancial assurance in January 2015, we organized a one-day workshop during Montreux which helped shape the future direction of the project.

Contact: Eric Dugelay (dugelay@wbcsd.org)

 

SAVE THE DATE: Measuring sustainability performance: Bridging corporate and academic approaches and contributions, 1-2 October 2015, Geneva

WBCSD and the Environmental and Sustainability Management Accounting Network (EMAN) are organizing an international sustainability accounting conference on business measurement, valuation and reporting of environmental and social impacts and performance.

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