News
The latest news from us and our network:
April 2011: Hands-on CR training
The number of inquiries we receive about the fastest and surest way of obtaining cross-sectional CR expertise is rising steadily. The demand is growing among both companies and their stakeholders. akzente is a willing provider of such know-how and on 24 March 2010 2011 taught a module of the University of Bayreuth’s crash course “CR Management for Practitioners”. The five-day course was run by the University and Campus Academy in cooperation with the firm of consultants concern, and participants were awarded the certificate “Corporate Responsibility Manager (University of Bayreuth)”.
akzente’s role was to provide a thorough grounding in “Ratings, Audits & Reporting” and in “Communication & Dialogue”. Especially valuable to those present was the insight it offered into a wide range of ratings and their specific requirements and into Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The discussion of stakeholder dialogue and communications was quite controversial. Many participants had already had first-hand experience of the pressure that stakeholders can bring to bear. Legitimizing NGOs was thus a key topic of debate. No one disputed that dialogue with stakeholders is an important early-warning system and a source of valuable stimuli. What is not always appreciated, however, is the necessity of being receptive to different, as yet unarticulated requirements, and hence of being willing not just to teach but to learn. Yet in an age in which social media are set to heap still more demands and criticisms on business, forcing it to engage in candid, open-ended dialogue, such open-mindedness is more important than ever.
January 2011: Ethics Conference at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
At the panel discussion moderated by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Zintl on 14th January, Prof. Dr. Hardy Bouillon, Dr. Joachim Fetzer, Dr. Sven Remer and Sabine Braun discussed ethical issues and the training required to enable managers to tackle them. The topic under discussion was “Management Ethics 101: a waste of time or a must?” The ethical education of managers has been a focus of attention ever since Harvard Business School, responding to the economic crisis, initiated what has since come to be known as the “Manager’s Oath,” or Principles for Responsible Management Education. Courses in management ethics are suddenly all the rage.
The stance taken by Sabine Braun was clear: Management ethics as the study of values and norms is certainly not a waste of time; but nor should it be more than an adjunct subject aimed at raising awareness of the larger social context. Once moral judgments are implied, it becomes altogether questionable. Courses in ethics should not be prescriptive. Instead, they should foster freedom of thought and so enable students to make solid value judgments of their own. Besides, why should any one person have all the answers? Whether at university or in business, discussions of the future thrive best on friction and on the interaction of representatives of several different disciplines, including economists, political scientists, sociologists, historians etc.
The panel discussion exposed the difference between those who merely reflect on ethical conduct in business and who are constantly trying to strike a balance between self-interest and the common good, and those who regard sustainability as the only legitimate model to follow – besides being what is required by law. By coming down firmly on the side of the latter, Sabine Braun, said another participant, offered a more coherent and consistent concept for forward-looking or even just norm-compliant business practice than the business ethicists present.
Ethics Conference at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
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November 2010: Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) workshop
On 4 November, akzente and sustainable together with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Munich and Upper Bavaria held a seminar on “Using, assessing and communicating PCF”. The aim was to allay people’s fears and enable them to tackle this issue themselves. Speakers from Danone Deutschland and Eos reported on their two companies’ experience with PCF and the strategic impact of the results. The 20 participants came from the most diverse lines of business including the automotive industry, electrical engineering, insurance and food. Their prior knowledge of the subject ranged from “hearsay” to years of experience.
The discussion was therefore lively and informed right from the start by a desire for binding standards for PCF. As the workshop progressed, it became increasingly clear that being able to put an absolute figure on PCF is not crucial to communication and that its strategic implications for companies become apparent only in the course of time. By the end of the day, several of those present agreed that for many companies, assessing PCF is likely to prove a good lead-in to a more far-reaching discussion of climate protection.
October 2010: IR road show with EquityStory AG
EquityStory AG/DGAP mbH, Germany’s market leader in investor online relations, this year took its annual road show in early October to Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. On board for the first time was akzente kommunikation und beratung gmbh – another German leader, in this case in sustainability reporting. Why?
Because akzente and EquityStory have teamed up to develop a new service: Sustainabilty Fact Sheets for Beginners and the More Advanced. These standardized fact sheets are designed to provide analysts and investors with all the sustainability information they need at a glance. But they will also appeal to those who do not relish reading voluminous reports – customers, for example, who nevertheless are about their suppliers’ sustainability performance. The sustainability fact sheets will be published via the DGAP Platform and CSR News.
At the road show, akzente managing director Sabine Braun explained what the fact sheets were all about, as well as discussing the latest developments in sustainability, CSR and reporting. Her talk attracted considerable attention, since even IR managers – at least those of large corporations – are now aware of the importance of sustainability and its relevance to their own work. The road show also featured a tie-in talk by Dr. Timo Holzborn of Heisse, Kursawe, Eversheds, who presented the latest capital market regulations, including the new German law on the proportionality of executive compensation (VorstAG). By applying the sustained success of a business as a yardstick, this law seeks to enforce a longer term perspective, while at the same time providing scope for consideration of alternative factors.
Download (PDF, 34 p., ca. 1.64 MB), only in German:
Sustainability Reporting: Fact sheets for beginners and advanced users
September 2010: stakeholder relationship management in Germany
A new study by akzente and the Institute 4 Sustainability that takes stock of stakeholder relationship management in Germany was presented at the 4th International Conference on CSR at the Humboldt University in Berlin in September of this year. The study found that the main reason German companies engage in stakeholder dialogue is to win acceptance. Seventy-five percent of respondents saw the chief benefit of stakeholder management as its positive impact on reputation; only 30 percent took the view that stakeholder dialogue had led to changes in their operations.
The study also shows that the strategy hitherto practiced of engaging with stakeholders only once or at best sporadically will soon prove insufficient to the task. Even now, there are signs that companies’ most important partners for dialogue on sustainability issues in the coming two years will be not so much civil society organizations (CSOs) as customers, business partners and employees. In many cases, however, the individuals and units responsible for stakeholder dialogue have no direct access to these stakeholder groups. Hence the need for a stakeholder relationship management system that builds on the instruments already there and brings together the sustainability expertise of a wide range of stakeholders.
Download (German only) (PDF, 21 p., ca. 337 kB)
August 2010: Carbon footprint as a competitive factor
In an article for the current issue of UmweltMagazin, Dr. Ralf Weiß discusses the competitive relevance of the carbon footprint concept, taking the haulage and logistics industry as an example: “More and more customers are asking about climate protection and carbon footprint is fast becoming a relevant criterion for the choice of supplier. This is also true of the logistics industry in which climate protection and carbon footprint are part of the trend towards greener logistics. The pioneers in this field are actively reshaping the supply chain and already have green or even carbon-neutral products in their portfolio.”
Download „Umweltmagazin 07–08/2010”, p. 48–50 (PDF, 3 p.; 1.81 MB, German only):
“Carbon footprint as a competitive factor” [„Carbon Footprint wird zum Wettbewerbsfaktor”]
July 2010: akzente on tour
This year’s company outing together with our affiliate sustainable in late June took us to the German city of Essen, European Capital of Culture 2010. But that was not our only reason for going there…
Since we are often in the Ruhr Area on business, we decided it was high time we got to know it a bit better. And how better to get to the bottom of it than a visit to the Zollverein mining complex, complete with an unforgettable trip down the Prosper Haniel coal mine, courtesy of Evonik. This experience of culture in the very broadest sense of the term together with the Ruhr Area’s unparalleled enthusiasm for football, which we also experienced at first hand, both contributed to the success of the strategy workshop we combined with our day out.
Just before setting off for Essen, we were delighted to hear that akzente has been awarded the contract for overseeing the CR reporting and CR communications of MAN SE of Munich. The new report of BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH was published around the same time. This was our sixteenth report for this client, but the first to feature a special insert on the BSH Super Efficiency Portfolio.
Download of the BSH report “Environmental and Corporate Responsibility 2009”
June 2010: New reports from Bayer AG and Telefónica o2 Germany
The sustainability reports of Bayer AG and Telefónica o2 Germany which akzente helped prepare were published in late May. Both reports are annual reports and are audited by Ernst & Young. But that is where the similarities end.
Bayer’s sustainability report 2009, which presented the new sustainability strategy recently approved at the very highest level, is more than a hundred pages long. Besides presenting the new strategy, the first section reports on the progress made on the focus issues of the Group’s sustainability programme (global access to health care, nutrition for a growing population and climate and environmental protection). This is followed by a performance report, which because Bayer is made up of three subgroups (Bayer HealthCare, Bayer CropScience and Bayer MaterialScience) is very substantial. The Bayer sustainability report meets the requirements of GRI-Level A+, as the GRI itself has confirmed.
Bayer AG: Sustainable Development Report 2009
As part of the Spanish group Telefónica, Telefónica o2 Germany is able to concentrate on sustainability issues of particular relevance to Germany. It was therefore decided to have an online report only, which nevertheless offers a wealth of detail based on GRI indicators. Published parallel to this is a brochure outlining the key concerns of the year 2009 under review and of the sustainability strategy. Here, o2’s focus is on media competence and barrier-free communications. To explore these topics and the challenges they pose in greater depth, o2 has teamed up with UPJ to create an online dialogue forum at www.diskutiere.de. o2’s strong customer and stakeholder orientation – arising out of the nature of its business and the networking opportunities this opens up – is manifest throughout both the online report and the brochure.
May 2010: New CR reports from RWE and HVB
The CR reports of RWE and HypoVereinsbank (HVB) were both prepared by akzente and published as scheduled in late April/early May. But that is where the similarities end. RWE´s report is a classical sustainability report. Around ninety pages long, it is published every two years in time for the AGM, and is supplemented every other year by a brief status report as well as the regularly updated website. RWE implements the GRI guidelines in full (Level: A – self declared) complete with an additional GRI Record on the Internet. The 2009 report was the first to be assessed against the Accountability Standard AA 1000. Another innovation in the RWE report 2009 was the introduction of key performance indicators (KPIs) for each of the ten areas for action defined in the CR strategy and first presented in the 2007 report.
CR reporting and communications are handled rather differently at HVB. As part of the UnicreditGroup which publishes a group-wide sustainability report, HVB is able to confine itself to a 24-page brochure. The objective here is to present all the key themes and activities in a format intended mainly for customers and employees. This year´s report was to be published in time for the Ecumenical Kirchentag to be held in Munich in mid-May, which is supported by the HVB. Despite its brevity, the HVB’s annual sustainability brochure outlines all its areas for action and lists all the key figures. Last year, oekom research ranked the HVB report first among all the CR reports of financial services providers that it rated.
March 2010: Trends in sustainability reporting
The follow-up event of the sustainability report ranking 2009 took place in Hannover on 18 March 2010. Under the banner of “Climate change – the issue to end all issues. Should reporting be a legal requirement? Online or in print – where is corporate sustainability reporting headed?” future e.V. and the Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW) sought to shed light on their 2009 ranking and to spot the latest trends. Issues such as online reporting, data validity, how to present climate risks and the pros and cons of making sustainability reporting a legal requirement were addressed in both the workshops and the panel discussion.
akzente has prepared a summary of the most important findings of the Hannover event. This can be downloaded here (PDF, approx. 50 kb, 4 pages, German only):
“Findings of the IÖW/future Workshop on the 2009 Ranking”
January 2010: Sustainable investor relations?
In Going Public 1/10, Dr. Axel Klein reports on the results of a survey that akzente conducted together with the DVFA.
Klein concludes that vertical mainstreaming has long since taken place. In other words, almost all investment companies these days have at least one sustainability-oriented fund in their portfolio. What is clearly taking longer is horizontal mainstreaming, which would entail the application of a sustainability filter to all funds and investment classes. For this to happen, however, investor relations would first have to prove themselves receptive to new forms of communication and new lines of argument.
Download GoingPublic 01/2010, pp. 36/37 (PDF, 510 kb, German only): “Sustainable investor relations?”