CERES and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) today announced the shortlist of candidate reports for the CERES-ACCA North American Sustainability Reporting Awards 2003 program. Of the 52 applications received, 21 were selected for further consideration by the judges panel that meets next month, including 16 for sustainability reporting and 5 for environmental reporting. This group includes several first-time reporters (FT) as well as small and medium sized reporters (SM).
Sustainability reporting category:
* B.C. Hydro
* Barrick Gold Corporation (FT)
* Baxter International Inc.
* Ben and Jerry’s Inc. (SM)
* Dofasco Inc.First Environment (FT, SM)* Ford Motor Company
* Hydro-Quebec
* Kinko’s Inc. (FT)
* Royal Bank of Canada
* Shell Canada Ltd.
* Suncor Energy
* VanCity Credit Union
* Weyerhaeuser Company
* Wisconsin Energy Corporation
* YSI (FT, SM)
Environmental reporting category:
* AMD
* Dell Inc.
* Interface Inc.
The purpose of the awards program is to contribute to reporting on sustainability, environmental and social issues by United States and Canadian corporations and other organizations by rewarding best practice and providing guidance to other entities that are publishing or intend to publish sustainability reports. For twelve years, ACCA has held annual awards — first in the UK and now in more than 20 countries to promote transparency in reporting the impact of business activities on sustainable development. The CERES-ACCA Awards Program started last year for US companies and this year was expanded to Canadian companies.
CERES and ACCA received 52 reporting award applications from 48 companies, including 32 sustainability reports, 12 environmental reports and 8 social reports. The short list process identified no social reports for awards consideration.
Rachel Jackson, Head of Social and Environmental Issues at ACCA, said: "ACCA is encouraged to see a wide range of sectors make the shortlist this year, including mining, engineering, banking and retailing. These organizations have made the sensible business decision to be more accountable to their stakeholders by reporting publicly.
CERES Executive Director Mindy Lubber said: "The CERES-ACCA Awards reward transparency by giving recognition to those organizations that report environmental, social or sustainability information in the most complete and credible way. We do not reward rhetoric. We are looking for organizations which document their key impacts and clearly explain changes in performance, positive or negative, and set a vision and targets for future progress. The CERES-ACCA judging panel now has the difficult task of selecting the 2003 winners from this high quality shortlist.
The winners will be announced at the CERES-ACCA Sustainability Reporting Awards presentation at CERES Annual Conference on April 15, 2004 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Boston. There will be a further awards celebration on April 29, 2004 at the National Club in Toronto.
