GRI and its Awards partners (KPMG Spain, KPMG Netherlands, SustainAbility, ACCA, Futerra, TCS and exclusive sponsor Petrobras) are proud to present the winners of the GRI Readers’ Choice Awards 2010. In a festive Awards Ceremony that took place at the GRI Conference in Amsterdam, GRI welcomed the winners on stage and congratulated the runners-up on their success in reaching out to their audiences with their sustainability reporting. The winners are Banco do Brasil, Banco Bradesco, Vale and Natura Cosmeticos, all from Brazil.
The GRI Readers’ Choice Awards are not decided by a group of experts judging reports against criteria – they represent the voice of a wide spectrum of stakeholders– readers who have thought about the quality of reporting, who have been engaged by the reporters and who want to have their say. This is the essence of the Readers’ Choice Awards – it is stakeholder engagement: employees, investors, suppliers, distributors, consumers – and not least company managers.

The GRI Readers’ Choice Awards has generated far more interest and attention from around the world with twice as many participants in 2010 than the first edition in 2008. Readers from 55 countries voted on the shortlisted reports. In 2008, Europeans were the largest regional group of participants followed by the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas. In 2010, European enthusiasm is undiminished but we’ve seen significant growth in interest from India, the USA, China, Argentina, Greece, and Italy. However, the big news is a huge growth in participation from Brazil.

Readers that took part in the Readers’ Choice Awards Survey chose reports that exemplified just those qualities in a report that they thought were important. As such, these votes have been cast for reasons, and the analysis of those reasons has been a fascinating exercise.

Solitaire Townsend (Co-founder of Futerra) finds that Brazilian reporters have raised the bar for everyone and looks forward to seeing other reporting countries ‘pulling a Brazilian’ the next time. Ernst Ligteringen (CE Global Reporting Initiative) is pleased with the enthusiasm of the Brazilian reporters and readers in the Readers’ Choice Awards and Survey, but nevertheless stresses that sustainability reporting from organizations from other regions is also to be acknowledged. Sam Turnbull (Marketing Director, ACCA) says that although it is evident that Brazil is leading in terms of attracting a massive voting population, other countries are following closely.

For detailed information on how the finalists were determined and voting patterns, please consult: http://awards.globalreporting.org.