London Wider Waste Strategy - London - Greater London Authority

the averaged scores for waste were higher for each of the above sectors with the
exception of reduced energy expenditure for the transport and diverse services sectors.
4.210. Interestingly, the highest scores on this part of the survey were given to the less
tangible business and personnel benefits that may be associated with environmental
reporting. These particularly included stronger internal commitment, better
environmental management, increased employee awareness, improvements in
reputation, provision of environmental information, and improved stakeholder dialogue.
These benefits associated with environmental reporting suggest that the necessary
emphasis on waste management issues in this report should not be taken out of context
when considering the wider environmental and social issues connected with responsible
corporate behaviour.
4.211. The survey also asked about the costs of producing an environmental report. This
included all of the potential costs such as internal staff, copyright, report design and
report verification etc. The range of costs was quite considerable, from just under
£6,000 to just over £906,000, with an average of £86,000. It was noted that the costs
experienced by those four companies who did not produce a hard copy of the report
were considerably lower.
4.212. Environmental reporting is frequently criticised for the potential to “greenwash”, i.e. to
publish misleading environmental information. Certainly, anecdotal experience indicates
that some environmental reports fail to produce information on one or more of their
company’s major potential impacts, or present data and information in a misleading
manner. Interestingly, the Environ survey assessed the quality of respondents reports in
their survey against the internationally renowned Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
guidelines 27 which outline best practice in sustainability reporting, and found them to be
largely of a high quality.
4.213. Despite the availability of GRI and other guidelines in producing environmental and
sustainability reports, there is still no single model. And, notwithstanding the findings
of the Environ report, standards of reporting do vary. This makes it difficult to evaluate
the quality and scope of a report, especially for the lay person. The quality of an
environmental report can, however, be assured through a process of independent
external verification. This is widely considered to be good practice, although it is not
always undertaken by any means. The costs of external verification in the Environ
survey ranged from £1,000 to £100,000, with an average cost of £8,206.
Unfortunately, the report did not identify how many companies undertook external
verification.
4.214. The Environ report suggests that environmental reporting can and does lead to
improved waste management performance. In the experience of SLR’s staff of
undertaking external report verification, it is likely that this is not just the reporting
process itself but is perhaps more likely to have originated in the objective and target
setting mechanism of environmental management systems (see above).
4.215. Nevertheless, environmental reporting is welcomed as a means of encouraging
environmental improvements.
Recommendation 27: It is recommended that environmental reporting by London’s
major businesses and public sector organisations should be strongly
27 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), 2000. Note, since the Environ report was
prepared, an updated version of the GRI has been produced (2002).
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