Jump to navigation
  • News Feed
  • Services
    • 3BL Professional
    • Sponsored Series
    • 3BL CSRwire
    • ReportAlert
    • Green Bond Alert
    • Special Announcement
    • Custom Webcasts
  • Community
    • TriplePundit
    • 3BL Forum
    • CEO of the Year Awards
    • 100 Best Corporate Citizens
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Contact Us
  • Subscribe
  • Search
  • News Feed
  • Services
    • 3BL Professional
    • Sponsored Series
    • 3BL CSRwire
    • ReportAlert
    • Green Bond Alert
    • Special Announcement
    • Custom Webcasts
  • Community
    • TriplePundit
    • 3BL Forum
    • CEO of the Year Awards
    • 100 Best Corporate Citizens
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Contact Us
  • Subscribe
  • Search

Search form

Header Nav

  • Login

Context in context

Context in context
Elaine Cohen
Thursday, Mar 10th, 2011

This post a response to Mark McElroy and Henk Hadders. Both have been urging me to "pronounce" on the subject of context, or lack of it, in sustainability reports, in particular following  my outline of the way the GRI guidelines and integrated reporting will be progressing over the next few years.

Mark McElroy is the founder of the Center for Sustainable Organizations, and has been working tirelessly for over 10 years to advocate for context-based sustainability reporting for which he has developed a particular methodology. I chatted to Mark on the phone yesterday. 

The GRI relates to the question of context in the GRI guidelines, as one of the reporting principles for defining content. The guidance on the principle of context states that reports should present the organization's sustainability performance in the wider context of sustainability. This is the explanation: "The underlying question of sustainability reporting is how an organization contributes, or aims to contribute in the future, to the improvement or deterioration of economic, environmental, and social conditions, developments, and trends at the local, regional, or global level. Reporting only on trends in individual performance (or the efficiency of the organization) will fail to respond to this underlying question. Reports should therefore seek to present performance in relation to broader concepts of sustainability. This will involve discussing the performance of the organization in the context of the limits and demands placed on environmental or social resources at the sectoral, local, regional, or global level." This is rather broad and of course, the degree to which context is reported in detail is left open to interpretation. The GRI offers nothing more specific on this subject. Mark McElroy, however, sees context in a very specific way. These are the tenets of the Context Based Sustainability Reporting approach a la Mark McElroy.

continue reading CSR-Reporting 

Elaine Cohen is the founding partner of Beyond Business Ltd (www.b-yond.biz/en  ), a social and environmental business consulting firm, specialising in CSR strategy and roadmap developent, implementation of CSR processes, reporting and assurance. We work globally with large corporate clients, SME's and non profits, offering a full range of CSR and sustainability expertise. 

  • Elaine Cohen's blog

CSR Bloggers

Alice Korngold - Korngold Consulting

Andrea Learned - Learned On

Benjamin Comer - Pharma Executive

Beth Bengston - Hale Advisors

Celesa Horvath - Making Sense of Responsibility

Chris Jarvis - Realized Worth

David Chase - Forbes

David Connor - Coethica

David Williams - Health Business Blog

Dorothy Davis - All Energy All the Time

Dr. Scott M. Shemwell - Governing Energy

Elaine Cohen - CSR Reporting

Future 500

James Epstein-Reeves - Citizen Polity

Joe Waters - Selfish Giving

Julie Urlaub - Taiga Company

Kate Olsen - Companies for Good

Marc Gunther - Green Biz

Marcy Murninghan - Murninghan Post

Matthew Rochte - Opportunity Sustainability

Maxwell Drommond International - Human Capital: A Global Perspective

Megan Strand - Cause Marketing Forum

Monika Mitchell - Good-B

Paul Klein - Forbes

Stephen Heiser - Nuclear Knowledge

Tracy Lloyd - Emotive Brand

Wayne Visser - CSR International

Will Henley - Responsibility Inc.

© 3BL MEDIA, LLC

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Site Map
3BL Media, LLC
136 West St Ste 104
Northampton, MA 01060
  • Contact Us
  • About Us

Find Us on Social

Latest from Leading Brands

  • 3BL Professional
  • 3BL CSRwire
  • 3BL ReportAlert

Editorial & Leadership

  • TriplePundit
  • 3BL Forum
  • 100 Best Corporate Citizens