Specialist reporting eg Sustainability Reporting, Environmental Impact Reporting

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Sun, 06/19/2011 - 22:59

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Sustainability Sometimes only a specialist report will do.  If a condition for funding is that a Sustainability Report is submitted with the request for funding, then the organisation requesting funding should get this specialist report, and the organisation reviewing the application should simply reject any application without the right report.  It makes common sense.

 The Environmental Impact Assessment is specifically required for some European Union grants and permissions, and although this applies mainly to commercial projects, it is relevant to CVS organisations because they may want to have an influence on these projects.

This page is part of a longer article on how best to measure and report social good.  I hope you enjoy it and I'd be delighted with comment and criticism.  You can find out more about the whole series at this page.

Although these standard approaches take more work and often require an independent consultant or auditor to verify the work done, this makes them much more credible with organisations that provide the funding, or with Council Members/ Trustees/ the concerned Public who want to be sure that their money is being spent wisely.

On this page I'm going to look at specialist reporting methods, specifically Sustainability Reporting and Environmental Impact Assessment.

Sustainability Reporting e.g. Global Reporting Initiative, AccountAbility's Standards

Sustainability

Sustainability reporting takes reporting a stage further, rather than just reporting on what has already happened, it develops a theory of change which can then be used to determine causality and attribution.

This can be very valuable when making predictions of the future, particularly predictions which are outside of the normal range of the measures taken.

SWOT

Strengths

Weaknesses

Specific to environmental and sustainability issues

As well as measuring what is actually happening, sustainability reporting attempts to work out why it is happening, and what would make more of it happen/less of it happen

Specific to environmental and sustainability issues.  Although this is a strength, it also means that further auditing is required to illustrate other social good delivered.

Although this method does put an attribution percentage to show how much of the change (observed) can be attributed to the programme being analysed, it still can't be used to determine how much investment should be made, and what is the return on investment

Opportunities

Threats
Sustainability "Theory of Change" gives scope to demonstrate enormous benefits for relatively small inputs, on the basis of Chaos theory, which can be highly motivating to supporters and lobbyists

 

The public is becoming used to gigantic claims, some of which have not been "sustainable" (credible when challenged) in the past; care needs to be taken to ensure claims can be verified and the theory of change makes sense to the (wo)man in the street and is believable

 Social Impact Measures

Environmental Economics and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

This approach is required as part of planning consent for major projects, as defined by European Community legislation.  It is an attempt (within a structured framework) to put a financial value on the environmental impact of a new project.  This means that a project which is designed to benefit the environment can claim the financial value that it delivers, but perhaps more importantly for the environment (though not of interest to CVS organisations), it requires commercial and industrial projects to consider the impact they may cause and  to consider ways to minimise this impact.

The assessment requires the a report on the environmental impact of "What is significant".  This is open to interpretation which may result in projects getting passed which have successfully hidden their real environmental impact, and others being rejected because an EU commissioner is concerned that vital detail is missing.

SWOT

Strengths

Weaknesses

A robust internationally recognised approach to assigning an economic value to impact assessment

required by the European Community for projects to go ahead

Not necessarily relevant to CVS organisations

open to personal bias, and decisions over the significance of certain factors

Opportunities

Threats

Major projects, especially those requiring European Community funding will always need to use this approach

May not be applicable to smaller projects or existing services

 

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Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Sun, 05/20/2012 - 15:35

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We can create a web site for youYou've enjoyed reading The Social Return Company's web site (this site), and you want a site like this.  You run a small business or voluntary organisation, and you like the way that TSRC appears high up in Google searches, also B12 deficiency support group (www.b12d.org) also appears.  You want to know how you can do it?  Read on . . .