Environmental Reports
There are direct benefits to your business in the measuring and reporting of environmental performance, including lower energy and resource costs, improved understanding of exposure to the risks of climate change , demonstration of leadership which will help strengthen your green credentials in the marketplace, regulatory compliance and strategic business development using environmental KPIs to capture the link between environmental and financial performance.
ECOS help our clients to create the comprehensive reports required to demonstrate compliance with the following principles to be applied when collecting and reporting on environmental impacts:
Relevant: Ensure the data collected and reported appropriately reflects the environmental impacts of your organisation and serves the decision-making needs of users — both internal and external to your organisation.
Quantitative: KPIs need to be measurable. Targets can be set to reduce a particular impact. In this way the effectiveness of environmental policies and management systems can be evaluated and validated. Each chapter provides the details for that subject area. Quantitative information should be accompanied by a narrative, explaining its purpose, impacts, and giving comparators where appropriate.
Accuracy: Seek to reduce uncertainties in your reported figures where practical. Achieve sufficient accuracy to enable users to make decisions with reasonable confidence as to the integrity of the reported information.
Completeness: Quantify and report on all sources of environmental impact within the reporting boundary that you have defined. Disclose and justify any specific exclusions.
Consistent: Use consistent methodologies to allow for meaningful comparisons of environmental impact data over time. Document any changes to the data, changes in your organisational boundary, methods, or any other relevant factors.
Comparable: Companies should report data using accepted KPIs rather than organisations inventing their own versions of potentially standard indicators. The narrative part of a report provides the opportunity for a company to discuss any tensions which exist between providing comparable data and reporting company-specific KPIs. Use of accepted KPIs will aid you in benchmarking your organisation and will aid users of your report to judge your performance against that of your peers.
Transparent: This is essential to producing a credible report. Address all relevant issues in a factual and coherent manner, keeping a record of all assumptions, calculations, and methodologies used. Internal processes, systems and procedures are important, and the quantitative data will be greatly enhanced if accompanied by a description of how and why the data are collected. Report on any relevant assumptions and make appropriate references to methodologies and data sources used.
ECOS assist our client to implement all of the above principles within their varied reporting requirements, including:
- Stakeholder Information
- Business Planning
- Process and Product assessment and validation
- Regulatory Reporting
- Carbon and Water Management
- Resource Efficiency
- Roadmap for sustainable business development
Contact ECOS today for guidance on environmental reporting, or assistance related to the compilation and submission of environmental reports. We look forward to your enquiry.