Achieving Radical Transparency

Copyright © 2016 Wayne Visser & Kaleidoscope Futures Lab. Ltd

Achieving Radical Transparency

Digitally Interlinking Data, Context & Stakeholders

Amsterdam, 17 May 2016Wayne Visser, Vishal Kapadia, Bill Baue, Ralph Thurm, Richard Mills


Agenda

• 09.00-09.30: Dr Wayne Visser– Introduction: Transforming Corporate Accountability

• 09.30-09.45: Ralph Thurm– Reporting 3.0: The International Multi-Stakeholders Platform for the “Future of

Sustainability Reporting• 09.45-10.15: Vishal Kapadia & Richard Mills

– WikiRate: Data Activation Through Aggregation, Accessibility & Sustainability Contextualization (DATAASC) Project

• 10.15-10.30: Break• 10.30-11.00: Bill Baue

– Convetit: Virtual Stakeholder Dialogue & Interactive Materiality Matrix• 11.00-11.30:

– User Perspectives (academic, NGO & workshop attendees)• 11:30-11:45: Q&A• 11.45-12.00: Summing up & how to get involved


Transforming Accountability


Evolution of transparency


Trends – Corporate Transparency

Trend 1: Explosive sustainability reporting growth – but from an extremely low base

Trend 2: Proliferation of reporting standards – with mandatory disclosure on the rise

Trend 3: Improvement of data quantity & quality – driven by emerging information technologies (IT)

Trend 4: Shift from corporate to value chain data – with traceability becoming the new watchword


Technology as a driver

The one-size fits all, half-narrative, half quantified sustainability report is looking increasingly out of date.

Sustainability reporting will increasingly build on a database of ESG information and data, packaged in different formats, with different stories, using different communications channels and media, in order to match the diversity of stakeholders’ expectations


Trends – Sustainability Ratings

Trend 5: Increasing importance of sustainability ratings – as a driver of sustainability performance

Trend 6: Consolidation of sustainability ratings agencies – due to competition & questionnaire fatigue

Trend 7: Demand for more transparency by rating agencies – to counter low levels of trust


Evolution of crowdsourcing

Value-driven

Values-driven

Technology-focused

People-focused

Shareholder value analysis

People management &

reporting software

Stakeholder needs assessment

Sustainability management & reporting

software

Crowdsourcing platforms &

ratings


Trends - Crowdsourcing

• Trend 8: Moving social media beyond a marketing channel – to an action research database 19

• Trend 9: Growing use of crowdsourcing as a stakeholder engagement tool – allowing proactive anticipation of issues 21

• Trend 10: Transforming the power of connection into the power of collaboration


Insights• Insight 1: Hyper-connectivity makes

responsiveness more possible – and less likely• Insight 2: Value-action gaps make stakeholder

feedback more collectable – yet less valuable• Insight 3: The wisdom of the crowd can,

without validation, also become the tragedy of the commons

• Insight 4: The openness of open source is questionable when values are a filter

• Insight 5: Questions remain about the accountability ratings when the guardians are not guarded


Radical Transparency


The GRI Challenge

“GRI believes it’s time to move “beyond reports” and focus on the data produced during the sustainability reporting process. Liberating this data and exploring how this information can then be used to enable better decisions is the natural next step”

- Michael Meehan


Day 1

Kickoff: Data Trends, Standards & Guidelines

“I am told that the first crop of corporate sustainability reports is now being fed into IBM's Watson artificial intelligence (AI) system …” - John Elkington


Day 2

Data Liberation, Aggregation & Sourcing

“The ultimate dream would be to make it just as easy to access ESG data as it is to type in a ticker symbol on Yahoo or Google Finance …” – Louis Coppola


Day 3

Data Contextualization, Materiality & Tagging

“GRI’s mystifying refusal to in any way flesh out or enforce its own Sustainability Context principle …” – Mark McElroy


Day 4

Data Analysis, Ratings & Engagement

“Instead of having only experts driving research, we are keen to engage everyday people from around the world in this process …” – Milena Marin


Day 5

Synthesis

“WikiRate would need to function both as a central data repository and a dynamic data ecosystem that provides multiple accessibility points to meet stakeholders and companies where they are at…” – Linda Wedderburn

Business

Achieving Radical Transparency