West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum and Southwest Michigan Sustainable Business Forum will co-present a luncheon program examining the influence of materiality assessments and major retailer scorecards on sustainability programs on Monday, May 12, at Perrigo from 12 to 2 pm. Presented by Perrigo.
The new Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines are paying more attention to materiality assessments as the foundation for determining the scope and content of sustainability reports. That’s a good thing. The GRI still devotes the majority of its new G4 guidelines to a long list of sustainability performance indicators that it has determined are the scope of a proper sustainability program. But with 91 indicators across six categories in the G4 guidelines, it’s very easy to get lost when attempting to address those indicators. That can lead to wasted time and effort in collecting data and communicating about issues that are not terribly material.
Elsie Palabrica, Senior Sustainability Consultant for Environmental Resources Management, will discuss how that routine exercise, if approached in an unfocused way, can detach you from some of the founding principles of the sustainability movement:
•Engage your stakeholders
•Understand your impacts
•Determine what’s important to you
•Find compelling and innovative ways to add value to your business, your value chain partners, and society
•Help you define new indicators needed to understand the impact of the most innovative collaborative efforts.
Palabrica is a senior sustainability consultant at Environmental Resources Management (ERM). She has more than twenty years of development and leadership experience in global and full scope sustainability performance management, including strategic planning, policy and standards, communications, benchmarking, and trend reporting. She has developed global programs for multinational companies addressing management systems, performance indicators, and performance assurance and auditing. She serves on the Board of Directors of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and previously served on the Board of Directors of the ERM Foundation – North America.
Also on the agenda: Bissell Homecare Sr. Product Safety and Regulatory Affairs Manager Dave Auperlee will discuss how sustainability scorecards from major retailers such as Kohls and Walmart are motivating investment at manufacturers such as Bissell and Perrigo. Disher Design & Development Product Development Engineer Travis Gibbs will present on sustainable packaging and his own experience with retailer scorecards.
Cost for lunch is $10 for WMSBF and SWSBF members, $15 for non-members
Source: West Michigan Sustainability Business Forum