This article by Jonathon Hanks (Incite Sustainability) and Louise Gardiner (First Principles), with a foreword by Mervyn King, provides some perspectives on the global shift to integrated reporting. Published by the IFC’s Global Corporate Governance Forum, the article draws on insights and experience gained in advising some of South Africa’s top companies, and offers practical guidance for company directors and executives tasked with producing an integrated report. A copy of the article (PDF) is available here.
This article, written by Incite’s Jonathon Hanks and published in the December 2011 edition of Accountancy SA, reviews the concept of “materiality” as applied in current financial and sustainability reporting practice, and suggests an approach to materiality that is intended to inform the process of integrated reporting. The article can be read on the ACA website.
In this article, published in Business Day Earth on 15 August 2011, Jonathon Hanks argues that integrated reporting has the potential to reframe the often marginalised sustainability debate. A copy of the article is available for downloading here.
In this Business Day Earth article, Incite’s Anthony Dane reviews the mixed reactions to the National Treasury’s discussion paper on carbon taxation. A copy of the article is available for downloading here. This article was published in Business Day Earth on 15 August 2011.
By Lauren Hermanus, writing for Business Day Earth
In this Business Day Earth article, Lauren Hermanus speaks to Brigitte Burnett, head of Nedbank’s Sustainability, and reviews some of the sustainability challenges and initiatives that the bank is implementing. A copy of the article is available for downloading here. This article was published in Business Day Earth on 15 August 2011.
By Jonathon Hanks, writing for Anglo American’s A Magazine
For many people the concept of mining companies being committed to sustainable development is a classic oxymoron. Not only is their business model entirely dependent on the extraction of a finite non-renewable resource – and thus by definition not sustainable over the long term – but the extractive sector also has a reputation (deserved or otherwise) for despoiling the environment, disregarding worker safety, and being complicit in human rights abuses in areas of weak governance.
By Jonathon Hanks, writing for ISO Focus magazine.
Given South Africa’s history and role in global discussions on corporate ethics, the country provides a useful context to consider the application of ISO 26000. The role of voluntary International Standards on social responsibility has been informed in part by the country’s history, most notably through efforts to influence international companies operating in apartheid South Africa. The attempts of business to ward off calls for a total boycott of investment in the country prompted the development of early social responsibility initiatives, such as the Sullivan Principles, a list of tenets for responsible business conduct focusing on US companies active in the region. (more…)
By Jonathon Hanks, writing for Business Day Earth
Sustainable development needs to move from the margins to the mainstream in South Africa’s boardrooms. While some local companies rank amongst the global leaders on sustainability, many still fail to appreciate the strategic business significance of sustainable development.
From April 2011, all companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange will be required to publish an ‘integrated sustainability report’. While the publication of sustainability reports is not new in South Africa (indeed, a few companies have been producing such reports for almost 15 years), this requirement by King III reflects an understanding and desired approach to sustainable development that contrasts strongly with what has characterised much of the South African corporate response thus far.
By Nicola Robins (13 Oct 2010)
Presentation to Brands and Branding for Good Conference, Sandton Convention Centre.
While I am certainly grateful for the invitation, this is not a conference I could have imagined myself talking at one day. Branding is not my thing; being good… well frankly, I am a deep sceptic. When I was a small girl, my father told me a nursery rhyme that went:
There was a little girl who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good she was very, very good.
And when she was bad… she was phenomenal.
By Jonathon Hanks
Published in Bidvest’s internal magazine
“Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger. The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences; we cannot avoid this period, we are in it now.”
These words could easily have been echoing through the plenary of the Bella Centre in Copenhagen in December 2009, at one of the largest-ever gatherings of global leaders who came together with the hope of addressing one of society’s most pressing challenges: global climate change. Despite the distraction of a few dissenting voices, there is now sufficient evidence that human-induced global warming presents a fundamental threat to human security and prosperity. Global policy-makers and scientists are largely at one – the science has given us the plainest warnings, we have entered a period of danger, and the era of procrastination should be coming to its close.
