Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency

From May 26th to 28th the biannual GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) conference was held in Amsterdam. 1200 participants from 71 nations listened to a top selection of international speakers from the scientific, political and business community such as Pavan Sukhdev (UNEP), H.R.H. Prince Charles and Hans Wijers (Akzo Nobel) about the rapid developments in the sustainability, transparancy and reporting arena's.

Michel was present on behalf of icentials to enrich our knowledge, strengthen existing relationships and build new ones. It came as a nice surprise to see that a number of students from our international learning programmes are now working as Sustainability Consultants for respected European firms. Very rewarding and inspiring to see!

Through the slogan 'Rethink. Rebuild. Report.' participants were challenged to reconsider what 'business as usual' should be like. With its rapid expansion and high level speakers and participants the conference itself showed that sustainability is now truly becoming mainstream.

Dutch companies such as Heineken and Philips showed how they deal with the subject and account for their actions to their stakeholders through annual sustainability reports. Van Gansewinkel and Rabobank reaffirmed their front-runner position with their first integrated report, combining their financial and sustainability report into one. Something many see as the way forward to get sustainability into the heart of the organization.

Internationally renowned best practices in the area of sustainability reporting, such as Telefonica, Novo Nordisk and Petrobras, explained how they deal with stakeholder engagement, determine materiality and integrate guidelines and systems such as the UN Global Compact and ISO26000 into their reports.

Despite all these steps in the right direction many speakers were very outspoken about the lack of speed in which society is handling its sustainability challenges. There is a clear mismatch in the pace in which societal and environmental challenges are increasing and the pace in with which we are dealing with them. The conference was hence closed with a call to action towards business and government leaders as well as the general public to work on a continuing increase in prioritizing sustainability practices.