Three Steps to Kickstart Your ESG Reporting Journey

Since the publication of DP World’s inaugural Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report earlier this year, I have received many questions on effective reporting. They are important questions. ESG reporting is becoming central for regulatory purposes and capital investment around the world. And in maintaining a global standard in our own ESG journey, reporting has been fundamental to ensuring continuous improvement.

But reporting is not an endgame. It is an essential part of a longer ESG journey and the way we measure progress being made on DP World’s Our World, Our Future sustainability strategy.

While it is a meticulous process, there are three key steps DP World follow that I believe can help kickstart any organisation’s sustainability reporting journey.

1 – Mapping out reporting frameworks

Identifying a recognised reporting framework is a critical first step. At DP World, we engaged the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Standards - the world’s most widely used standards for sustainability reporting. This decision was influenced by the fact that UN Global Compact in 2010 identified the GRI as the recommended reporting framework for companies to communicate on ESG progress. And therefore, as signatories of UN Global Compact it was natural for us to utilise the GRI framework for our communication - on - progress , a mandatory requirement as a signatory.

The GRI Standards are interconnected standards that allow organisations to publicly report the impacts of their activities in a structured way that is transparent to stakeholders.

There are other frameworks that may be more suitable depending on an organisation’s business and intentions, such as some frameworks specifically target one type of stakeholder for instance investors or customers. In our case, we wanted our report to be geared towards a multi stakeholder audience.

2 – Materiality Assessment and Matrices

GRI’s recommended Materiality Assessments are a method any company can use to identify and evaluate possible ESG issues which can impact the business and its stakeholders.

Our own materiality assessment was completed at Group level in 2019 long before the final ESG report was published. This materiality assessment included input and engagement with numerous stakeholders – including board members, employees, partners, NGOs, suppliers and customers – and provided the key insights to frame the Our World, Our Future sustainability strategy.

All identified issue areas were plotted on to a Materiality Matrix which can be found on page 5 of our ESG report. It is based on this matrix that we identified disclosures and indicators to track in our ESG report.

3 – Identify metrics

Finally, accountability is a cornerstone of ESG reporting. Measuring your performance against the issues will allow for positive, ongoing outcomes. Whether quantitative or qualitative, specificity is the key. In our ESG Scorecard, we measure our ESG performance annually against specific metrics and key performance indicators mapped against material issues. Our metrics are also influenced by other international frameworks that we subscribe to, for example the UN Women Empowerment Principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals amongst others.

All three of these cornerstone steps should lead to genuine assessments and acknowledgment of both positive and negative issues. Reporting is just a part of the journey, but it drives DP World to always challenge ourselves to help solve real problems and make meaningful and data driven progress on the Our World Our Future strategy.?