Developing Reporting System for a Products Manufacturer

Situation

A global consumer products manufacturer with a reputation for quality and corporate responsibility had set group-wide 2020 sustainability goals. The organisation had been struggling to manage and track over 100 environmental and social performance indicators, with no robust way of collecting and validating data from across the group. Reporting to GRI and UNGC standards was also time-consuming and error-prone, and limited to an annual exercise.

The lack of analysis tools or dashboards prevented efficient target setting, analysis and reporting, and made it hard to provide feedback to its business units. This prompted the manufacturer to seek a solution in the form of a company-wide sustainability performance and reporting system.

Solution

The manufacturer asked Anthesis to develop a single, integrated solution for collecting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability data, setting targets and tracking performance, and for easy analysis and reporting. Its particular requirements included:

• A simple web-based portal for each business unit to enter data.
• Monthly tracking of data to feed into performance management.
• Dashboards with standard tables and graphs to monitor their progress against targets.
• The ability to view rolled up data and slice it according to business unit, region, and group levels.
• A structured database for easy storage and retrieval of content for GRI and UNGC reporting.
• The capability to expand the solution to include additional impacts, KPIs and users.

Impact

Following a detailed review of the manufacturer’s requirements, Anthesis and Footprinter^TM built the solution using the Green Operations and Green Social modules of the Footprinter^TM platform. This was done in a collaborative and agile way with the organisation, including features such as:

• An online web platform, accessible anywhere and designed for collaboration.
• Robust and standardised data entry in one place.
• Dashboards that allow business units to see and analyse their own data.
• Portfolio dashboards that roll up performance and slice by business unit, region and KPI.
• Customisable reports available on screen and exportable to Excel.
• A database capable of storing all relevant content and structured according to GRI and UNGC standards.