Example Of Term Paper On Critical Analysis Of Sustainability Reports And Triple Bottomline For Three Companies, Conagra Foods, Disney & Intel Corporation

Introduction

This report critically reviews and analyzes the elements of sustainable and environmental reporting in three companies, Conagra Foods, Disney and Intel Corporation. It will evaluate the levels of reporting in relation to the standards set forth in the Pacific Sustainability Index (PSI). This will involve the evaluation of the 2013 environmental and sustainability reporting of the three firms to provide a comparative and an absolute discussion of the sustainability reports. This paper will also critique the sustainability report in relation to the financial performance of the three entities.

Overview

The three entities under review seem to be working in different sectors and different entities. Conagro is into the production of fruits and other products that are processed and provided to consumers in different parts of the United States. Conagra presented a Citizenship Report which includes annual sustainability report of the CEO and the Vice Chariman of the Board. This comes with the citizenship report and its approach which tends to discuss the position of Conagra in providing services to the wider society and their approach towards environmental and social responsibility. Their approach is quite unorthodox and it appears to have developed over the years from a format in-house that has been adjusted and continues to be adjusted each year to be streamlined with methods and approaches in different parts of the world.
Disney also presents a model similar to Conagra. They show their unique position and role in the society and their commitments. The social and environmentally responsible elements of their activities are used as the background for shaping the components and the style of the report. This culminates in a simple but well articulation of what they do, what their goals for the year were and how well they met these targets. The Disney sustainability report also provides a futuristic view of the things they have not been able to achieve and how they intend to achieve it. Disney seems to have a system through which they have deduced the main pointers of writing sustainability reports and they have adapted the system to their own context and they have presented a simplified and down-to-earth report that shows important and vital elements of their operations and activities.
Finally, Intel Corporation provides a comprehensive and detailed report that shows that data was collected from different units of the firm and they were collated and aggregated to present such a in-depth report of their activities. The Intel sustainability report is the most detailed in scope and it seems to transcend the fundamental requirements and expectations that has been presented in the PSI index. It appears to be prepared by a group of pacesetters who have spent time to deduce the minimum requirements and they have gone ahead to postulate other relevant elements and aspects of reporting that are not even required of them in the GRI or PSI framework.
The three reports were subjected to the requirements and expectations of the standards set forth in the PSI framework. This culminated in the identification of every single pointer and every single requirement and the assessment of the reports across the criteria set out in the PSI framework. On this basis, a total of 99 pointers across the 5 classes of the PSI framework were assessed, namely:

Environmental Intent

Environmental Reporting and Performance
Social Intent
Social Reporting and Performance &
Membership Guidelines
The details of the individual scores for the sub-categories can be found in Appendix 1 below which outlines the collated data. The findings led to the scoring of pointers for the three organizations and this is presented in Table 1 below:

Comparative Analysis of Sustainability Performance of Conagra, Disney and Intel

It can be identified that all the presented their intent in the social and environmental manner fairly. This is because the margins between the two entities in both areas are not vey big. This shows that the reports are fairly well introduced and they provide the reader with what to expect and how the report is going to inform them about activities that occurred within the respective companies. However, it must be pointed out that Intel Corporation provided the most detailed examination and review of their environmental and social intent. Their report showed almost everything except for a few weaknesses like the ability to mention a contact person that anyone could get in touch with for further enquiries and how to contact such an individual. This was a weakness that ran across all the different sustainability reports.
The intent of Conagra had various weaknesses like leaving out major elements of their activities including description of the corporate structure, financial and environmental matters and various policy frameworks. These limitations were also found in Disney’s reports and they showed major lack of clear intent and structure for their reports.
Conagro did not disclose full details of their energy usage and hazard control strategies and waste management processes. They left major gaps that a reader had to assume. And this shows that their standards were weak and their ability to disclose these things or to handle them was limited. Disney and Intel provided detailed reports on energy consumption and usage and performance. However, Disney did not show some specialized elements like office recycling and details of their environmental violations and other violations. This was clearly done to save face and avoid criticisms. Therefore, it can be said that Intel provided the relative best environmental reporting structure that covered a whole range of issues. However, a few areas like Hazard waste and its management were not disclosed satisfactorily.
Social performance was also shown with a few deficiencies in Conagra. Elements like the punishment of employees, employee bargaining rights and others were not presented in totality. In Disney, elements that could affect their reputation like anti-corruption practices, working hours, questions of child labor and other things were truncated. They were not disclosed in full or in totality. Rather, they were presented in various limited forms and aspects. Again, Intel Corporation provided the most comprehensive social reporting and social performance matters. They did not talk about child labor, working hours and some sensitive matters.
A convenient membership and guidelines criteria was set and this was used as a means of estimating and providing an insight into how the firms fared. An aggregration of how membership and guidelines were provided was based on the completeness and scope of the reports. This again confirmed the superiority of Intel in disclosing its membership and other guidelines.
Appendix 1