Royal Mail Group – CSR reporting critique

Client challenge

Royal Mail Group (RMG) identified a need to make certain that its corporate social responsibility report (CSR) could stand up to public scrutiny.  RMG wanted to find a way of improving their practices, demonstrate transparency and ensure that it was meeting national and international standards and guidelines in CSR reporting.

What did we do?

Article 13 and its team of expert CSR auditors researched and delivered a report, combining a document review and a preliminary critique.  An analytical table was appended to the report.  Our findings were informed by current best practice, benchmarking and contemporary trends.

Article 13 reviewed the company’s 2004 and 2005 CSR reports and supporting in-house materials and strategies against the full range of CSR guidelines, including the GRI standard, AA1000, UK Government guidance and RMG stakeholder priorities.  This enabled Article 13 to present visually areas where RMG is performing well and those where improvement can be made.  As part of this process, Article 13 also analysed completeness and materiality stakeholder by stakeholder.  Materiality concerns the extent to which an organisation has identified the issues of significant concern to stakeholders.  Article 13 also commented on the fit between policies, strategies and reporting.

This is part of an ongoing programme and Article 13 will be building on this work when reviewing RMG’s reporting over the next two years.

How did we break the cycle?

Using our extensive networks in the sphere of CSR reporting (AA1000, GRI etc), we were very quickly able to benchmark and comment on where Royal Mail were placed.  Our experienced in-house auditors worked within the constraints of a limited budget to provide an informative report giving the client clear guidance as to the way forward on their strategy and possible pitfalls.

© Article 13 2006