Future 500 Companies To Release Global Version of Sustainability Reporting Software

NOVEMBER 2003 - Free Demo Of Software Tool For Easier Sustainability Reporting To Ease "Questionnaire Fatigue"

Fortune 500 companies are barraged with dozens of major standards of corporate accountability, responsibility, and sustainability - and are expected to report against every one of them. Yet the cost and complexity often makes that impossible.

To solve that problem, the Future 500, a not-for-profit alliance of Fortune 500 companies, will release next week an advanced version of the popular software tool and database used by major companies to help them measure and report corporate accountability based on 17 leading standards, including the Global Reporting Initiative, Dow Jones, FTSE4Good, Domini, Baldrige, and 12 others.

Free demo sessions on the tool for Fortune 500® companies are available by contacting Alison Wise, Future 500's Director of Business Development, at 415-294-7775 or awise@future500.org.

The tool, the Corporate Accountability Gap Audit, consolidates seventeen leading standards into a single software-driven process, calibrated to quickly detect gaps in a company's overall corporate accountability and sustainability practices. The tool, now used in North America, Europe, and Asia, provides three key functions:

• In one step, benchmarks corporate performance on the basis of 17 major global standards of corporate accountability, ethics, responsibility, and sustainability.
• Reporting Database automatically compiles comprehensive information for corporate sustainability reports, environmental reports, and triple bottom line reports.
• Solves "questionnaire fatigue" by measuring top line performance and enabling fast customized responses to each of the many surveys from social investment and responsibility groups - without filling out questionnaires one-at-a-time.

Thanks to the generous support of Future 500 corporate partners and staff, this new global version of the software includes several new standards of performance, including FTSE4Good, popular among companies with European operations; the Global Sullivan Principles, increasingly important for demonstrating commitment to human rights; the Global Compact developed through the United Nations; and the Smart Growth Network, a sophisticated standard of corporate engagement in local and regional community issues.

Known as the CAP Gap Audit (for "Corporate Accountability Practice"), the tool enables companies to improve their performance, while dramatically reducing the cost of reporting. It returns performance scores for each standard, benchmarks against prevailing stakeholder expectations, analyzes the results, correlates to business benefits, and provides a short list of actions to enhance corporate performance and reporting and reduce risk and liabilities.

Developed and applied by several of the world's largest companies, the audit and assessment can improve corporate accountability, while significantly reducing the cost and burden of assessment.

The initiative was launched about four years ago, by Future 500 companies struggling with a confusing array of accountability and sustainability standards. By consolidating the leading standards into a single software tool, the companies could assess their performance against numerous standards at once. In addition, the results could be referenced across multiple standards and sorted based on functional responsibility, stakeholder category, or corporate cost/benefit, and other criteria that enhance strategic positioning, decision making, and implementation and reporting.

Companies can use the software as a tool in-house, or have it professionally administered by Future 500 CAP Alliance partners, including Arcadis, Det Norske Veritas, ERM, and WSP Environmental. It is intended for use by large companies and their supply chain.

Future 500 is a network of companies - Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Coors, General Motors, Mitsubishi Electric, Nike, and others - that forge alliances with their stakeholders on behalf of a sustainable future.

For a free web-based demo session on the CAP Gap Audit or information on how to apply the tool at your company, contact Alison Wise at 415-294-7775.