At this time, organisations are tending to produce separate sustainability reports which cover the social and (mainly) environmental assessments of organisation performance that are currently missing from the balanced scorecard. These reports are generally quite long (40-100+ pages), cover many measures in descriptive ways, generally focus on positive developments by the organisation, are rarely audited/assured and, if any comparison is made, compare with internal targets or past performance, rather than reporting against benchmarks, industry averages or any agreed criteria.’3 Nevertheless, with the development of ‘sustainability indexes' by several stock exchanges, including Dow Jones, FTSE, Johan¬nesburg and Paris, the emergence of socially responsible funds and fund managers and increasing expectations by investment analysts, community organisations, employees arid the public generally, sustainability/triple bottom line reporting will develop standards and standard reporting formats rapidly during the next decade.
One approach might be the development of a 'sustainable balanced scorecard' (SBS(j) (see Table 5.2 on the following page).” This approach builds on the balanced scorecard by adding a separate section for both 'social' and 'environmental' factors to complement the existing sections. Table 5.2 suggests four genera] areas in each of the environmental and social areas in which an organisation could develop specific performance measures. In the social performance area, it suggests one measure for employees, one for suppliers, one for community, and one for philanthropy (to reflect the groups which the organisation chooses to support and the amount of that support). Every organisation will also have at least one or two factors which are not generally relevant, but critical for that particular industry and/ or organisation, which ought also to be included.
The environment section includes material use per unit a measure of the efficient use of materials an, issue for all organisations. It also includes energy use per unit and water use per unit, as these are regarded by every scientist working on environment issues as areas where organisations must reduce usage. It also includes 'emissions’, as this is also an area on which there is no debate emissions must be reduced. However, for each organisation, the specific type of emissions would vary.
TABLE 5.2