BSR Insight | Best Practices in Reporting on Ethics
About the Author(s)
Dunstan Allison Hope, Managing Director, Advisory Services
Publication Date
August 30, 2011
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Ethics and integrity disclosure—reporting on the implementation of codes of ethics—is an important part of corporate transparency. Leading companies typically take one of the following approaches:
Data centric: A company will disclose the number of integrity concerns raised during the year—often segmented by issue—and the actions taken to address them (exemplified by GE). The number reported indicates the scale of a company’s ethical challenges and the importance the company places on them.
Case study centric: In a series of case studies (exemplified by Best Buy’s chief ethics officer's blog), a company will describe the ethical violations and how it responded. This approach brings ethics issues to life for employees.
At minimum, a company should describe its code of ethics as well as its management systems, training, and risk-assessment processes related to these issues. However, the gold standard is a hybrid approach that includes both the number of concerns raised as well as the narratives that highlight specific cases.
For more information on this topic, contact Dunstan Allison Hope.
About the Author(s)
Dunstan Allison Hope, Managing Director, Advisory Services
Dunstan works with a diverse range of companies—including those in the information and communications technology (ICT), consumer products, and heavy manufacturing sectors—on corporate responsibility issues such as human rights, reporting, sustainability strategy, and stakeholder engagement... Read more →
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