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 The Road to Credibility report, launched this Tuesday, December 9, in São Paulo, Brazil, assesses approaches to sustainability reporting in Brazil and highlights best practice in transparency and disclosure.
Published by SustainAbility, Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável (FBDS) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the report is the eighth global, and first national, survey of corporate sustainability reporting completed for Global Reporters, now in its 12th year.
Natura, a major Brazilian cosmetics company, tops the ranking, followed closely by Suzano Petroquímica, based on its 2006 report, from the chemicals sector, and Ampla and Coelce, providers of electric utilities.
With an average score of 47%, the Brazilian Top Ten are hot on the heels of international leaders, who averaged 57% in the 2006 SustainAbility/UNEP ranking of 50 Global leaders.
Brazil is also ahead of many emerging economies in corporate disclosure of sustainability performance. Some 76 Brazilian companies issued sustainability reports in 2006-07, compared to only 8 equivalents in mainland China and 12 in India.
While the Brazilian Top 5 are closely scored, the spread widens lower in the ranking, and there is significant difference in quality between the Top Ten and the rest of the Brazilian field. All of the Top Ten use the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) third generation guidelines (G3).
Brazilian Top Ten:
Company - Industry - Report year - GRI - Score
1 Natura Cosméticos Personal care products 2007 A+ 54%
2 Suzano Petroquímica Chemicals 2006 C+ 53%
3 Ampla Electric utilities 2007 A 52%
3 Coelce Electric utilities 2007 A 52%
5 Banco Real Financial services 2007 A+ 51%
6 Energias do Brasil Electric utilities 2007 B+ 47%
7 Sabesp Water utilities 2007 C 46%
8 Bunge Food processing 2007 A+ 41%
8 Celulose Irani Forestry and paper 2007 B+ 41%
10 Banco Itaú Financial services 2007 A+ 35%
The report highlights leading best practice in sustainability reporting and articulates key areas of improvement. Some of the highlights include:
Financial markets can drive disclosure - The uptake of sustainability reporting in Brazil has been motivated by various factors, including: the country's increased exposure to international capital markets; the São Paulo Stock Exchange's (Bovespa) introduction of the Novo Mercado listing for companies that voluntarily undertake to deliver corporate governance and transparency practices beyond compliance; and the 2005 launch of the socially responsible investment index, Índice de Sustentabilidade Empresarial (ISE).
Sustainability needs to be integrated into core business strategy - While many Brazilian businesses clearly articulate their values, principles and policies on sustainable development, much still needs to be done to demonstrate how sustainability is intrinsically embedded into core business strategies, and how governance structures work to enable the implementation and delivery of visions and aspirations that are otherwise intangible.
Materiality and stakeholder engagement are essential for credibility - The Brazilian Top 10 were partly differentiated from others in the field by their focus on key material issues, although (with an average page count of 161) there remains scope for far greater clarity, better prioritisation and more succinct analysis.
In general, Brazilian reports lack strong stakeholder views on material issues and sustainability performance. Without external perspectives, many reports undermine their integrity and credibility by over-emphasising good news, falling short on disclosure of hard indictors and targets, and also failing to communicate leadership vision and commitment.
"As a country, Brazil sits at the crux of so many of the world's sustainability challenges and opportunities," said Mark Lee, CEO, of SustainAbility. "It is inspiring to see Brazilian businesses rising to the challenges of disclosure and transparency and helping to raise the bar for other emerging economies.
"Looking to the future, businesses in Brazil and around the world must work harder to integrate sustainability into their core business strategies and to engage key stakeholders more effectively. This is essential if future sustainability reports are to be robust and credible tools for improvement and change, worthy of reading and genuinely more than reputation management exercises."
Israel Klabin, Chairman of the Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, commentend: "The success of the Brazilian Top Ten helps show the way for businesses across the country. The leaders not only demonstrate how the strategic integration of sustainability is essential to corporate success, they also show how Brazil is on track to compete with the world's global business leaders on this defining and urgent agenda."
Sylvie Lemmet, Director of the United Nations Environment Program Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, had this to say: "UNEP is delighted to continue support of the Global Reporters Program, seeking to promote and recognize best practice in transparency and disclosure of sustainability performance.
"We are delighted to see companies from Brazil and other emerging economies innovate and improve their ability to measure, track progress and report on key sustainable consumption and production issues our planet faces today. Greater take-up of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines is also very timely as the world pays renewed interest in corporate governance and financial reform."
SustainAbility is a strategy consultancy and independent think-tank specializing in the business risks and market opportunities of corporate responsibility and sustainable development.
Fundação Brasileira para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável (FBDS) is a non-profit foundation focusing on global climate change, sustainable use of natural resources and corporate sustainability.
UNEP is the voice for the environment within the United Nations system. Its Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (UNEP DTIE) oversees programmatic work to encourage decision makers in government, local authorities, business and industry to develop and implement policies, strategies and practices that are cleaner, safer, resource efficient and socially responsible.
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The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj).
and as for
"In general, Brazilian reports lack strong stakeholder views on material issues and sustainability performance. Without external perspectives, many reports undermine their integrity and credibility by over-emphasising good news, falling short on disclosure of hard indictors and targets, and also failing to communicate leadership vision and commitment."
That is typically LULA & HIS GANG.....STYLE...outside of the LULA FORMAL GUARANTEES...BUT NEVER DELIVERED...SO FAR !
"Show the rosy side, hide the darker side.
To hide the darker side, also lie on the rosy side.
And finally...also lie on the darker side".....is what Lula and el al is all about !
Brazil is not a miracle but a mirage emerging nation in many ways...when compared to your peers.... the other emerging nations !
What Brazil can export from their own, outside of basic commodities and low added value products ?????
Good question....isnt it ?
I am waiting the answer from a pro Brazil fan !!!!!