Sustainability Reporting at the GVRD: a work in progress

1
Sustainability Reporting at the GVRD a work in
progress

• Lynda King
• Corporate Strategies Division Manager
• Greater Vancouver Regional District
• Sept. 13, 2005

2
Outline

• Introduction to the GVRD
• Sustainable Region Initiative (SRI)
• Sustainability Report
• QA

3
The Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD)

• Canadas only unamalgamated major metro area
• A municipal federation comprising 21 municipal
  members and one electoral area

4
(No Transcript)
5
GVRD Who we are and what we do
6
Sustainable Region Initiative
7
Sustainable Region Initiative - Corporate
8
Sustainability Report a work in progress
9
Sustainability Report

• Benefits Sustainability Reporting
• Our Approach Iterative
• Report Components
• Feedback
• Lessons Learned

10
Benefits Sustainability Reporting

• Communication
• Coordination
• Integration

11
Our Approach Iterative

• In-house
• Benchmarked best practices
• Selected categories/indicators, using GRI as a
  guide, and collected data
• Wrote report, circulated for comment, redesigned,
  circulated again rewrote circulated again
  rewrote Done!

12
In-house Approach

• Benefits
• Excellent learning experience
• Opened up dialogue
• Disadvantages
• Staff time
• Not perfect first time around

13
Report Components

• 7 Components 2004
• About This Report
• Management Framework
• Performance Summary
• Performance Measures
• The Way Ahead
• Consolidated Financial Statements
• GRI Comparative Index

14
About this Report

• Overview of the Organization
• Outline Report Structure 3 categories
• Regional context
• Plans, policies, and regulatory activities
• Corporate performance

15
Management Framework

• Sustainable Region Initiative
• Corporate Practices
• Regional Mandates and Services
• Regional Partnerships
• Governance

16
Performance Measures

• Water
• Liquid Waste
• Solid Waste
• Air
• Energy
• Land Assets
• Transportation and Land Use
• Economic
• Community
• Security and Emergency Management
• Our Employees

17
The Way Ahead

• Iterative approach
• Continuous improvement
• Comments and questions

18
Consolidated Financial Statements

• Financial Position
• Financial Activities
• Changes in Financial Position

19
GVRD/GRI Comparative Index

• Performance Measures Summary
• GRI
• Non-GRI performance measures
• Regional indicators
• Public sector specific measures not in guidelines
• Measures of an aspect of a GRI indicator

20
Feedback

• Questionnaire
• Focus Groups
• Interviews
• Informal Feedback

21
Lessons Learned

• Requires strong leadership commitment
• Takes time and patience
• Stakeholder involvement critical
• Challenging to develop integrated measures but
  critical in long run

22
Lessons Learned

• Data often lives cross-functionally
• Start with sources readily at hand, or available
  at a low cost
• Pressure to increase the number of indicators
• Best practice for each indicator added, one is
  removed (difficult to decide what to include and
  what to leave out but absolutely critical)

23
(No Transcript)
24

• Turning Ideas Into ActionA partner in the
• Sustainable Region Initiative
• www.gvrd.bc.ca/sustainability