Accountable organisations & institutions
 

AccountAbility works with leading businesses and other organisations that are commited to becoming more accountable. We develop tools and standards for organisational accountability which drive performance and enable people to have a voice in the decisions that affect them.

Businesses and other powerful organisations face ever growing calls to be accountable to their stakeholders; including customers, employees, local communities as well as investors. Companies seeking to navigate and negotiate these evolving demands and  demonstrate their performance have responded with an explosion of  metrics, reports and assurance mechanisms. Over three quarters of the S&P 100 Index companies, for example, now produce a social and environmental report.

Reporting organisations and stakeholders alike have sought standards to assure the quality, comparability and usefulness of these disclosures. There are now over 300 standards aimed at assisting businesses in meeting the goal of sustainability. Convergence towards a global architecture of standards that are not just compliance or risk management mechanisms is crucial. Standards which enable organisations to use stakeholder engagement to drive learning and influence decision making are crucial to moving corporate responsiblity beyond compliance towards business strategy, innovation and performance.

Sustainable development requires business to do more, faster and better, not to do less, or to be solely guided by doing no harm. As businesses rises to the challenge, their ‘corporate responsibility’ will be judged more by what they do than what they avoid doing.

Aligning the business response to stakeholder concerns and environmental issues with their strategy for long term business success is the crucial next step for corporate accountability  to come out of the sidelines and begin to drive core business decisions.

Our work

• Developing the AA1000 Series of Standards for Organisational AccountAbility.  It has been used worldwide by leading businesses, NGOs and public sector bodies.The series includes the AA1000 Assurance Standard, the world’s first comprehensive, open source, assurance standard for use with social and sustainability report, and the  AA1000 Standard for Stakeholder Engagement, which offers a clear basis for designing, implementing and assessing  stakeholder engagement processes.
• Researching developments at the cutting-edge of business strategy, reporting and assurance
• Developing tools, standards and guidance to help companies in aligning their business strategy and their approach to accountability; for example frameworks for identifying material issues and for responsible lobbying aligned to long term business excellence.
• Supporting member organisations in implementing credible and useful stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, reporting and assurance processes through the practical application of the AA1000 Series.
• Influencing the ongoing development of global standards architecture, such as through our collaboration with the Global Reporting Initiative, Transparency International and the ISO Social Responsibility Working Group, to ensure that these standards take a stakeholder focused approach and to advance convergence.
  Partners.
• Convening the Global Leadership Network, together with the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College. The companies that founded GLN have invested in the development of a broad platform for  measuring, improving and sharing learning on corporate citizenship performance to bring together hundreds of other companies that share a vision and commitment to excellence.
• Catalysing the development of the Keystone Model, a reporting standard for civil society organisations.
• Launching the Certified Sustainability Assurance Practioneers Program in partnership with the International Register of Certified Auditors.

Partners

• We work with a large number of our members to support them through our advisory services
• Standards are developed through wide consultation with members, practitioners and other interested individuals. A technical committee of members oversees the development of the AA1000 Series.
• Sponsors of our work on standards includes Camelot, The Co-operative Bank, The Co-operative Group, Diageo, Ernst & Young, CIS, Novo, URS Verification, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, The Reuben and Elizabeth Rausing Trust, LRQA, Microsoft, BT Group, Telefonica, EDF, Areva, Veolia, SFR, Ava and Gaz de France.

Contact

For further information contact Cara Gallen  +44 (0)2075490400