Canon global

Basis for the commentators' opinions

For the fourth year running, the external commentators have been asked to use a portion of the Global Reporting Initiative Sustainability Reporting Guidelines as the basis for developing their opinions, namely four Reporting Principles relating to Defining Report Content^*:

• Materiality.
  Does the Canon report reflect the company's significant economic, environmental and social issues?
• Stakeholder Inclusiveness.
  Does the report explain how Canon has responded to the reasonable expectations and interests of their stakeholders?
• Sustainability Context.
  Does the report present Canon's performance in the wider context of sustainability issues and impacts?
• Completeness.
  Is the report's coverage sufficient to reflect the company's sustainability impacts and enable readers to assess Canon's performance?

Using these principles as a guideline, the external commentators were asked to assess the extent to which the Canon report meets their expectations in terms of:

• The appropriateness of the content selected for the Canon Sustainability Report 2012
• The quality of the treatment of individual topics in the report
• The overall quality, balance and relevance of the report as a whole

Judy Kuszewski has provided advice and support to Canon with regard to the third-party opinion section, by defining terms of reference for the third-party opinions, facilitating relationships with the commentators and assisting Canon in presenting the results in its sustainability report. Readers should be advised that neither Judy Kuszewski nor the external commentators function as assurance providers, but as well-informed, independent sustainability professionals with a keen interest in engaging with Canon and supporting the transparency and accountability of its reporting.

What the commentators discussed

During a series of telephone conferences, the two commentators discussed with each other – and with Canon – their reporting expectations, their key areas of interest and their impressions of the draft Canon report.

The main topics of discussion included:

• Evolution of Canon's approach to corporate social responsibility through establishment of its Group CSR Activity Policy and CSR Division while maintaining continuity of Canon philosophy
• Clarification of Canon's efforts to identify material issues, using stakeholder surveys, the ISO 26000 social responsibility guidelines, and the relationship between the two
• Encouragement for Canon to engage in deeper, ongoing dialogue with stakeholders, so as to integrate social issues into business operations
• Confirming the extent to which Canon's best practices in human resource management and other sustainability initiatives apply to manufacturing sites in Asia, as well as working to address customers' concerns about responsible sourcing
• Giving sufficient consideration to consumers' concerns about privacy and personal/corporate security posed by the increasing amounts of information available online and in cloud computing
• Request that Canon work to set up clear, measurable and effective performance targets in its discussion of sustainability issues and impacts
• Addressing the environmental use-phase impacts of Canon's products, linking of user behavior monitoring with product specifications to achieve overall impact reduction

The full statements from the commentators can be seen at "Third-Party Opinions."

About the facilitator

Judy Kuszewski is a specialist consultant in the field of corporate responsibility. Her career spans 20 years, including senior roles with Ceres, the Global Reporting Initiative, and the consultancy SustainAbility. She has provided advice and support on sustainability accountability, reporting and stakeholder dialogue to a wide range of companies around the world. For more information, please visit www.kuszewski.net.