The Facility Reporting Project (FRP) is a new initiative of the Boston-based Ceres coalition aimed at improving sustainability reporting and environmental performance at individual facilities across the country.
Ceres announced that eight companies have signed on as pilot test participants. The Timberland Company just announced it would develop a sustainability report for its Dominican Republic manufacturing facility, using draft reporting guidance developed by FRP over the past two years.
The experience of Timberland and New Hampshire Ball Bearings, another participating company, will help shape the final Sustainability Reporting Guidance, which Ceres expects to issue later this year.
“This new agreement with Timberland is a key milestone in Ceres’ efforts to bring the Facility Reporting Project to as many companies and facilities as possible,” said Mindy S. Lubber, president of Ceres, “Timberland and NH Ball Bearings both deserve kudos for recognizing the importance of facility-wide reporting and investing time and energy to develop a program that will bring environmental benefits all across the country.”
“We are thrilled to work with Ceres on this project and hope the collaboration will expand our understanding of Timberland’s environmental and social impacts in the many communities where the company and our suppliers operate,” said Alex Hausman, business performance analyst at Timberland. “Through the FRP process, we will develop a model report that we can use when we engage with our suppliers and contractors to improve their management systems, performance and overall community engagement.”
Timberland’s affiliation with FRP comes on the heels of full disclosure of its vendor factory list in its recently released 2004 Corporate Social Responsibility Report. Timberland partners with vendor factories in more than 200 facilities in Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean.
Ceres, with technical assistance from the Tellus Institute, launched the FRP in 2002 to help companies improve facility-specific reporting and performance on sustainability challenges, such as workplace conditions, energy usage or global climate change. The project builds on Ceres’ launch of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in the late 1990s, which has since become the de-facto international standard for corporate reporting on economic, social and environmental performance.
Other pilot participants include Ford Motor Company, YSI, Northside Foods – a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, Harwood Products – a California-based sustainable timber company, and Rockwell Collins. All facilities, including Timberland’s, will have an opportunity to gain technical assistance from Ceres to create facility-level environmental and sustainability reports.
Ceres is a national coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest organizations working with companies to address sustainability challenges.
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