Improving the Sustainability Performance of Public Agencies Through the Practice of Reporting

With the start of the new financial year and with a new director (Phil Hughes) and assistant director (Paul Honeybone), The Centre is reviewing its strategic framework and business plan.  To assist this process, The Centre is holding a one-day planning workshop in mid-July 2006 to identify strategic directions and priority areas for development. The new strategic framework and business plan will shape the work of The Centre through 2006-07 and beyond. The Centre will build on its first year and become the leading organisation responsible for building capacity and sustainability reporting by public agencies.

The Centre hosted its third teleconference for the ANZ Reporting Alliance in June 2006 on "Verification and assurance of sustainability reports".  Terence Jeyaretnam (URS) provided a comprehensive overview of assurance and verification, complementing the Centre's discussion paper which provided a more detailed discourse on why agencies should consider verification. This is not only for improved transparency around reporting methodologies, but also for building capacity to create long-term organisational sustainability along the triple bottom line.

The final workshop before the closing conference is kindly being hosted by the Department of Environment and Heritage in Canberra at the start of August 2006. The workshop, on "Public agency policy performance disclosures", will include two sessions where Alliance members will work through some of the challenges associated with reporting against organisational policies. Guest speakers for the session include Paul Murfitt (Sustainability Victoria) and Peter Ottesen (ACT Government Office of Sustainability).

The Centre is developing a media profile as the key organisation for public agency sustainability reporting. In early July 2006 we placed a lead opinion piece in the Business Age titled ‘Disclosure Pays – That’s the Triple Bottom Line’ that dramatically lifted the Centre’s and the Global Reporting Initiative’s media profile. An article on ‘Why Local Governments Should Report’ was also published in Councillor Magazine, a national glossy magazine distributed to councils nationally.

The Centre is preparing a position paper on Public Sector Sustainability Reporting to examine the variety of sustainability reporting practices by the public sector.  A draft of the paper will be discussed at the Amsterdam Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Conference in October 2006 and feedback will assist in the preparation of the final report for GRI.

If you would like to know more about the Centre, our website has recently been updated to include ‘FAQs’ about the role, vision, international context and guiding objectives of The Centre for Public Agency Sustainability Reporting™. We will be updating the Centre website further in the near future, so please take a moment to check it out.

For more information on any of our projects or how to subscribe to The Centre for Public Agency Sustainability Reporting™ please email Paul Honeybone, Assistant Director, Phone: +61 3 9660 2252, or visit the Centre website.