Sustainability has become an indispensable part of all businesses ranging from SMEs to large multinationals. Whether companies choose to follow sustainable practices because it is way to economic progress and social development, or for competitive and cost-saving advantages, it surely has become a necessity for all.
CEIC sustainable solutions, a leading sustainability and quality management services provider in UAE and Gulf region,help businesses, including start-ups, leverage on sustainability solutions to boost growth and prosperity in their ventures. In the present time, sustainability has become a must-part of business plans, more businesses are replacing Millennium Development Goals by the Sustainable Development Goals, paving way for sustainability to reach the top most level globally and be in a position to cascade down. Based in Dubai, CEIC has been instrumental in this sustainable transformation of businesses, spanning across Middle East and North Africa and Asia, from the bottom-up approach to which has now become the top-down initiative. This means that eventually, sustainability-related goals and requirements could be imposed by governments worldwide and therefore appears in legislations/legal requirements for all businesses.
Business which started earlier benefitted by Sustainability and GRI Reporting and almost all reports prepared on GRI were labeled rightly as Sustainability Reports by corporate. But did these reports serve the intent of the GRI? According to, Tahir J Qadir, sustainability management expert and consultant, the answer could be, Yes and No. “Yes” because, the data collected was presented in a manner which was easily understood by the general public and stakeholders, assuming that the data verification and validation, scoping, boundaries, transparency etc. have all been done and established correctly. “No” because these reports are missing the intent and purpose of GRI reporting under which it isrequired that Sustainability Reporting must clearly establish how an organization contributes to the improvement or deterioration of economic, environmental and social conditions, developments, and trends at the local, regional or global level.
So what’s the best solution for this situation? “Here we are actually bench-marking the organizations’ sustainability performance against the local, regional and global performance. This requires heavy budget as these reports are prepared by well-known consulting companies. And furthermore, this is a yearly exercise. It’s high time they need a system within their organizations on how to carry out bench-marking. Once that system is established, corporates can use their own resources to do benchmarking every year” emphasizes TahirQadir.
