Accounting and Finance: Sustainability Reporting (HP)
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Table of Contents
HP’s Sustainability Report and GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines G4. 3
Comparison of HP’s Sustainability Report with Academic Literature and Theoretical Frameworks. 4
Assurance of HP’s Sustainability Report 6
Introduction
The essay is intended to critically evaluate the sustainability reporting of the company Hewlett-Packard (HP) and to conclude whether the sustainability reporting in the company is in conformance with the belief of Gray (2010:p.47) that such reporting does not essentially mean positive growth in sustainability.
In relation to this, the discussion that follows will involve the evaluation of the extent to which Hewlett- Packard report complies with the sustainability reporting guidelines of GRI G4, academic literature and theoretical frameworks. Finally, the essay contains the discussion regarding the assurance conducted in relation to HP’s sustainability reports.
HP established in 1939 by William Redington Hewlett and David Packard is a company supplying hardware, software and services regarding IT infrastructure. The product lines of the company include laptops, printers, cameras, scanners, PDAs, servers, etc.
The company is listed in NYSE with the ticker HPQ. The company has divided into two companies in 2014 namely Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. In HP Inc. personal systems made the highest portion of revenue in 2014. Also, while the market is currently slowing down, HP has been able to increase its market share. Nevertheless, the company has seen declining stock prices in recent years (HP, 2015a; HP, 2014a; HP, 2015b).
HP’s Sustainability Report and GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines G4
Hewlett-Packard claims to have a legacy of providing transparency to its stakeholders from 2001 regarding its CSR activities, where the company’s reporting was mainly directed by the use of GRI framework (2001) (HP, 2001:p.2).
In 2009, the company reported the use of G3 of GRI as guidance for preparing sustainability report where the detail as to full coverage, partial coverage and no coverage was included and the report was self-declared by the company to be of level B (HP, 2010). However, the 2014 progress report included the core-level compliance of the company with G4 (HP, 2014b:p.129).
This has been found to be the case as all of the guidelines ranging from strategy and analysis, identified material aspects and boundaries, stakeholder engagement to governance, ethics and integrity have been covered in the area of General Standards Disclosure.
Although the company does not provide comprehensive guidelines, the company does provide information which is in excess of core guidelines. This can be substantiated from the area of governance, where Hewlett-Packard also reports on G4-34, G4-37- G4-41, G4-45, G4-47, G4-49 and G4-51.
On the other hand, under the Specific Standards Disclosure, the company has not reported on any government received financial assistance under market performance.
Also, the EC5 and EC6 of market presence and EC7 relating to indirect economic impacts have not been reported on. Moreover, 13 indicators of environmental aspect have not been incorporated; amongst others, this includes reporting on some elements of biodiversity, emissions, effluent and waste and compliance.
Also, in indicators of social aspect eight of labour practices and decent work, seven of human rights six of society and seven of product responsibility have been overlooked in the report as being immaterial for the achievement of company goals or for the management of company impact.
Furthermore, with regards to all the provided guidelines, the company provides a GRI index for locating the details. This is despite the fact that the company had the discretion to begin compliance with G4 by 2016, thus reflecting management and resource commitment (HP, 2014b:p.129-134; GRI, 2013).
The transition from G3 of GRI to G4 has led to both positive and negative outcomes where critics find the enhanced sustainability reporting complex for multinationals given their nature and size and pressurising for small firms given the lack…
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