Corporate Responsibility Exchange

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Corporate ResponsibilityExchange

• Paul Rennison London Stock Exchange

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PROBLEM TO SOLVE

• Started with research into the problem of
  questionnaire fatigue for companies
• Companies on average receiving 7 questionnaires
  relating to CG,CSR etc pa
• Average of 7 man days per month spent responding
  this stakeholder group
• Realised there are information asymmetries that
  impact on the needs of institutions as well
• Briefly some of the research findings

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Proportion of Repetition in Questionnaires

• Questionnaires are found by the majority to be
  highly repetitive over three-quarters
• of respondents believe over 50 of the average
  questionnaire is a repetition of information
• previously given

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APPROACH

• Developed a normalised set of questions which map
  across to the key codes, guidelines and
  questionnaires currently in use CC, NAPF, ABI,,
  BITC, EIRiS, SAM, GRI, CDP
• The core normalised question set needs to be
  supplemented by balancing questions from the
  agencies
• Not seeking to set the CR agenda, just helping
  companies to report against it
• Consultative and consensual Steering Group
  comprising key stakeholders among companies,
  institutions and research agencies

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THE QUESTION SETS

• Schema will deliver a supra-questionnaire that
  captures 70 80 of data requested by all
• Schema also allows for non-core questions to be
  asked according to the code or agency involved
• Schema also allows specific proprietary questions
  to be targeted to companies or sectors
• We have a process and architecture that allows
  flexibility to co-opt new questions for emerging
  issues (e.g. obesity, OFR) and will be included
  via a ratification process

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CRE Data Architecture
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CRE SCHEMA

• Defines both quantitative and qualitative
  non-financial data
• e.g. CO2 emissions (tonnes) vs. Human Rights
  policy and declaration
• Allows definitions of alternative taxonomies for
  categorising the same CSR data
• e.g. Strategy, management and operations or
  Social, environmental, economic
• Defines common data types found within the CSR
  domain
• e.g. Gas Emissions, Energy Consumption,
  Policy Document
• Time period and applicability data for
  apportioning and defining the relevance of data
• e.g. carbon emissions in Europe, child labour
  excluding sub-Saharan Africa.

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CRE SCHEMA

• Allows definition of questionnaire sets, which
  provide a mechanism for manual but efficient
  capture of the data
• this data does typically exist in a structured
  form in enterprise systems so must be recaptured
• Standardised definitions of third-party
  requirements and ratings and their
  interrelationships and redundancies
• e.g. this data fulfils the requirements of both
  Global Reporting Initiative EN12 and Carbon
  Disclosure Project Q4
• Reporting definitions and vocabularies
• Supports the definition of reports (exceptions
  and aggregations) that can be used during
  research and comparative analysis

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Migration to a XBRL based standard

• CRE schema was designed initially as the enabler
  for a proprietary software application
• However this underlying platform and data schema
  are open to all
• It takes concepts and tenets of XBRL to ease
  future migration
• The London Stock Exchange are engaged with the
  XBRL Consortia to evolve the CRE schema into an
  open set of XBRL taxonomies and extensions
• Software tools will be made available to the
  corporate responsibility community to allow
  definition of new CSR data requirements and
  questionnaires