Frequently asked questions

The CRI enables companies to assess the extent to which corporate strategy is integrated or translated into responsible practice throughout the organisation. The CRI covers the management of four key areas: Community, Environment, Marketplace and Workplace and finally performance in a range of social and environmental performance and impact areas.

Each section within the CRI is given a weighting of the total score: the Corporate Strategy section is weighted at 10%, Integration at 22%, Management at 26% and the Performance and Impact section at 36%. Weighting is also attributed to Assurance and Disclosure, which have a weighting of 6% in total.

Feedback from companies who embrace the CRI as an internal management tool shows that they have found it extremely useful in identifying how the integration of corporate responsibility offers the opportunity to add value to the business.

• assists companies develop, implement and measure their responsible practice
• helps companies build corporate responsibility issues into business strategy
• brings different functions in the organisation together to understand and manage the key issues for the business
• provides companies with a useful gap analysis through a confidential feedback report highlighting areas of strong performance and identifying where improvements may be made
• offers a benchmark, allowing companies to compare their performance within and across sectors
• provides a communication tool with different internal and external stakeholders.

The Corporate Responsibility Index is the only voluntary, business led benchmarking Index which includes all business sectors and reports on the four key impact areas of corporate responsibility: community, workplace, marketplace and environment.

The Corporate Responsibility Index acts as a business tool rather than an investment tool. Other indices, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and the FTSE4 Good are used largely as socially responsible investment indices.

Other indices such as the Carbon Disclosure project and the London Benchmarking Group focus on one impact area – Climate Change and Community respectively.

Core features of the Corporate Responsibility Index include:

• voluntary
• developed by business for business
• primary focus on corporate responsibility management dimension (not financial performance)
• self assessment with third party validation
• international scope – with Global Benchmarking with the UK
• proven value to management
• flexible and responsive – questions are updated incorporating input from participants and reference groups from business and community groups

Unlike other indices driven primarily by NGOs, the Corporate Responsibility Index was designed by over eighty leading UK businesses, collaboratively with UK based non-profit organisation, Business in the Community.

The Australian Corporate Responsibility Index meets with a NGO Advisory Group on a quarterly basis.

This external stakeholder group mirrors that of the UK Corporate Responsibility Index. We have invited leading Australian and New Zealand NGOs/not-for-profits to join this group.

There has been an extremely positive response from business, investment fund managers and city analysts, pension funds, insurers, government and the public.

Over 100 organisations have participated in the BITC Index each year since its inception.

No, the questions have been designed with the global corporate responsibility agenda in mind.

However, the implementation process is different in that the Australian and NZ company submissions are validated by independent validation team and not BITC.

The publication of results is also slightly different in Australia – high level results for each section of the Index are presented as star rankings and listed in alphabetical order.

The Corporate Responsibility Index is a self-assessment process. Each submission must be signed off at CEO or main board level to ensure director-level commitment to the credibility of the responses to the survey.

External validators (currently PricewaterhouseCoopers) review each company’s submission for completeness and consistency and documented evidence needed to substantiate claims.

In addition CRI validators will meet with selected participants to check their understanding and interpretation of the questions and seek further substantiation when necessary.

Yes. Feedback workshops are held annually for participants to express their views and opinions on the Index and its process. St James Ethics Centre reports participant feedback from workshops together with advice for NGO consultations and external validators to BITC for the continuous improvement of the Index and a business tool.

However, it should be noted that The Centre's role is to act as a 'trustee' to oversee the quality and integrity of the process, and is not responsible for the ongoing development of the Index Questions and Guidance Notes.

St James Ethics Centre will neither assess nor rate any of the companies participating in the Index. Participating businesses will self-report on their performance and external validators will check and validate the responses.

The components of the Index model are weighted as follows:

• Section 1: Corporate Strategy - 10% of total score
• Section 2: Integration - 22% of total score
• Section 3: Management Practice - 26% of total score (includes Community, Environment, Marketplace and Workplace management sections)
• Section 4: Performance and Impact - 36% of total score (includes a choice of Social and Environmental Impact Areas)
• Section 5: Assurance & Disclosure - 6% of total score

Each management section of Community, Environment, Marketplace and Workplace is equally weighted, and each of the social and environmental impact areas is also equally weighted.

Once the validation process has been completed by PricewaterhouseCoopers the results are electronically generated by BITC’s online benchmarking system.

The participation fee covers both validation as well as a contribution to core project costs. Fees for the seventh Index (in 2009):

• public index: AUD 13,000 + GST
• private benchmark: AUD 18,000 + GST

Read more about the costs of participating in the Corporate Responsibility Index.

Instead of a reporting framework such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) the Corporate Responsibility Index is a benchmarking tool with external independent validation. The GRI has recently been mapped onto the Corporate Responsibility Index – with references available within the 2008 CRI questions.

St James Ethics Centre is the Australian focal point for the GRI as well as holding the CRI license. Learn more about the GRI in Australia.

Please contact the Centre for more information.

The terms of the agreement proposed between St James Ethics Centre and Fairfax (publishers of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers in Australia) formally recognises an intention to promote good practice as the primary aim of the exercise. No party is interested in the ‘blame and shame’ game that has informed other approaches to this type of exercise.

Fairfax will draw upon material from the broader debate about responsibility and focus on the benefits of responsible corporate activity.

Results are published as a table with participating companies listed in alphabetical order. The methods used by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Fairfax) for publishing the results will be influenced by the UK experience.

Australian and New Zealand results are published in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in May each year.

The UK participating companies are listed in a supplement titled ‘Companies that Count’ in May each year.

Participating companies will not be named until the results are published. It is at the company’s own discretion should they wish to publicise their involvement on their own website or if they wish case studies of their corporate responsibility practices to be submitted for consideration by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

You can also view Corporate Responsibility Index results on this website, including results from past years.