Training on global sustainability reporting to be offered locally

By Ceciliah Kimuyu

Organizations are set to benefit from affordable training on global sustainability reporting locally instead of traveling abroad, following the launch of a consortium that will offer such trainings in Sub-Saharan Africa.   

The consortium is made up of: Strathmore Business School, MHC International Limited, a research and advisory company on CSR, employment and development, and Apex Porter Novelli, public relations agency. The consortium is the first to be licensed and certified to offer this training in Sub-Saharan Africa by Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

  

Strathmore Business School representative, Mr. Edward Mungai says that the consortium will avail affordable training for the organizations and reverse the current situation where many of them sponsor their staff for overseas training. 

“With training now being available in the region, organizations no longer have to send their teams to Europe for training,” said Mungai.  

The first training is set to take place between October 1^st and 2^nd 2014 at Strathmore Business School and will be conducted by Enrique Torres, who until recently has been the head of training of GRI in Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

GRI pioneered and developed a comprehensive Sustainability Reporting Framework that is used globally. Locally, Safaricom is one of organisations that have embraced GRI reporting guidelines, and issued its first sustainability report in 2012/2013 financial year.  

“Sustainability reporting helps organizations report not only about their financial spending, but also environmental and social impact of their work to both employees and the community,” Dr. Michael Hopkins, CEO, MHC International Limited. 

Sustainability reporting helps organizations to set goals, measure performance, and manage change in order to make their operations more sustainable. A sustainability report conveys disclosures on an organization’s positive and negative impacts on the environment, society and the economy. In doing so, sustainability reporting makes abstract issues tangible and concrete, thereby assisting in understanding and managing the effects of sustainability developments on the organization’s activities and strategy. 

The consortium has been licensed to train organizations in 18 African countries among them Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, Mauritius, Ghana, Senegal, Namibia and Nigeria.