Stockland Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report 2008
To Stockland’s stakeholders,
Banarra Sustainability Assurance and Advice (Banarra) was commissioned by Stockland to assure its Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Report 2008 (The Report) against the AA1000 Assurance Standard. In conformance with the Standard, our approach assures in terms of materiality, completeness and responsiveness – in other words, ensuring that The Report identifies and addresses the most important issues and that the information presented is reliable and meaningful. In addition, we undertook a validation of The Report against the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
This is Banarra’s second reporting cycle with Stockland, so we have built on our previous understanding of the organisation and its progress.
Summary
We believe that The Report provides a fair representation of Stockland’s material (most important) sustainability performance areas, issues and responses for 2007/08 in a way that allows stakeholders to make informed decisions.
Stockland’s most significant opportunity is to clearly identify its highest priority sustainability issues and to ensure The Report addresses these proportionate to their relative importance. This and the other opportunities identified in this statement are presented in more detail in a report to Stockland management.
Assurance scope
Our report assurance scope included all sections of The Report, with the exception of the financial figures, 2006 office and industrial electricity data, NABERS energy and water ratings and the community investment data.
Banarra Assurance Methodology
We developed a register of material performance areas and issues, identified through research based on the AccountAbility five-part materiality test. This included interviews with seven Stockland external stakeholders and all nine members of the Executive Team, including the Managing Director, Matthew Quinn. We also interviewed the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Graham Bradley and the Deputy Chairman, Nick Greiner, who is also the Chair of the Board’s Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Committee. Reviews were conducted of internal documentation such as policies, surveys and Board papers and we carried out internet-based research for sector issues, standards and peer sustainability reporting.
Our criteria found 24 issues to be material and these focused our testing of the report. All testing was carried out at Stockland’s head office in Sydney, Australia. Testing included developing audit trails, investigating assumptions, reviewing data generation procedures and conducting interviews with 38 data owners.
This testing enabled us to take a view on the materiality, completeness and responsiveness of The Report, along with the level of application of the GRI.
Materiality – has Stockland identified what’s important?
All of the material issues that we identified are acknowledged in The Report, with the exception of financial management and performance, which is addressed in Stockland’s Annual Financial Report. We are pleased to note the inclusion this year of material issues that were not discussed in the 2007 Report, for example customer satisfaction and biodiversity protection.
Stockland has a number of internal mechanisms for identifying its material issues and this year also engaged some external stakeholders in this process. The process would benefit from the development of formal criteria for evaluating and prioritising these material issues. This would ensure the areas of greatest concern to Stockland and its stakeholders receive the most attention in The Report.
Completeness – has Stockland understood these issues?
Stockland provides a detailed and balanced account of most of its material issues. One key area which is not fully addressed is the sustainability performance of the Residential division, in particular its environmental impacts, and its performance in building communities and infrastructure. Affordable housing is another area which would benefit from performance data and targets, such as Stockland’s supply of affordable dwellings.
The Report boundary covers all of Stockland’s divisions and we congratulate Stockland on including Stockland UK which was acquired in May 2007. We look forward to increased integration of Stockland UK performance data in future reports.
The Report is incomplete in addressing Stockland’s impacts and performance in areas outside of its ownership and control, but where it exerts significant influence. For example the health, safety and environmental performance of contractors working on Stockland’s construction sites.
We identified some errors in the figures and claims initially presented for assurance. All were addressed and are corrected in The Report. In future we suggest that Stockland implements an internal data checking process prior to external verification.
Responsiveness – has Stockland responded to these issues?
The Report contains most of Stockland’s responses to material issues. Over the past year Stockland implemented significant responses in areas such as political donations, employee health and safety, sustainable supply chain management and employee giving and volunteering. Stockland also made progress with its Climate Change Action Plan, although it has yet to fully identify its specific climate change risks, opportunities and responses.
We are pleased that this year more of Stockland’s future commitments are clearly expressed and linked to measurable targets. All the commitments relate only to the subsequent year, leaving open the opportunity for Stockland to commit to longer term goals. The Marketplace section would benefit from further commitments, particularly regarding customer satisfaction and relationships.
The Report does not account for Stockland’s progress against one of the commitments made in last year’s report – the inclusion of a greater proportion of the office portfolio in its waste reporting. In other cases it is not clear how well Stockland believes it has performed against its commitments.
Global Reporting Initiative
We agree with Stockland’s own assessment that The Report has achieved GRI application level B+.
Independence
Banarra was paid by Stockland to conduct this assignment. Other than this payment the assurance team declares itself independent in relation to Stockland and its stakeholders. There is a detailed statement on our independence, impartiality and competencies at www.banarra.com.
Richard Boele
Certified Lead Sustainability Assurance
Practitioner IRCA No. 1188527
Katharine Walters
Certified Sustainability Assurance
Practitioner IRCA No. 1192578
Banarra Sustainability Assurance and Advice
Sydney, Australia
16 October 2008
