11.4.3 Reporting on corporate measures

Generally, most companies expressed their commitment to sustainable development, including the environment. Some described their commitment to sustainable development as a company strategy. They stated that environmentally sound behaviour contributes to sustained profitable growth and value creation because it makes them more competitive, it reduces operating and financial risk, promotes efficiency improvements and creates profitable new business opportunities.

For most of the selected companies, the environmental component is strongly and often primarily linked to reducing energy consumption as a measure against climate change. This could be explained when considering the increasing public awareness with respect to climate change. Furthermore, using less energy directly reduces the cost of electricity and oil.

Compared to the oil price, the price of water in most countries has not yet dramatically increased. Nevertheless, several companies report that they have taken steps to minimise water consumption by monitoring, and are seeking ways to save and recycle water.

Indeed, reporting on water consumption in annual sustainability reports seems to be becoming a trend among Dutch multinational companies. Since this development only started recently, data on water use are, however, only available for a period of a few years (on average: about three years). Thus, it is difficult to assess whether a company has taken actual steps to reduce its water use. Furthermore, such an analysis is complicated by the fact that data tend to fluctuate following new acquisitions of new subsidiary companies, sales or mergers of business units.

Some companies, such as Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (Philips), provide data on water use per sector of activity. This division offers the advantage of focusing on the operations of the company that use the most water. For Philips, the lighting sector accounts for 80 per cent of its total water use. However, most of the companies examined provide only the global annual amount of water use, i.e. for the entire group, Philips is also one of the few that started to report on water intake more than five years ago.

For some companies in the service sector, domestic water use is reported. For example, in its 2007 annual report, Randstad, a provider of flexible staffing and human resources services, reported on water use at its headquarters (in m3) in 2007 and 2006. It is interesting to note, once again, that a multinational company that has no direct water-related activities mentions its water use.

Some companies when relevant also report on emissions into water (in tons). For example, the chemical company DSM reported the information

included in figure 11.1 (DSM, 2007).

The 2006 sustainability report by Friesland Foods (Friesland Foods, 2006), 1 a producer of dairy products and fruit-based drinks, contains data on waste water before in-house purification and discharged waste water, as shown in figure 11.2.