Stakeholder Consultation on Materiality
Musgrave Group, in line with international best practice on Sustainability Reporting, employs the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) Guidelines,which lists a range of issues and indicators that are recommended to be included in a company's sustainability report.
Due to the length, complexity and detail of the guidelines,we were concerned that our report could become too complex, overly long, and that perhaps some of the issues that are important to our stakeholders could get lost within other less significant information.
In order to address this, input was sought from a broad range of stakeholders for their opinions in relation to the issues that they perceived to be most relevant to the Company, and therefore, deserving of more in-depth focus. Five core stakeholder groups: (i) Shareholders/Family/ Executives, (ii) Employees, (iii) Customers/Retailers, (iv) Consumers and (v) Suppliers were consulted in order to determine their opinions. The participants covered the geographical spread of the company - Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain were each represented by at least one participant in every one of the stakeholder groups.
The research took the form of 30 to 40-minute interviews, consisting of a series of
questions/discussions in relation to what the stakeholders were interested in seeing
in this year's report. In addition to 'open' type questions designed to draw out issues
of interest to the participants, a closed question was put to them which requested that
they choose, from their own perspectives, the 'Top 5' issues of priority from a list of
ca. 35 issues. This list of issues was broadly prepared from the GRI indicators list,
and a list of topics previously covered in Musgrave sustainability reports.
The results were compiled and analysed to examine the most significant
issues to be reported in 2006.
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RESULTS OF INTERVIEWS
CLOSED QUESTIONS:
A series of 20 questions (with additional sub-sections) were
posed to a total of 24 interviewees, across the range of
stakeholder groups. Overall, the most significant issues
(cited by more than 40% of respondents overall and by
greater than 60% within each stakeholder group) for
reporting purposes were identified - see Table 1:
TABLE 1: FINDINGS OF ‘CLOSED’ STAKEHOLDER QUESTIONS
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OPEN QUESTIONS
A number of open questions were posed in relation to specific issues.
A wide range of responses were received, however an issue was regarded
as 'significant' if it was cited by more than 15% of respondents.
The most important work-related issues were identified as:
- Job satisfaction
- Working hours
- Pay issues
- Job security
- Health and safety
The most important supplier-related sustainability issues were identified as:
- Packaging - minimisation and recyclability
- Product sourcing, Fair Trade, child labour
- Suppliers' environmental policies, procedures and compliance broadly
- Fuel/energy use
- Organic food
The most important sustainability issues from a consumer/shopper perspective were identified as:
- Health and wellbeing/organic products
- Labelling, advertising and consumer education
- Packaging
With regard to making the report more readable or interesting to a wider readership, the following was suggested
- Preparation of a Summary Report
- Use of photographs, graphs and diagrams
- Web access
- Good indexing
The most important economic and social impact on communities were noted as:
- Sponsorships/donations by Musgrave Group businesses and Retailers
- Employment/payroll
- Provision of local/rural social focal-point
- Provision of local/rural shopping service
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TOP FIVE ISSUES
The total number of participants in the consultation was 24;we anticipated that, overall, an issue
could be considered of 'High' priority if it was indicated more than 5 times as a 'Top 5' issue by a
participant, and a 'Medium' priority issue if indicated more than twice - otherwise the issue was
considered 'Low' priority.
Within each of the stakeholder groups (as each group had only 5 participants), a further analysis was undertaken in which 'High' status was attributed to any issue that received 3 mentions, and 'Medium' significance was attributed to 2 'votes'. This filter served to highlight issues particularly significant to individual stakeholder groups.
The issues that were overall considered to be of High significance, in the context of the upcoming sustainability report were: (a) Economic Performance, (b) Energy, (c) Emissions, Effluents and (particularly) Waste, (d) Employment, (e) Child Labour & Fair Trade, and (f) Community.
TABLE 2:‘TOP FIVE’ STAKEHOLDER ISSUES
GROUPS:
Interestingly, of the 'high significance' issues, Economic Performance did not feature in the
requirements of the Family/Shareholders/Executive Group, but Energy,Waste and Community
did, in addition to Transport.
The issues that were awarded 'High' significance for Retailers/Customers were: Energy, Waste and Community.
Suppliers were most interested in: Economic Performance and Market Presence, followed by, broadly, consumer issues such as anti-competitiveness and customer privacy. Consumers had a broad range of opinions and requirements, but none rated as of 'High' significance; Economic Performance, Child Labour & Fair Trade and Community were the issues that rated 'Medium' significance.
Employees rated Economic Performance and Community as the issues of High significance, interestingly of more importance than employment topics such as Labour Relations, Occupational H&S or Training & Education.
ISSUES:
Child Labour & Fair Trade did not feature as a 'High' significance issue in any of the stakeholder
groups, but featured as at least a medium-interest issue in all groups except Employees.
Environmental issues, such as Energy and Emissions were very important to Retailers and
Shareholders/Family/Executives but were of lower interest/significance to the other groups.
Economic performance was of most interest to both Suppliers and Employees, while they had
lower interest in issues relating to the Environmental performance of the company, i.e. Energy,
Waste and Transport.
The social issue rated of greatest significance was the effects of the company on 'Community', rated 'High' for Family/Shareholders/Executive, Retailers/Customers and Employees, and at 'Medium' for Consumers and Suppliers. This was followed closely by Employment which was not rated as High by any group, but was significant enough to the Family/Shareholders/Executive, Suppliers and Employees groups to make it of 'High' significance overall.
While we have dealt with the outcomes of the 'open' questions in another section, it is interesting
that one of the issues of most significance in those discussions, namely 'Packaging' did not come
up in this part of the discussion - other than in the Family/Shareholders/Executive group, who
identified the 'Materials' issue as being synonymous with this perceived issue for the company.
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PROPOSED 'DELETIONS':
The issues that were not considered of appropriate significance (for inclusion in the main body
of the report), arising from this exercise are considered to be:
- Economic: Not applicable
- Environmental: Water, Biodiversity
- Social: Diversity and Opportunity, Non-discrimination, Freedom of Association, Forced and Compulsory Labour, Disciplinary Practices, Security Practices, Indigenous Rights, Corruption, Customer Health and Safety, Market Communications, Customer Privacy
FIGURE 1: STAKEHOLDER CSR ISSUES
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