CR Report 2011
External engagement
In 2011, the CR Forum hosted a stakeholder session to explore different perspectives on the responsibilities of large companies, media companies, and Reed Elsevier. Participants included the head of CR for another media company; the chair of the Elsevier UK staff council; the head of responsible investment at Jupiter Asset Management; and the convener of the Media CSR Forum. Among discussion points were: ensuring a joined up message on the importance of CR from senior leaders in their communications including media and investor presentations; pursuing material issues for media companies like access to information and fostering trust through editorial standards; and prioritising contributions of expertise.
We actively support sector and inter-industry initiatives that advance CR. We contribute to the steering group for the Media Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Forum, and collaborate with peers on sector issues ranging from diversity to risk management. In 2011, we also supported the Media CSR Forum event at the Royal College of Physicians, Are Journalists Bad for your Health, which explored tensions between media and health in three panel debates.
On behalf of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), we are a part of the working group – comprised of sector members and non governmental organisations (NGOs) – developing a Media Sector Supplement to highlight issues media companies should address in their reporting, due to launch in 2012. In addition, Reed Exhibitions was a member of the GRI working group developing an Event Sector Supplement to define the future of sustainable events management released at the end of 2011.
We serve on the steering group of the London Benchmarking Group and are also members of Business in the Community, Sustainability 50, the Corporate Responsibility Group, Publishers Database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing, and chair the Publishers Association Environmental Action Group.
We communicated about CR through our corporate and business unit websites. We contributed a CR case study to The Times 100, a free educational resource for students, and spoke at conferences like Ethical Corporation’s 'Engaging Suppliers' and the Green Place Symposium ‘Mainstreaming ESG: creating a winning formula for the triple bottom line.’
We held direct meetings on CR with institutional investors and completed numerous CR-related surveys and information requests including from Carbon Disclosure Project, Dow Jones Sustainability Index, EI RIS , Vigeo, Forest Disclosure Project, OEKOM, and VBDO. We also provided details on our CR activities for a range of customers and collaborated with NGO partners like Earthwatch, the Carbon Trust, UNICEF, and Plan UK.
We engaged with government through involvement in the European Network for Sustainable Business and the Aldersgate Group; participated in consultations with the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change; and provided feedback on the 2011 EU CSR Communication through the International Chamber of Commerce.
In 2011, the UK’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) released International Comparative Performance of the UK Research Base 2011, a study BIS asked Elsevier to undertake. The report is based on analysis of metrics and benchmarks derived from Elsevier’s ScienceDirect, Scopus, and SciVal Spotlight, as well as data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, among other institutions.
Our authors and editors, publications, products, and shows regularly receive awards for excellence.
For example, in 2011, Elsevier publication Cell won the PROSE Award for Excellence in Biological and Life Sciences from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers. Risk Solutions received a 2011 Cygnus Law Enforcement Group's Innovation Award for its Accurint Mobile for Law Enforcement and a best in social media award from BtoB Magazine for its LexisNexis Investigators Network, a secure online community for investigators and other law enforcement professionals. LexisNexis Legal & Professional won Outstanding Website and Legal Standard of Excellence at the Web Marketing Association’s annual WebAward Competition. Reed Exhibitions was a finalist for UFI/The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry’s award for social media best practice, and Chet Burchett, Regional President for Reed Exhibitions Americas, was named by BtoB Magazine as one of its Top Innovators in Business Publishing. Reed Business Information’s New Scientist won five awards at the Association of British Science Writers Awards, and Bankersalmanac.com won the top content prize at the Data and Digital Publishing Awards 2011.
In 2011, nine Nobel Laureates in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, and economics had links to Elsevier as authors, editors, and editorial board members. In honour of these scholars, Elsevier has made articles they published with the company publicly available.
We provide CR-related products and services such as Elsevier’s journal Current Opinion in Sustainability; LexisNexis Legal & Professional’s Rule of Law Resource Center; Reed Exhibitions’ World Future Energy Summit; and Reed Business Information’s Community Care magazine. See a sampling of CR products across the business.