Consumer products, Manufacturing, Printing and publishing, Canada Comparing company approaches to sustainable development in the print and media industry

Summary

EEM has been guiding a large printing and media firm on its sustainable development efforts for a number of years. The company was interested to know how its approach and progress compared to that of its peers and gain an appreciation of best practices that had been adopted.

Approach and Solution

Ten companies were selected for the comparison from the printing and media sector from Canada, the US and one european company.

EEM developed a comparison grid for the analysis around three key themes:

• Approach to sustainable development: Organizational structure, high-level strategy/vision, corporate policies, stakeholder engagement, management approaches to sustainable development topics and materiality;

• Performance targeted and achieved: Framework for objectives and where comparable, comparison of the performance levels attained;

• Reporting: Style of report and frequency, standards used, disclosure level, media platforms, stakeholder input, publicity.

Results

The resulting analysis provided the company with a clear understanding of their position in the industry and pointed to several best practices that could inspire its next initiatives.