The scalable and flexible design of the Paradigm II software package ensures that document control requirements of Sustainability Reporting are easily handled. (Call Paradigm Software on 61-3-9723 2302)

With economic performance rounding out other non-financial accountabilities, Sustainability Reporting Guidelines - i.e. environmental and social - were introduced by the Global Reporting Initiative www.globalreporting.org (GRI)" in June 2000. The guidelines include measurement indicators, reporting principles, and recommendations that define the three categories that constitute sustainability:

• Environmental - waste management, energy consumption
• Social - workplace issues, human rights
• Economic - wages, community development

Background Briefing

The borderless global economy requires equally borderless governance structures to help direct private sector activity toward outcomes that are socially and environmentally, as well as economically, beneficial.

New models of international governance, affecting such areas as greenhouse gas emissions, forestry and fishing practices, ozone depletion, labour practices, and financial accounting standards, exemplify a new generation of initiatives that align governance with the challenges of an increasingly complex and interconnected world. A key theme in all of these emerging governance models is the demand for higher levels of transparency.

This requires companies to use "Triple Bottom Line" (TBL) reporting, which defines a company's ultimate worth in financial, social, and environmental terms. TBL enables companies to:

• Generate human, environmental and economic capital
• Optimise gains in all three categories
• Identify and measure losses in all three categories