Our application of AA1000
Our approach to CR management and reporting is to focus on the most important issues. Our reports are aligned with the principles of the AA1000 Assurance Standard. These are:
- Completeness: Clearly identifying our stakeholders and understanding their views and concerns fully
- Materiality: Assessing the relative importance of each issue to determine the content of our CR reports
- Responsiveness: Responding to challenges and concerns.
Completeness
We identify our stakeholders by assessing who is impacted significantly by the Company and who can have an impact on the Company. Stakeholder engagement within local operating companies and at Group level helps us understand the issues of concern to our stakeholders.
Over the last five years we have invested significant resources in stakeholder engagement through various approaches. We have held one-to-one meetings, participated in partnerships and conducted opinion surveys. In addition, we use focus groups to obtain opinion leader views on our reporting and carefully record any gaps or deficiencies identified. As a result we have a good understanding of the issues we face and are confident that our reporting addresses the main concerns and areas of interest of our stakeholders.
We have refined our approach to engagement to focus on specific emerging issues. This allows a more in-depth conversation with the people that have a real stake and particular expertise on a specific issue. Focused dialogue helps us identify solutions to new issues and provides our stakeholders with the opportunity to influence our thinking. We call this approach, 'CR Dialogues'.
Materiality
There is no commonly accepted basis for comparing the significance of one issue with another. Nevertheless it is important to be able to prioritise effort and resources. To make these judgements we assess the extensive list of issues for significance based on the level of concern and interest among stakeholders most affected by our operations as well as the current or potential impact on Vodafone.
The assessment process is not an exact science and requires judgment. Our assessment at the end of March 2007 indicated that the most material CR issues for Vodafone Group are: access to communication, mobile phones, masts and health, responsible network rollout, content standards, clear pricing, privacy, CR in our supply chain, energy use and climate change, reuse and recycling, employees, ethics, public policy and tax.
As well as judging the relative materiality of all the issues in our 2007/08 CR reporting, we have also applied the materiality test within our reporting of each CR issue. The most material developments relevant to each issue this year are disclosed in the performance pages of this website. Other issues judged to be less material are reported elsewhere on the website. Local issues are reported by individual local operating companies that produce local CR reports.
Responsiveness
Based on feedback from our stakeholders, we are able to explore issues in more depth and respond to them with solutions and actions. Where possible, we make an appropriate commitment and publish it in our CR reporting. On occasion we do not agree with a criticism or we are not able to respond with a solution. In this situation we explain our view clearly and publicly. See Vodafone's response to stakeholders on key issues in 2007/08.
In 2006/07, our assurance provider made recommendations in several main areas. Our response to these recommendations is outlined below:
Recommendation: In an environment of increased sharing of networks with other operators, guidelines should be developed to set out how the various related data streams (e.g. energy, waste) are measured and reported.
Response: Our Responsible Network Deployment Guidelines have been integrated in the Network Sharing and Outsourcing manuals (see our network).
Recommendation: Compliance with Group guidelines is core to the achievement of certain CR goals; consideration should be given to undertaking more compliance audits.
Response: We have put more focus on compliance at issue level. For example, we have done audits on compliance with our Radio Frequency and Privacy policies. More compliance audits on other issues will follow.
Recommendation: A more formal means should be sought of periodically confirming that the behaviour of employees is in adherence to the Business Principles.
Response: We have introduced a new Duty to Report policy which requires employees to report any suspected breaches of our Business Principles. If they do not report this, they may face disciplinary action. We investigate all incidents reported. See Ethics performance 2007/08.
Recommendation: The Group Supply Chain Management team have done an excellent job of rolling out the Code of Ethical Purchasing to the top global suppliers; more work is now required with local suppliers.
Response: We have established a global virtual team with members from a wide range of global and local departments outside supply chain and CR. The team’s objective is to develop and be responsible for the delivery of Vodafone’s strategy and commitments on managing CR issues in the supply chain. We have set up a dedicated work stream to engage all local supply chain and CR colleagues. This has focused on identifying the CR challenges faced by our local supply chain teams, as well as the opportunities and existing best practice within our local operations and the industry. See supply chain performance 2007/08.
Recommendation: There needs to be closer alignment and interaction between CR and Marketing teams at local operating company level to further assist in earning the trust of customers.
Response: We acknowledge this has been a traditional challenge. This year we have launched several CR campaigns on CR issues in most our markets. Our Group Brand Director presented to our local CR managers in July 2007 and our CR and Brand teams are working together to integrate CR further into the Vodafone brand. We envisage further integration in the future.
