This piece in the Globe and Mail was interesting:

Shell was early with “sustain­ability reporting” (their first annual sustain­ability report was published in 1998). They currently have a goal to have their (self-reported) green­house gas emissions 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010, similar to the Kyoto Protocols.

The story was about Shell’s CEO lauding the Kyoto Protocol and expressing his wish that there was a strong worldwide framework within which the oil industry could work with govern­ments to control carbon emissions. But I’m inter­ested in the standards:

The company is using the Global Reporting Initiative guide­lines, the best known inter­na­tional standard for reporting on GHG emissions. So Shell is also more trans­parent than some. Shell claims to have invested $1-billion (U.S.) in renew­ables since 2000, notably in a major offshore wind project in the North Sea.

Is anyone auditing this report? Or Shell’s claim of investing $1B USD in renewable energy? I took a look at 2005’s Sustain­ability Report and found no auditor’s report. There is an impressive External Review Committee, with repre­sen­ta­tives from Trans­parency Inter­na­tional and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. They describe their proce­dures and identify three guiding principles: materi­ality, completeness, and respon­siveness to stakeholders.

Sounds like a great oppor­tunity for an audit of both non-financial and financial information.