Living in a Fishbowl: Adapting to the New Transparency

The new corporate transparency movement means that energy companies are increasingly operating in a fishbowl, sharing social and environmental data and corporate responsibility action plans with governments, investors, and the public in new ways. A proliferation of initiatives and principles combined with the instantaneous delivery of information may well create more profound changes than the wave of social responsibility and sustainability efforts of the past decade.

* Proliferating initiatives and principles. An increasing number of voluntary social and environmental initiatives and principles are setting the framework for many corporate and financial business decisions. They are often the ""glue"" that holds together collaborative efforts and creates new performance standards that, although not legally binding, set the framework for future laws and regulations.
* Dealing with the broadband world of instant messaging. Informal information--real or imagined--about a company's environmental and social performance travels around the world with lightning speed, thanks to the Internet. The scrutiny of a corporation's performance on environmental or social issues has also spread to a broader segment of the financial investment community.
* Converting transparency to your advantage. The proliferation of both principles and data has created a new set of challenges. Energy companies need to take advantage of transparency and ""instant messaging"" to create and disseminate environmental and social "stories" to multiple audiences with different requirements--employees, local communities, the media, investors, and governments--while shaping the critical initiatives to align them with corporate strategies.

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