Focus on new business marks

Brenda Pope (FP)

Sun, February 05, 2012 - 12:03 AM

The days of measuring business performance strictly by financial results are numbered, says Brenda Pope, Partner, Risk Advisory Services of KPMG, Barbados.

Pope was speaking of her company’s decision to sponsor the CGA International Sustainability Conference to be held at Hilton Barbados on February 10 with the sub-themes of Protecting The Environment, Developing People, Improving The Bottom Line.

“With business’ environmental impact increasingly likely to affect their overall corporate value, companies are starting to see sustainability reporting as central to their business strategy rather than merely a PR requirement,” Pope said, observing that KPMG publishes a sustainability report and had done a survey of global corporate responsibility reporting.

“Today, discerning investors are beginning to look at broader measures of an entity’s real contribution and performance. Increasingly we see investors pushing – ever more aggressively – for companies to provide fuller information to illustrate the value they have delivered, and the sustainability of growth. That ‘something’ is increasingly the shape of the ‘Triple Bottom Line’; an amalgam of financial results and an assessment of the social and environmental impacts of a business. Or, put another way: People, Planet and Profits,” she added.

Conference highlights include international speakers Dr T.A. Loeffler and Nick Shepherd, along with a keynote address by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart with a focus on environmental stewardship – the economics of protecting the planet’s resources, workable models for HR development and capacity building and sustainability reporting – The Triple Bottom Line Approach.

Chief executive officer of CGA Caribbean, Graham Clarke, said his organization had chosen the theme: Making The Link Between Sustainability And Business “because it was clear that accountants in the Caribbean needed to be in step with these global developments in order to remain relevant in the marketplace”.

The conference is sponsored by KPMG, the Nation Publishing Co. Limited, Sagicor, the Insurance Corporation of Barbados, Scotiabank and Hilton Barbados. (PR)