GRI Report

2004 – EOG Resources, Inc.

 

 

WHEREAS:

 

AGCO Corporation is a leading agricultural machinery manufacturer with operations that significantly affect a variety of stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, and local community members.   The company does not currently comprehensively disclose its social and environmental performance, however, and stakeholders do not have access to information on these vital issues.

 

There are significant long-term financial benefits to corporations that have high levels of transparency.  For example, a recent study (Sibson Consulting and Spencer Stuart) found that companies with higher levels of disclosure on their governance practices have higher returns than less transparent companies.  Likewise, an October 2002 study (Standard & Poors) concludes that markets pay a premium for companies that have higher levels of information disclosure.  Social investors, the fastest growing class of investors, additionally find that social and environmental disclosure is material to overall financial value.  Moreover, companies that do not disclose face the risk of being sued by their shareholders or fined by facing increased risks of penalties from regulatory bodies, for nondisclosure. 

 

Increased disclosure is becoming the corporate norm among larger corporations, and a growing population of institutional investors believes that increased disclosure is best captured in a sustainability report formatted in accordance with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines.  To date, 318 companies in 26 countries have used the Guidelines in shaping their sustainability reports.

GRI (www.globalreporting.org) is an international standard-setting organization with representatives from business, environmental, human-rights and labor communities. The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, created by the GRI, provide companies with (1) a set of reporting principles essential to producing a balanced and reasonable report and (2) guidance for report content, including performance against core indicators in six categories (direct economic impacts, environmental, labor practices and decent work conditions, human rights, society, and product responsibility).

The Guidelines provide a flexible system for sustainability reporting that permits a company to use an "incremental approach" where a company may omit some content requested by the Guidelines but "base their reports on the GRI framework and incrementally improve report content coverage, transparency, and structure over time."

 

GRI reports can directly benefit a company by saving time and money in responding to dozens of questionnaires from social institutions and investors, in addition to improving reputation, raising staff morale, and enhancing stakeholder relations.  An analysis carried out by the Sustainable Development Reporting project revealed that the content of GRI guidelines covers more than 80% of the issues mentioned in the various questionnaires of the sustainability rating agencies. 

 

BE IT RESOLVED, we request that AGCO Corporation prepare a GRI-based sustainability report at a reasonable cost, which may exclude confidential information.  This report shall be made available to shareholders and employees, 6 months prior to the company's 2004 annual general meeting of shareholders.

 



Sponsors:

Lead: Calvert Asset Management Company, Nikki Daruwala