Sustainability Report PREVI 2009

Commitments in relation to sustainability aspects

A large portion of the companies considered within the scope of this report has already positioned itself and adopted formal policies to guide management practices in relation to several sustainability aspects.

Over 60 % of the companies declare having had formal policies implemented in the organization. Such policies refer to socio-environmental aspects as well as to the fight against corruption, their support in favor of the eradication of child, bonded or compulsory labor, and the maintenance of a good relationship with the neighborhoods around the operational areas of the company.

Relationship with interested parties

More than 90 % of the companies in which PREVI has invested and that made available information for this report, confirm their considering the legitimate interest of their stakeholders in the definition of their strategies and activities. The main publics periodically consulted are the collaborators, the clients, the suppliers, the shareholders, the authorities, third sector entities and the community.

In smaller numbers, but considered like strategic publics by some companies are the press, the scientific and academic community, traditional communities (in the case of companies who work directly in areas adjacent to Indian reservations, the Indian tribes, "quilombolas", and other), and the competitors.

The identification of those publics takes place by different ways in the companies. Generally they are determined by the senior management and identified in accordance with the relation established by each public with the organization and /or according to the strategic planning in force in a certain period.

Aiming at narrowing their relationship with those publics, the companies in question sponsor specific meetings, gatherings and forums for each public.

Formal commitments of the companies in which PREVI participates (% number of companies consulted *)

Those meetings organized by each company or implemented by other institutions, aim at reaching an understanding as to the best way the aspirations and requests of each public should be taken into consideration in the company's decisions.

Ethics and entrepreneurial conduct

The Code of Ethics or entrepreneurial conduct guides the organization and its collaborators in dealing with the different publics. Its guidelines are a form of expressing the moral standings of the organization and affirming its identity.

Outfits in which PREVI participates

Over 80 % of the companies surveyed declared having already their code of ethics or entrepreneurial set of rules published and widely circulated. Out of that total, 63 % have mobilized and engaged people from different areas of the company as well as have involved class entities or external consultants in the elaboration and implementation of the code.

Other practice used by companies vis-à-vis their different publics is to legitimize their codes by submitting them to evaluations by their internal publics prior to being divulged.

Real estate ventures

The adherence of real estate ventures to that practice is relatively lower than that of the companies in which PREVI participates. At present, only ten such ventures have instruments of that sort published, widely announced, and legitimized before their employees, co-owners, tenants, suppliers and other publics related to them.

In the real estate ventures, practices aiming at assuring respect for Human Rights and restrain discriminatory and harassment attitudes among collaborators and against customers are not yet often usual. Less than one half (35 %) of those undertakings have some policy or follow a program of that sort.

Among the existing programs stand out the routing and divulgence of that issue through codes of ethics and conduct, and initiatives carried out by the personnel management.

In real estate ventures, those practices are more frequently addressed in specific training sessions aimed at the staff responsible for the security of assets. Around 65 % of the ventures include in the training programs of those security teams some general legal knowledge concerning ethics and behavior with regard to helping and servicing their customers.

Publication of initiatives and socio-environmental performance

The publication of sustainability reports or of social balance sheets is at present carried out by 26 companies (87 % of the total). The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines already orient the publications of most of them (62 %), while the indicators formulated by Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social serve as reference in the reports issued by 38 % of the companies consulted.

The social balance sheet, a statement created by Ibase -Instituto Brasileiro de Análises Sociais e Econômicas (Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses), that collects information about projects, benefits, and corporative social actions, is carried out at present by 69 % of them.

In some cases, the references and indicators used were developed in-house, or by organs representative of a particular economic sector, and that may result in more accurate data with regard to subjects and specific themes related to a particular industry

Over one half of the sustainability reports published by the companies in which PREVI now participates counted with some approaching mechanism towards other publics prior to defining their contents (62 % of total). In most cases, those mechanisms are related to the materiality test, as recommended by Global Reporting Initiative that aims at securing that the sustainability report might cover the themes and indicators that reflect the organization's significant impacts or those that might influence in a substantial way the evaluations and decisions of the different publics.

Among those companies, the most common process to engage publics in order to define which themes should be included in the report, were structured in-attendance dialogue programs, interviews (in-attendance or otherwise), questionnaires, and meetings with specific groups of people. As a general rule, the same attention is given to the evaluations of their own internal publics as well as to those from suppliers, clients, consumers, shareholders, neighborhood, academic community, third sector organizations, and public authorities.