Communication Objectives
This report has been prepared to meet the requirement of Bye-law 51.2 of the Supplemental Royal Charter and Byelaws 2006. It is the report of the National Congress and the Council of the activities of the Institution for financial year 2008-2009, and is presented for the business of the Annual General Meeting 2009.
The most recent previous report was produced for the business of the AGM 2008.
Our General Reporting Principles
Our reports should inform members of measurable progress towards our agreed annual and longer-term goals. We should ensure transparency in reporting, informed by contemporary approaches to corporate responsibility reporting.
We should give due emphasis to the key organs of our institution - the Divisions, Colleges and other interest groups - so that our members are able to relate directly to what is being reported.
We should use the one national annual report process to encompass our principal reporting obligations flowing from our Charter and Bye-laws - for Council, Congress, Divisions, Colleges and Technical Societies.
In addition to our full report being available online, brief highlights should be provided in printed form to all of our financial members, rather than full printed reports, in a form intended to be of interest to them.
Global Reporting Initiative
As reported in our 2007-2008 Annual Report, work was done to assess the GRI Indicator sets for application to Engineers Australia's own operations. This work provides a template for ongoing reporting against the GRI indicators until further assessment is undertaken.
Environmental indicators considered relevant for engineers Australia have been included in the first group reported in the table on page 41. At this stage, the remaining GRI environmental indicators are not considered materially relevant, and are listed at page 43.
The 22 indicators in the table at page 41 are suggested as likely to be relevant for reporting purposes, although not all can be fully reported against and a number need better assessment of the costs and benefits of direct management and reporting.
The table at page 42 includes economic and social indicators which are yet to be more formally assessed for relevance.
GRI Application Level
For this year's report, we again adopt a self-declared Application Level of C:
