What are the material issues the company has identified?  

In its 2022 Sustainability Report ATCO identified a range of material issues, such as energy transition and innovation, public health and safety, climate change and GHG emissions, indigenous engagement, economic opportunity and reconciliation, emergency preparedness and response. Among these, creating economic value for its stakeholders stands out as a key material issue for ATCO.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups ATCO engages with:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Community Residents and Landowners	·      Open houses ·      Landowner and community meetings/emails ·      ATCO EPIC (Employees Participating in Communities) ·      Community investment partnerships and programmes
Customers and Potential Customers	·      Face-to-face meetings ·      Website, social media ·      Customer satisfaction surveys ·      Customer service centres ·      Apps (e.g. ICWHATUC) ·      Online outage maps and notifications
Indigenous Communities	·      Face-to-face meetings ·      Project consultation ·      Relationship agreements, MOUs, JVs and other partnerships ·      Employment and training opportunities ·      Community investment opportunities ·      Community and cultural event participation and attendance
Governments and Regulators	·      Meetings with all levels of government, in all regions ATCO operates ·      Regulatory compliance ·      Active involvement in multi-stakeholder discussions
Special Interest Groups	·      Industry memberships and associations (e.g. CGA etc.) ·      Conferences and events ·      Committees
Investors and Potential Investors	·      Annual General Meetings ·      Quarterly and annual regulatory filings ·      Analyst meetings ·      Investor conferences ·      Investor days
Employees and Potential Employees	·      Townhalls and leadership communications ·      Employee engagement surveys (e.g. Pulse Surveys) ·      Career development and performance reviews ·      Employee groups, such as diversity equity and inclusion committees ·      Employee intranet ·      OneATCO Conference

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics ATCO engaged with its stakeholders through surveys and interviews.

What actions were taken by ATCO to create economic value for its stakeholders?

In its 2022 Sustainability Report ATCO reports that it took the following actions for creating economic value for its stakeholders:

• Creating economic value for employees
• In 2022, ATCO paid $ 599 million for employee wages and benefits.

• Creating economic value for suppliers
• In 2022, ATCO paid $ 2,035 million to suppliers.

• Creating economic value for lenders
• In 2022, ATCO paid $ 426 million to lenders.

• Creating economic value for shareholders
• In 2022, ATCO paid $ 519 million to shareholders.

• Creating economic value for governments
• In 2022, ATCO paid $ 444 million in taxes.

• Creating economic value for communities
• In 2022, ATCO spent $ 8 million in donations, in-kind contributions and sponsorships.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed

Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.1, 8.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Targets: 9.1, 9.4, 9.5

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by ATCO, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://www.canadianutilities.com/content/dam/web/canadian-utilities/our-commitment/sustainability/2022-cu-sustainability-report.pdf

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