SRI World creates OneReport

If your company is suffering from "survey fatigue" SRI World can help. The web based social investing reporting company has developed a new product, OneReport. It promises to cut the mounds of paperwork involved in social reporting down to a very manageable size.

SRI World, located on the second

floor of the Cotton Mill, which is owned by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp., is the brainchild of Jay Falk. Falk took his experience in social investing (the application of social and environmental criteria to traditional financial analysis) and created his company in 1998. At that time it was called

Socialfunds.com a purely web based business. "It's a personal finance site devoted to social investing," he explained. The site has 10,000 pages of information, news, and data on a variety of information pertinent to social investing.

Falk 46, a Williamsville resident, first housed his company in his garage until it grew too big. He moved to his present location in 2000 and today, the six employees have high ceilings and a sunny office space to work in.

Social investors invest about $2 trillion, said Falk. The vast majority are institutional investors.

Falk also created CSRWire, a news service for corporations, but sold a controlling interest in that business to Meadow Brook Lane of Springfield, MA.

According to Falk his newest product, OneReport, came about when he learned from business executives of survey fatigue. This is best described as too many surveys and a lack of coherent ability to manage the data.

In April he launched OneReport His company partners with 22 research firms and data users researching 5,000 companies in 22 countries primarily in Europe and N. America.

OneReport consolidates all. data requests, provides data management tools to each company and sends data back to each data user. The big plus for companies is that they only answer questions one time.

"This new global electronic reporting network," said Falk "enables companies to more efficiently report their social, environmental, economic and corporate governance information to investors, the financial community and other stakeholders." Over 50 multi-national companies from around the world, including 22 Fortune 100 companies, participated in the development of OneReport.

OneReport makes its money by charging a sliding scale fee to each company for its service. Among its customers are Dupont, World Dutch Shell, Johnson & Johnson and Alcan.

Falk said his company found an important niche business. "We're the first to market this," he said.

In addition to reporting to research firms, said Falk "OneReport can also be used to create reports based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The tools featured in OneReport help companies understand the scope of GRI reporting and identify data that can be included in their GRI report."

Falk sad he is very optimistic about OneReport. "Its our main product."

OneReport should do well in the Cotton Mill, according to Falk. He calls the mill, "very affordable space and a great space to grow in."

SRI World Group is the parent company of CSR wire (CSRwire.com), a global newswire service for corporate responsibility press releases. The company is also the publisher of SocialFunds.com, the Webs largest personal finance site devoted to socially responsible investing and InstitutionalShareowner.com, a social investment news and resource center for institutional investors.