Gaia Metrics Slashes the Cost of Producing a CSR Report by 90% with New CSR QuickStart™

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --  Gaia Metrics announced today the availability of CSR QuickStart™, which dramatically reduces the time, complexity and cost of finding and assembling the words and numbers that populate a Corporate Social Responsibility or Sustainability (CSR) Report. By automating the process of collecting relevant CSR Report data, CSR QuickStart™ reduces the time to do so from months to just days, and cuts typical costs by 90 percent or more.

Gaia Metrics also announced today an exclusive co-marketing partnership with CSRwire, which will market CSR QuickStart™ to its members.

"Many of the world's largest companies have made a commitment to sustainability, but just five percent of them take the next step and publish a CSR Report," said Erik Thomsen, Gaia Metrics co-founder and CEO. "We expect to increase the number who publish by making it dramatically easier, faster and less expensive for them to do so."

Automates the collection and analysis of CSR Report text and data

CSR QuickStart™ uses Gaia Metrics semantic search technology to find and extract the key words and numbers used to populate a CSR Report. It searches across company sources including public sites, intranets, SEC and census filings. In the process it spotlights gaps in data and reporting that may represent a risk to brand equity and attract the attention of regulators, media, community groups and other stakeholders.

Using CSR QuickStart™, sustainability managers can create a CSR Report or C, B or A-level GRI Report, and also PSI, GEMI, ISO 14000 and ISO 26000 Reports.

"CSR managers have to serve a lot of masters," said Thomsen. "We make it easy for them to define a level of transparency and stakeholder engagement. And we make it easy to invite members of the community, labor groups, environmental organizations, investors and other stakeholders into the sustainability and reporting process should they choose to do so."

"Sustainability is a core value of our company and an important issue in the textiles community," said Klaus Steger, Managing Director of Sudwolle Group. "With CSR QuickStart™, we will have a highly efficient way of communicating our commitment to sustainability and our progress across multiple sustainability networks. CSR QuickStart™ is also a great tool for stakeholder management. It will help us better understand, manage and engage with the many community, sustainability and other groups interested in our operations and stewardship of the environment."

CSRwire co-marketing partnership

"CSRwire members are at the forefront of defining what it means to be a sustainable enterprise," said Jan Morgan, CSRwire president. "Reporting is an integral part of that process. CSRwire members will be interested in CSR QuickStart™ to reduce costs and streamline the process of sustainability reporting. Now organizations and all of their suppliers will be able to report with this timely and affordable solution."  

CSRwire is the leading global source of corporate social responsibility and sustainability news. Thomsen said the relationship with CSRwire will introduce Gaia Metrics to prospective clients and partners. "CSRwire is a key part of our go-to-market strategy," he said.

Using CSR Report data to power financial insight, risk assessment

Thomsen is excited about the Gaia Metrics CSR QuickStart™ product.  "The CSR Report is often the end goal of a sustainability initiative. Our goal is to make it the starting point," he said. "We aim to use the data collected using CSR QuickStart™ to fuel business insight, including benchmarking of a company's performance relative to peers.

"It's also true that companies are flying blind regarding the environmental and social risks in their operations and across their supply chains. Using the data we collect for CSR Reports, we link environmental and social factors with forward-looking measures of financial risk."

Thomsen said Gaia Metrics will introduce benchmarking and financial risk assessment products later this year.

About Gaia Metrics

Gaia Metrics helps companies quickly and cost-effectively collect information they need to publish a Corporate Social Responsibility or Sustainability (CSR) Report. A CSR Report enables companies to benchmark themselves in their industries and against competitors. Gaia Metrics helps companies use the information surfaced in their CSR Report to discover, qualify and truly understand the financial risk attached to environmental and social factors in their operations and supply chains.

About CSRwire

CSRwire is the leading global source of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability news. Founded in 1999 to advance the movement towards a more economically-just and environmentally-sustainable society and away from single bottom line capitalism, CSRwire has paved the way for new standards of corporate citizenship, earning the respect of international thought leaders, business leaders, academics, philanthropists, activists and the media community. Through innovative techniques and strategic partnerships, CSRwire continues to expand its content, communication technology and distribution channels.

CSRwire content reaches a broad and highly-engaged audience in the CSR market through syndication partners, members, subscribers, visitors, mobile technology, databases, newsrooms, social media networks, search engines, financial portals, websites and online communities. As the exclusive distributor of CSR news and information for multiple international newswires, CSRwire offers more visibility than any other CSR news distribution service.

For all inquiries:  Julie Beman at (413) 388-8906

SOURCE CSRwire

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