What we measure

It's an old adage that what gets measured, gets managed.

That's because when you measure something, you give it focused attention. It also means that you have concrete information to use to make better, more informed decisions.

If you go one step further and report about what you've measured to an authority or other stakeholder, you also become accountable for what you're measuring – an important part of the performance improvement equation.

But deciding to measure is only part of the challenge. Deciding what to measure, how to measure and how to report your information to the people who want it, are equally important.

Evolving trends

Although we have been reporting on performance against corporate indicators since 2008, we recognize that many stakeholders are interested in indicators that are comparable to what other organizations report on.

Over the past decade, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-compliant sustainability reporting has increasingly become best practice in North America for many industries, but particularly for companies in mining and oil and gas development. In 2011, according to the GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database, 20 North American mining companies used the GRI to measure their sustainability performance at home and abroad. Three-quarters of those companies are Canadian.

GRI reporting and measures

GRI is the world's most widely-used sustainability reporting framework, developed through a consensus-seeking process that involves participants from many sectors around the world, including business, civil society, labour and professional institutions.

GRI is a mature and respected best practice framework, with evolving ties to two other influential bodies that advocate transparent, consistent and comparable reporting, the UN Global Compact (GC) and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).

GRI reports include meaningful information about the profile of the reporting company, its approach to addressing environmental, social and economic issues, and information about actual performance and trends in six areas:

• economic
• environment
• labour practices and decent work
• human rights
• society
• product responsibility

Through our materiality analysis, Cameco has chosen 31 GRI key performance indicators for measuring our sustainable development performance, along with four corporate indicators that measure things that are important to our business but not included in the GRI framework.

You'll find all of these indicators in our GRI index.

Materiality and stakeholder interests

For publicly traded companies, material information is usually defined as information that a reasonable investor would consider important in deciding whether to invest in the company.

Materiality in a sustainability reporting context is defined more broadly. GRI guidance defines materiality as a key principle for defining report content, along with other factors like stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, completeness and accuracy. The guidance notes that:

"Determining materiality for a sustainability report [....] includes considering economic, environmental, and social impacts that cross a threshold in affecting the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations."

The guidance encourages organizations to consider their upstream and downstream impacts, their impacts within the company and outside it, the needs and interests of diverse stakeholders, and other things that are external to the company's operations in thinking about what is material for their reporting.

"Material topics [...] should include those topics that have a direct or indirect impact on an organization's ability to create, preserve or erode economic, environmental and social value for itself, its stakeholders and society at large."

Finding out what matters

As part of our work in 2011, we engaged Deloitte to help us more clearly define our approach to sustainable development materiality, assessment and reporting. At the same time, we decided to move from Cameco based key performance indicators to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability metrics.

Deloitte provided recommendations related to our sustainability program and facilitated internal workshops with the project working group.

Subjects that emerged as material for both Cameco and our stakeholders for sustainable development reporting were reviewed with our management steering committee and then used to determine which GRI and corporate indicators we should report on.

Based on this work, Cameco selected the 31 GRI indicators presented in this report. We will also continue to report against four company indicators that measure things not covered by GRI – average radiation dose, public opinion polling results, and two measures of our governance practices.

You will find references to these indicators throughout this report. You can review full performance information in our GRI index.

Collecting and verifying our data

As part of our transition to reporting against GRI indicators, Cameco has introduced a rigorous system of data collection and validation.

This process began with assigning owners to each indicator, who are responsible for compiling and validating the information for this report.

Indicator owners are responsible for both quality control (ensuring the right data is captured, calculated and reported) and quality assurance (ensuring someone else has reviewed and approved the data before it is submitted). Data is documented using a defined protocol and approved by the department head that oversees the indicator owner's function.

Where possible, we use data that is captured in our enterprise management system, SAP, and other software and data collection systems, such as Longview and our environmental scorecards.

Where indicator data is not available for an operation, we identify that in the GRI Index. Currently, we have three years of trend information available for all indicators.

The data, information and conclusions contained in this report have been approved internally. Representatives from all levels of the company were involved in its preparation, from technical specialists to senior executives. The safety, health and environment committee of our board of directors has also reviewed the report.