British Columbia credit union Vancity Group today released its latest accountability report.

Published every two years, the report provides a full audit of the social and environmental performance of the credit union and its national virtual bank subsidiary, Citizens Bank of Canada.

It follows a rigorous process that involves working with the community to set aggressive targets, inviting external auditors to check how the organization is doing against these targets, and reporting back the results — both good and bad.

“Vancity’s report is one we keep a close eye on,” says George Greene, chairman of Stratos. Stratos has recognized Vancity in the past for its corporate transparency through its regular sustainability reporting surveys. “Vancity may not be the largest organization on our survey, but it truly is a global leader in terms of its exhaustive process and how it uses its findings to improve its performance, proving that responsible business is good business.”

In addition to many awards for the report that’s been published since 1998, the report was recently included in SustainAbility’s Global Reporters benchmark of leading practices in reporting. Vancity is the only North American financial institution, and one of only three Canadian companies, to be featured in the study.

According to its latest report, the Vancity Group is doing well in areas such as overall service to members, community giving and development of innovative socially responsible products, such as its Clean Air Auto Loan, while areas such as speedy resolution of errors and employee workloads could use improvement.

“We know we aren’t perfect,” says Vancity CEO Dave Mowat. “We set incredibly high standards for ourselves. This document gives us a report card on how we are doing, allows us to see potential issues and opportunities that may be on the horizon, and helps us build trust with our members, employees and communities.”