CSR communication continues to evolve!?

CSR communication continues to evolve!?

This year’s series of annual CSR reports show a trend to move on from “complete” reports to more focussed reports. Companies are reacting to the growing feeling that the reporting must focus on the most salient aspects, and that the sustainability message itself should not be buried under an enormous amount of information.
At the Corporate Responsibility Reporting & Communications Conference in London last October, experts such as Paul Scott, Director of CorporateRegister, predicted this trend to continue. They see a combined form of reporting, consisting of a shorter, readable report and backup documentation with as much as 1000 (web) pages.

This approach would also facilitate the adaptation of reports to local requirements, another focus of conference discussion.
This underlines the need to professionally manage all CSR-related information.The speakers made clear that IT-based sustainability management systems are a prerequisite to fulfil the current requirements. With a single, integrated database, different aspects can be communicated from various angles for the different countries or stakeholders. This includes the facilitated creation of standard reports like the GRI G3 or the replies to rating questionnaires. A spontaneous survey of conference participants identified that the so-called ‘questionnaire fatigue’ is still an issue.

In this context, a sophisticated CSR database and system can create the analyses and graphs for all necessary reports, as well as the full and detailed information required for the web portal. In the German Bank WestLB’s Sustainability Report, for example, more detailed information – figures, charts, analyses –can be accessed directly by everybody in the public section of their CSR IT-system, while the internal information remains safely protected.

More information:
r.gabriel@pe-international.com

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