Thursday, October 15, 2009
Saving CSR/Sustainability Reports from Extinction : The Engaged Reporting Program 2.0
The Engaged Reporting Program 2.0
As stakeholder expectations rapidly evolve in the 21st century, the Engaged Reporting Program (ERP) 2.0 proposes a dynamic way to make CSR and Sustainability reporting relevant and up to date for the millions of individuals, both online and offline, that have become arbiters of corporate reputation. The Program comes at a crossroads where, given a historic drop in public confidence and a growing desire for transparency, reporting either reinvents itself or faces extinction.
Here is a brief overview of the forces at work:
1. Trust in corporate pronouncements is at an all-time low:
Only 10% still trust information on environment and sustainability provided by businesses.
Study: What Assures Consumers on Climate Change?,(Commissioned by Consumers International: June 2007)
2. Corporate reputation now lives online:
In 2010, Gen Yers will outnumber Baby Boomers. 96% of Gen Y is signed up to a social media website.
The Social Media Revolution
3. The public has come to demand transparency and interactivity:
Trendwatching's September 2009 Briefing is devoted to a portrait of the online evaluation frenzy and the public's transparency craving.
Trenwatching.com Sept. 09 Briefing: Transparency Triumph
PARTA sustainable solutions inc. and ethiquette's Engaged Reporting Program 2.0 delivers on all three counts.
In the Program's first phase, a company's social and environmental track record is evaluated and put into perspective by the experienced analysts at ethiquetteTM. A typical CSR/Sustainability report is a cataloguing of social and or environmental touchdowns scored by the company with no honest appraisal of the relative importance of each given the company's total operations or context regarding whether such actions are exceptional or merely compliant with industry norms. A third party review, by credible analysts, provides stakeholders an essential tool for making head or tail of such a report. More than that, it helps ensure that stakeholders will not dismiss a corporation's accomplishments as just so much more 'greenwashing'.
For the same price as a standard printed/PDF report, the ERP 2.0 creates this online environment and also packages the report in a traditional limited print run for those who prefer hard copies. The end result is a format that many will find more engaging and the conservation of a fair number of trees in the process!
In the end, a CSR/Sustainability Report cannot be deemed a success if it fails to capture the attention of a large number of stakeholders. With the Engaged Reporting Program 2.0, the broadcast of a report to interested audiences is assured. Parta Inc. and ethiquette have both spent years building global communities of citizens and professionals who care deeply about sustainable development issues. When a report is reviewed and prepared for interaction, the entire package will be launched simultaneously across several key web platforms. The combined networks of AlternativeChannel.tv, eco-mobility.tv, greenpod.fr, ethiquette.ca and ethipedia.net, make up a base audience of over 200 000 green stakeholders who will read accounts of sustainable business practices with interest. When word of mouth through social media kicks in, the final number will be much higher!
Those involved in their company's reporting initiatives for the coming year, must make sure that their reports are not obsolete the moment they are published. For Sustainability and Responsibility Officers, answering the public's call for greater transparency and approachability is no longer a 'nice to do' but a 'must do'. The upside of this new era is that higher-impact Engaged Reporting is no more expensive than printing an excessive number of copies the old fashioned way!
>>Click here for an overview of the ERP 2.0
For a full presentation of the Engaged Reporting Program 2.0, contact Tom Liacas, Co-Director of ethiquetteTM. 514 771 5120, tom@ethiquette.ca
