Frustrations with online reporting

As techy as I am, and I am reasonably digitally-literate, I suppose, for my age (as my kids would say about anyone over 35), there is something about online reports that doesn't work for me. 

It's fabulous to have information accessible but for me, a report that is entirely online with no possibility to download the full or at least a summary is a turn-off. I was travelling last week in Europe and internet access is not always easy. Free WiFi in my hotel gave such a weak signal that I abandoned it. In other places, international roaming costs an arm and a leg. I have a personal hotspot deal that provides 400MB for around $10 and that's pretty good, but for a heavy user such as me (not games or movies, just regular work type surfing, downloading reports (:)), emailing and a few apps), that barely covers half a day. Local or international data bundles are not always available and when they are, the price per mega is far more. Travelling is the one time that I have time to look at things I don't have time to look at when I am under deadline pressures. Flying time is perfect - oops, no internet on flights. I have about another 50 hours of flying and airport time coming up in November - most of that is free-WiFi-less. No online reports. I have no idea what free or low-cost internet access is like in other parts of the world outside of Europe and the U.S. and a few other places I have traveled. I expect it's even harder or costlier to hook up outside your own home in many places. So, why do companies insist on providing sustainability reports that can only be viewed online? This is so restrictive. Financial reports are never only online (I believe) - there is always a downloadable document. 

Don't get me wrong, online is great and opens up access to many - including consumers - that reports wouldn't otherwise reach. Online reports provide opportunities for feedback and dialogue in real-time - page by page - much better than asking someone to provide feedback about an entire report if they have read only a couple of sections. Sharability of online content is also a big advantage for expanding the reach of your report. But can't we have the best of both worlds? 

Today I came across Annie's Homegrown, Inc.'s online Sustainability Report for FY 2014. 

The report is a long down-scroll webpage with highlights. Side-scrolling from each section takes you to more detail.

But, when you go for the detail, you lose the report.

For example, I selected to "learn more" about sustainability education for employees. I left-scrolled. This brought me to another page with a font so small I had to enlarge my screen.

After the short text, there is a clickable link to a "Related Article" which brings you to another part of the Annie's website that is outside of the report content. Browser back-click to get back to the report. Repeat endless times to actually read any content. Don't bother. Simply give up. 

No site-map, no contents list, no index. For some, this may be a great online experience. For myself, a professionally-oriented reader of reports (and I understand that I might be outside Annie's target audience, even though I am positively disposed towards organic food :)), it really doesn't work for me and I give up once I see that I am getting nowhere fast. While I commend this organization, and I really do, for reporting on sustainability and doing so quite attractively and creatively, as well as achieving some sustainability performance plusses, I find this reporting format frustrating. (At least it's not a flip-book. Don't get me started on those.....). A small PDF download for me to read offline in an orderly and sequential way would make all the difference.  

Annie's is just one example of many companies that seem to believe that the progressive and PC thing today is to report exclusively online. I could give many more report examples, some that have easier navigation, some that are impossible, some long, some short, some with webby pyrotechnics and pop-ups and pop-outs and dynamic menus and charts and more. No matter how fancy they are, I can never read them on a flight, it costs me an arm and a leg to read them while I am travelling, and I have to spend (and waste) time clicking away for everything I want to glance at. 

The real value of online reports should be real-time accessibility and interactability. Accessibility is limited, as I have noted, but if your report is online, then why not use this as an opportunity to invite feedback online and generate some dialogue? A bit of talkback may do the company some good. A learning opportunity. The Annie's report interactivity is one-way. It has several share buttons - you can pinterest it, google it, facebook it and even email the URL to all your closest friends.... but you can't comment on it. You could go to Twitter and interact with @AnniesCEO there, but who can be bothered? Twitter is not the best tool for providing report feedback. 

This rant-post therefore is both an expression of my frustration to all online-only reporters and a plea to you/them to go the extra mile and publish reports in a way that make it easier for a wider range of stakeholders to use them. I LOVE reports. I hate having to miss out because online just isn't there yet. 

PS: Maybe we have missed the boat with Annie's. The company has now been bought by General Mills. At least General Mills has a downloadable PDF sustainability report. However, I am not so optimistic about the chances of Annie's brands competing strongly with Cheerios for page space so we might just find ourselves wanting the online report back :-)

elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Check out our G4 Report Expert Analysis Service - for published G4 reports or pre-publication - write to Elaine at info@b-yond.biz to help make your G4 reporting  even better.   

Sustainability in any language

An interesting article about the power of language to determine thought  (and we all know that thought leads to action) was posted by Lis Duarte on Twitter. The article quotes linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf who first posited in the 1930s that language is so powerful that it can determine thought. Certain words, it seems, can shape our thoughts and feelings, depending on the language in which they are presented. For example, you may read the words:

This may not create much of a reaction . But then you read the words:

These words, on the other hand,  may make you rush to read the latest sustainability report published. This might take you to General Mills' Sustainability Report 2011, a company which employs 33,000 people in the pursuit of Nourishing Lives (funny, I thought Campbell's Soup had cornered that concept). Anyhow, General Mills' report starts out with the words "We made a lot of progress in 2010 and have a lot to be proud about". Not lacking in modesty, then, Ken Powell, CEO, then talks about how General Mills has improved the health profile of products and increased corporate philanthropy and employee volunteering, as well as some interesting initatives on renewable energy sourcing and a new oat burner which both makes products and provides steam for heating.  Back to health, I was caught on the progress GM has made in reducing sugar content of breakfast cereals advertized to children which is now under 10g per serving. What I don't know here, not being a nutritionist,  is whether 10g is good or bad (it's better than previously) but compared to industry norms, existing regulations and recommended serving sizes, whether this is good enough, or just good, or not even scratching the surface. General Mills provides a separate brochure called the Benefits of Breakfast Cereals which goes some way to explaining the context around breakfast cereal food properties.

The GM Sustainability Report is not aligned with the GRI framework but GM has established a cross functional team to evaulate the merits of GRI based reporting. While this report covers a lot of ground in its 86 pages, it seems rather light on data and is mostly about stories and policies. A more rigorous (and assured) framework for GM reporting would be welcomed. Still, we were talking about words....

If you read the words:

you might not be motivated to rush out to prepare your company's first Sustainability Report, despite the fact that the mainstreaming of sustainability reporting is now a clear mission for the GRI and many stakeholders. However, if you read: 

you may start putting pen to paper immediately. 

If  you read the words:

you may be prompted to contact me. Hahahaha. Who said I am not allowed to shamelessly promote my report reviewing and writing services on this blog (very) occasionally? However, if you read :

you might consider contacting a Sustainability Reporting consultant in Moscow. And then contact me. Haha.

(Disclaimer: If the above does not mean "We need help writing our sustainability report", please refer to Google Translate. The writer bears no liability for the consequences of whatever the above translated sentence might mean!)

On the other hand, if you read the words:

you may be prompted to forget all about reporting and go back to dealing with the more important things in life . Chunky Monkey is the same in any language.



elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainabilty Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices Contact me via www.twitter.com/elainecohen  on Twitter or via my business website www.b-yond.biz/en  (BeyondBusiness, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm)

Inhance Sustainability

Occasionally, on CorporateRegister.com, I come across a report that doesn't quite fit the standard categorization of CSR or sustainability report. This is why the report from Inhance Investment caught my eye. It is called Stakeholder Engagement Report, Dialogue to Deeds, 2010. Inhance is a Canadian mutual fund company with approximately $75 million of mutual fund assets under management, active in socially Responsible Investment (SRI). Founded in 2001, Inhance is based in Vancouver and is owned by Vancity, one of Canada’s largest credit unions.

The report, 13 pages short, opens with "Over 2009 we engaged 23 companies on emerging ESG risk. Key areas of engagement include: climate change, product safety, ecosystem integrity, community relations and diversity. In early 2009 we also negotiated withdrawals on six shareholder resolutions filed in 2008 for 2009 annual general meetings."

In the area of climate change, Inhance contacted 8 companies who had declined to report to the Carbon Disclosure Project. "In particular we focused on the need for company boards to be aware of the evolving regulatory regime for climate change, and the opportunities in renewable energy, conservation and efficiency improvements." Inhance names the companies, but fails to report on whether there was any response to their contact, which is a shame. On hydraulic fracturing, the process used to release reserves of natural gas using high pressure water pumps, Inhance contacted six companies about their practice in this area, and received responses from three.

Similarly, Inhance was active in the food area, contacting General Mills about misleading claims of reduced calorie breakfast cereals which were the result of playing around with portion size and not product modifications! Also, Inhance has taken up the use of BPA in packaging at General Mills and Pepsico. On diversity, Inhance engaged with five companies lacking in either gender or visible minority diversity at the board level.

There are two points to make here, one good, one could-be-better.

The good is that this sort of activity from Investment Houses and mutual funds is highly welcome. Inhance's proactive stance and reachout to companies is exactly what more investment companies and investors and analysts should be doing, as most public conpanies will "voluntarily" change only when they are given a little encouragement on behalf of people who want to invest in them. This is a critical route to more sustainable practices and I am happy to see Inhance reporting on this. It's the vigilante work of the CSR community.

The could-be-better is that, having decided to produce a nice shiny report, couldn't Insight have gone the extra mile and reported on outcomes of engagement rather than just initiation? Wouldn't it be nice to know that all their hard work in talking to companies had actually yielded some benefit ? (assuming it did).  

Anyway, their report is a 13 page document which takes 5 minutes to read, but it's worth it. The principle of identifiying issues you feel strongly about and making sure companies know it is a golden rule of stepping up sustainability. Give feedback. Ask questions. Request change.  

elaine cohen is co-founder and co-CEO of Beyond Business, a leading social and environmental consulting and reporting firm. Visit our website at www.b-yond.biz/en