ABSTRACT
How much does your company spend on its glossy sustainability or corporate social responsibility report each year? Does it really help connect with community or is it merely nice sustainability window dressing? Have you ever wondered why exactly companies bother producing sustainability reports at all? That’s not to belittle sustainability reporting. Non-financial reporting is a crucial part of embedding sustainability within the organization and should play a key role demonstrating authenticity to outside stakeholders – hence rebuilding trust. But while sustainability reporting is crucial to the integrity and future direction of every company, producing a bloated, overly designed and overly expensive sustainability report definitely is not. This chapter explores the need to reposition sustainability reporting at the heart of corporate decision-making so that it can inform, connect and mobilise all areas of the business – but especially finance, operations and marketing – around sustainable business strategy. It looks at different storytelling techniques employed by companies like Apple, BMW, Heineken and Levi Strauss to bring sustainability report information and insights to new audiences.
