Best Practices for Online Reporting in Corporate Responsibility

Tips for corporate reporting online. By Lynne Elvins.

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The Internet has become a remarkable platform for corporate sustainability reporting, offering new tools for dialogue and potentially new levels of accountability. Currently there is still a need for paper reports at many, even most, companies. However, more and more companies are also looking to the Internet to provide a level of usability that paper reports just don't offer.

While the majority of sustainability reports on the web tend to repeat companies' printed reports, a growing number of companies are considering exclusive web-based publication, or the use of their website as a tool to enhance and encourage greater stakeholder accountability.

The reasons for web-based sustainability reporting are in many respects the same as for sustainability reporting in any other medium:

• to improve a company's ability to manage its business and decision processes
• to enhance stakeholder engagement and create better relationships
• to maximize the potential to increase aspects of business value.

The web makes many of these objectives easier and cheaper to pursue with a wider and more diverse range of stakeholders but there are still both pros and cons to consider when reporting online:

Pros:

• Ability to reach vastly larger and more diverse groups of stakeholders
  
• Increased quantity and nature of the information available
  
• Possibility to cater to different languages and multiple interests
  
• Updating can be yearly, monthly or even daily as required
  
• Allows visitors to select their own subject matter
  
• Simplifies and encourages greater feedback and participation from visitors
  
• Can track the types of information being used or ignored
  
• Avoids the resources and costs associated with printing and distributing a physical report.

Cons:

• Internet access is still greatly restricted to society's middle and upper classes
  
• Visitors can easily get lost in mountains of information
  
• Web information can increase, rather than decrease, requests for paper reports and documents
  
• Regular updating can pose technical challenges, both for information gathering and for verification
  
• The anonymity of the Internet - and the speed of its transactions - demands a careful and dedicated approach to stakeholder engagement not yet understood by a majority of companies
  
• Tracking visitor activity could, under some circumstances, clash with legitimate privacy concerns
  
• Printing can just be transferred to readers, who will print their own copies.

Design Considerations

The way a website is designed, the tools it uses and the navigation system it employs will aid or impede a visitor's ability to find and understand corporate sustainability information. Below are two key areas that will greatly influence the communication of sustainability issues on corporate websites: linking and feedback tools.

Linking

The ability to link web pages is the fundamental advantage the Internet offers over traditional media. But despite the growing amount of corporate sustainability information available there is little evidence to indicate that companies are using navigation effectively to guide visitors to it.

Even those companies that have extensive environmental and social information held on their website often do not link this information through to the core business or product information. Many companies do not even link their sustainability or environmental reports to their annual financial report areas. In this example, companies are failing to encourage investors to consider environmental or social data. The message implied is that sustainability information is seen as unrelated to general business performance.

External linking also appears to challenge companies. Linking to third-party websites - particularly to those organizations with opposing views about a company or sector - allows the visitor to obtain a balanced understanding. It also indicates that a company has an open approach to debate and questioning. Companies, quite understandably, will want to keep visitors on their website, but this should be through choice, not because they become trapped. If your website is informative and helpful, users will come back.

Problems around linking may be related to internal systems for publishing material on a company website and therefore may reflect the web departments’ understanding of triple bottom line information; or it may be a reflection of the overall communication of sustainability issues throughout the company. The way in which your company is structured internally - as with many issues - will affect the degree to which you can show an integrated approach on your public website.

Corporate examples of online tools:

BP – BP's website features a customizing facility called DataDesk. The visitor can select from a range of company information and the topics will be presented as one single document

BT – BT are web-only reporters and have used a combination of e-mail-based discussion groups, coupled with several real-time debates hosted by BT staff.

Nike – Nike use online video footage effectively as a way to see inside factories.· Novo -http://www.novo.dk/esr00/ - Novo's has an 'Interactive Charts' facility. Visitors can generate their own charts and graphs from selected data on environmental and social issues.

SAB (South African Breweries) – As you enter the SAB website they immediately offer information tailored to different stakeholders by asking visitors whether they are an environmentalist, an investor, or a concerned citizen amongst others.

Shell – Shell's debate forum is one of the best known and most widely used web-based stakeholder dialogue on a company's website.

WMC – Integrating paper and web information has resulted in many companies listing web references in their printed reports but WMC's 2000 Community and Environment Report was an early example.

Feedback Tools

The Internet offers all sorts of possibilities for going beyond text information and static graphics. However, before features are added to your company site consider whether they add real value to the visitor and whether the format you choose is appropriate.

Currently, most companies conduct stakeholder engagement using traditional methods such as stakeholder panels and public issue forums, but online tools introduce a new capacity for two-way dialogue. Technologies such as e-mail, web forums and chat rooms have introduced the potential for far greater stakeholder engagement across many company processes - not only for collecting feedback on reports, but also in the ongoing process companies undertake to help identify issues of concern and understand stakeholders' opinions.

E-mail

E-mail is one of the most common forms of feedback over the Internet. Make sure e-mail comments can reach a relevant person - don't just provide generic e-mail addresses. Customer service centers often have little understanding of corporate sustainability issues beyond being able to send a copy of the current report - which is probably available on the website anyway. Automatic e-mail forms are provided by many companies, but can be restrictive. The most inflexible systems only allow visitors to ask questions from a pre-selected list.

Discussion Postings

Using discussion boards allows conversations on diverse issues to take place over long periods of time, allowing ideas to be fleshed out as the dialogue develops. Companies should consider posting comments and questions that people send in, either via public forums (as Shell and the Co-operative Bank do), or on a case-by-case basis, when interesting or provocative comments are received. Important considerations should be made around the way the company selects questions to post, who will answer them, and how long it takes before they are answered.

Online Chat Rooms

A live chat room is the most interactive and spontaneous type of dialogue by which a website can provide feedback. However, live chat rooms need organizing and marketing in advance, as well as facilitating on the day. Consider whether you will capture the whole conversation and publish it afterwards and be aware of the specific technologies involved.

Seize the Potential

Most companies have not really begun to use online engagement processes to their full potential. Some people feel that online engagement reduces the ability of participants to bounce ideas of each other, and that the anonymity of online engagement diminishes the value of feedback it generates. Clearly, the Internet cannot wholly replace traditional forms of stakeholder engagement. Understanding participants' perspectives still requires sensitivity to such things as group dynamics, non-verbal cues, attention to the topic, and the role and skill of the facilitator. But web-based tools can enable dialogue to reach new audiences in new ways. The potential should be seen as a major priority for companies.

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By Lynne Elvins, e-comms manager at SustainAbility, for more information, visit: www.virtualsustainability.com

Copyright 2002 Ethical Corporation magazine, a GreenBiz News Affiliate.