Regularly communicating with your stakeholders about your sustainability impacts and initiatives is important. The preparation and delivery of an annual sustainability report is one method of communicating. However developing high quality reports is time consuming and requires expertise.
Problem/the brief
The client was in the process of recruiting for a new sustainability practitioner and didn’t have the capability or capacity in-house at the time to deliver their annual sustainability report.
Background
Annual sustainability or impact reports are are an important way for organisations to report on the achievements accomplished and challenges faced during the previous year. The public report is developed using recognised reporting standards and is a tool to engage with a range of internal and external stakeholders.
What did Responsible Business Consultants do
Yvonne took on the project management role on behalf of the client. The project involved working closely with a range of stakeholders from across the business to gather data and content to build the report narrative.
Corporate reporting typically involves input from many levels within an organisation including executives and board members, and in many cases, external assurance. Yvonne set out a detailed project schedule to keep the project on track. She worked collaboratively to ensure that the short turn around times for input and reviews were met.
Throughout the process Yvonne identified opportunities to improve the process for the following reporting cycle.
Result
The client received positive feedback about the report from both internal and external stakeholders. Yvonne was engaged the following year to again provide project management services for the report, this had two key advantages: it allowed the client to benefit from Yvonne’s expertise as well as freeing up sustainability and communications team staff to continue with sustainability initiatives. The client’s staff could focus on providing input to the report as required rather than being caught up in time consuming reporting tasks.