Benet Northcote

I am worried about the future of sustainability reporting.

We recently completed an annual and sustainability report for a major international organisation and, as part of that exercise, reviewed reports from across the same sector. 

On the positive side, despite all the supposed anti-ESG backlash, everyone still seems to be taking it seriously. We didn’t find a single company, including US businesses, that had rolled back their actual disclosures. Certainly, some language had changed (especially in the DEI space) but the actual commitments and actions? Not so much.

However, there was a worrying trend, especially amongst those who were completing their first EU CSRD compliant reports.

In these documents, sustainability content often read like dull accounting documents, with copious details buried in impenetrable language. While this conformed to the rigours of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), it was missing something rather important: a story.

When it comes to the financial numbers, yes the detail was also there (in the back). But at the front was a simple tale about the fiscal performance of the business (sales up, profits up, investment up, shareholders happy). 

In sustainability, storytelling is in danger or being surrendered. 

This isn’t good enough.

Too often, reports today read as if they were drafted by compliance teams. Nothing wrong with compliance, of course, but a good report should also convey a compelling vision about why a company is acting, what that means for customers and employees, and how that is making a difference to the future of the business.

The Annual Report is, and will remain, an important channel for sustainability professionals to tell their story.

Don’t surrender this important opportunity to create a report that shines the best possible light on your work to audiences who don’t want to plough through detailed ESRS-aligned disclosures.

If you do, you might not get the opportunity back.