Interactive sustainability reporting: Developing clear target group tailoring and stimulating stakeholder dialogue

Abstract

Providing greater interactivity is a step forward in sustainability reporting. Interactivity includes mechanisms to involve key target groups and give feedback, facilities for user control, and opportunities to select report contents and design. These features determine users' satisfaction, value, and overall attitude towards sustainability reporting, whether users actually pay attention to sustainability reports, how readers assess reliability and value of these documents, and the extent to which stakeholders are willing to make use of such communication vehicles for decision making. Today, one-way-communication on sustainability issues through 'one size fits all' hard copies or simple electronic duplicates without any added value, hardly fulfils stakeholder expectations and reporting requirements. In contrast to the importance of these issues of communication in codes of conducts, standards, guidelines, and other recommendations, however, current reporting practice has significant room for improvement. Hence, a framework is proposed and examples of current practice are presented showing how a more interactive sustainability reporting approach could be shaped and implemented.