Once again it is reporting season and I am getting word of a few new CSR reports every day. I have been following CSR reports for over 10 years when there were just a few out there. I am maintaining a library of those old reports that will one year fit into a museum somewhere.
Each year, new reports emerge as leaders. This year I am amazed at the 2.0 nature of the reports. Far gone are the sole PDF attachments of the printed CSR report. Or the multiple PDFs of sections of a CSR report. The report strategy is more web than paper. The blogs have become more mainstream over the last few years. What I am seeing today is more integrated and more real-time.
Here are a few of my leadership observations. I like how
- Microsoft includes a Products tab to their report so that the report is not just about their internal sustainability but also the product’s they sell. Their corporate customers are the new stakeholder in this transparent reporting strategy as they are requiring policy and procedures demonstrating the sustainability.
- Timberland has a stand alone blog and how Timberland_Jeff is so active around CSR via Twitter. Way to go Jeff!
- Wal-Mart’s live video webcast when they launched their Sustainability Index accompanied with live tweeting was most impressive.
My vision for 2010 is (not sure if this is too ambitious) a real-time dashboard of KPIs tieing together all the internal metrics systems.