Creating an ESG report is a daunting task — you’re not alone in thinking it. Assembling the necessary resources to craft a report that showcases your story isn’t for the faint of heart.
With 39 years of corporate reporting experience, we offer a little guidance.
Without a roadmap, it can feel like you’re haphazardly attempting to dodge potholes and bumps along the road. As the person charged with spearheading the project, you may be asking: Where should I begin? What are some best practices? Can someone share a primer?
You’re in luck — we hear you and have answers. Start here with these tips: Read about strategic and tactical approaches that you can implement with your team. Created for you, this primer will provide a useful roadmap for a successful report — use it as a baseline and edit to suit your particular situation.
1. Establish a baseline
An ESG or sustainability report is a complex project to tackle. There are many parties involved and many layers of information that must be woven into the narrative to support your ESG efforts while reinforcing your corporate brand. Still, your starting point can be simple. Ask yourself these high-level questions to get crystal clear on your process:
Who are the decision makers?
Our advice is — go ahead and literally make a list. Then, ask a simple question — do the people on the list truly hold decision-making power? You’d be surprised how many times progress can be stunted by having the wrong folks around the table. Getting clear about who does and does not need to be involved is essential. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt, “Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes”.
Who are the main points of contact on either side of the table?
When working with an agency like Baker, it’s best to select a lead on your internal team who will serve as the day-to-day, sole-source contact. This may sound simple, but without explicitly defining the core project lead, it takes longer to move the ball forward. Whether you’re that lead or someone else is, make sure it’s completely clear who is driving the project.
What’s the schedule?
Quarterly meetings, maternity leave, vacations, graduations, etc. — we get it — everybody is really busy, and the hustle is real. Establish your hard deadlines and key milestones, and then fill in around those markers. Consider using a range of dates when shaping your timeline if that helps to build consensus — it’ll establish expectations and allow some flex. You can always thin-slice and get hyper-focused once you’re in the short strokes. Remember to include time for production and shipping if those are relevant concerns. Factoring known commitments into your schedule helps create a realistic timeline, so you can keep everyone in sync and avoid foreseeable delays.
What are the desired deliverables?
Is your team creating a PDF, printed piece, or both? Do you know the specific size(s) you desire? If you’re creating multiple formats, spell out what the timeline looks like for each (i.e. necessary time for printing), so you can plan accordingly. If you’re printing copies, ask why. Will the carbon footprint be worth the potential blowback, and will the optics play well with your audience?
2. Map out your logistics
When you get into the workflow, there are some important considerations that can help keep contributors organized and on the same page. Mapping these out early on allows your entire process to flow more smoothly.
- Decide how you’ll share content and assets.
Where will you organize key content so that your team has access (e.g. design agency or client project site, FTP server, Google Drive, etc.)? Having a centralized point of sharing helps your team avoid that all-too-familiar headache of trying to locate files scattered across emails, desktops, removable hard drives, etc. - Decide how edits will be handled.
Will you be using a PDF with comments, a Word document with track changes, or some other method? Deciding on a clear procedure for this helps you avoid a messy web of feedback that bogs down your team. Be sure to resolve internal questions and navel-gazing so that the final document isn’t riddled with questions. Be prescriptive whenever possible. “Maybe we can make the logo bigger?” is less effective than “Please make the logo 10% bigger to match the cover of the proxy report”. You won’t hurt our feelings (we promise), and you’ll increase the likelihood of getting exactly what you’re looking for. This is not Jeopardy. - Factor in time to finalize mockups and create a print-ready format.
If you aren’t accustomed to working with a design team on a piece such as this, you may assume that mockups are ready to send to print immediately after they are approved. However, there’s technical work that has to be done behind the scenes to finalize the files for print and create high-resolution assets, so plan accordingly.
3. Frame your story and message for impact
Because your ESG report is an important vehicle for telling your brand’s story, it’s important to be thoughtful about what you’re trying to communicate. Taking a strategic perspective allows you to connect with stakeholders most meaningfully.
- Identify a qualified writer early in the process.
You may have someone in-house that has the necessary skills, or you may need to contract with outside help. Either way, ensure this person is a subject matter expert who understands your business and industry, relevant issues and concerns, and which standards to report against. Some resources that your writer may find helpful include:- Your website and its sustainability section
- Current videos
- Past sustainability and annual reports
- Your IR pitch deck
- Transcripts of recent earnings calls
- Your corporate brand platform and guidelines
- Your company’s current ESG rating agencies scores
- Desired ESG frameworks you wish to report to
- Know your audience.
There’s a saying: “When you know your audience, your audience knows.” Make sure you have a clear grasp of who you’re speaking to. Effective writing connects what you want to say with what they’re listening for. - Determine the narrative.
Have a clear picture of what you want to communicate about your brand, and align your messaging and data to support that point of view. - Remove friction.
Make it easy for your reader to find what they need and to absorb your key messages. As you tell your story:- Identify potential callouts, highlights, and/or factoids. And remember to cite your sources whenever it makes sense to do so.
- Package the content for skimming and sharing with sound bites that can be easily repurposed across multiple touchpoints from social media to pitch decks.
- Ensure that content, graphs, and other proof points are consistent across all deliverables and touchpoints. Pro tip: If legacy graphics have already been vetted, approved, and socialized across the company in other touchpoints, ask if they need to be re-created to better suit the design of the report or if they should be picked-up and deployed “as-is” in the interest of continuity and familiarity? There’s no right or wrong. Just understand that there’s a time/cost implication for every graphic that has to be touched. (If you have bespoke, signature, tent-pole graphics, we recommend leaving them “as is” unless the report would really benefit from a retool. Discuss it with your designer. Sometimes just a small adjustment can pay big dividends.)
4. Define the writing style nitty-gritty
Consistency in your language and tone is so much more than just a matter of personal style. It’s an effective tool for shaping public perception and building confidence in your message.
- Make your story style consistent with your brand voice.
If you have established writing conventions as part of your brand guidelines, let that be your solid starting point. Your voice should be consistent company wide. - Select a desired writing style.
If this isn’t already addressed within your brand guidelines, be sure to ask — will you follow AP Stylebook or The Chicago Manual of Style? Or something else? If you have multiple sources of written content for the final report, who will act as the final arbiter for matters of style? - Establish a hierarchy of headline and sub heads.
Not only does this produce a more clear, coherent story for your reader, it also makes the design and production process more efficient. - Plant a flag regarding capitalization and serial commas.
Will you use title case or sentence case? And how will serial commas be handled? These are details that should be considered and decided upon up front and consistently adhered to when writing and editing. Resolving these issues early will save you aggravation downstream when time and money are likely to be scarce. - Write to the desired page count.
If you have a clear page count in mind — a factor that can be particularly important when thinking through design and print costs — you’ll want to write to that page count. Confer with your design team, because word counts often aren’t known until after a preliminary look and feel have been established.Pro tip: Don’t assume that your Word doc will translate 1:1 into finished pages in the report. It’s not uncommon to have charts and graphs tell a story more efficiently or to have only one paragraph of copy on a whole page as either a large infographic or as a supporting statement to accompany a hero photo. The goal is to pace the report and create moments where a reader can pause and/or you can create emphasis. In many cases, a rough pagination/storyboard from the design team can help you visualize the editorial flow and heartbeat of your content.
5. Help your design team help you
Design plays a major role in ESG and sustainability reporting. From the flow of the layout to the quality of graphics, design will impact your reader’s experience. We believe that form follows function. A successful report is built upon the bones of a well-considered thesis using clear information hierarchy and design principles. To help your design team create the best visual experience for your reader, be sure to:
- Provide your brand guidelines to your design team.
Make sure your designer packet includes high-resolution, approved assets — fonts, logos, image library, icons, etc. Ideally, gather all of this up front and share it as one package to eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth. Or, share a link to the guidelines and the source of your digital assets from the your or Baker’s project site, DropBox, etc. - Share any precedents, preferences, or examples.
Nothing kills a conversation faster than the introduction of “known issues” or subjective, personal preferences masquerading as criteria during a design presentation. Our goal, whenever possible, is to inform our subjective, creative decisions with objective, business criteria and to avoid any red flags up front. With that in mind, ask:- Is there a precedent — a previous year report? Or is this the first year?
- Are there any sacred cows, biases, or personal preferences that will inform the design or decision-making?
- Are there any reports that can be shared with the creative team as examples of your desired direction? Is there a gold standard? Aspirational examples can be very helpful.
- Have a clear protocol for flagging assets in your content draft.
We recommend including visual references and exact file names when flagging assets in the content draft. (For this purpose, low-res is fine. In fact, it’s preferable.) Clear directions will make the production process so much more efficient when these elements are added into the design later. - Provide high-quality visual assets.
High-resolution graphics are ideal, and source files are desirable, especially for logos and other vector art. Avoid using screenshots or website screen grabs. These are generally low-resolution graphics that are not suitable for reproduction. Photos taken on cell phones vary in their quality and should be assessed on an individual basis. - Assess your photography before giving it to the design team.
Check that the images you provide are usable based on technical, content, and intellectual property concerns. Ask:- Is this the best photo to support the talking point(s)?
- Are folks wearing the proper attire and safety gear?
- Does the person in the photo still work at the company?
- When was the photo taken? Is the equipment/process shown still relevant?
- What’s happening in the background? Generally, clean, simple, non-distracting backgrounds are preferable.
- How’s the lighting? Try to avoid harsh shadows, midday sun with people squinting, covering their eyes, etc.
- Is the photo technically sound? Is it in focus? If the report will be printed, does the photo have sufficient megapixels? (A good rule of thumb — bitmap assets should have enough resolution to support 300 dots per inch at 100%.)
- Are permissions, releases, or consents in place? If a contractor is shown, are we cleared to use their image and likeness and/or the name of the brand and/or logo?
- What is company policy regarding the usage of photos taken at public events that show non-employees, members of the general public, minors, etc? Is it okay to show brand names and/or logos, ie. at a sponsored event like a 5k run?
- If it’s a stock image, are we okay to use it per licensing agreements?
- Plan for photos ahead of time.
If you’re able to do so, scan the calendar for upcoming events that may be great photo opportunities. Approach these events as a photojournalist would, thinking creatively about what shots will support your story — diversity, giving back, working with underserved communities, etc. Get a mix of candids and posed shots. Snap some from a distance and some up close. You may include some photos that are focused on the person, whereas others might be about the activity. And if possible, when shooting on a phone or similar device with a wide-angle lens, avoid putting people at the edges of your frame because that’s where they will appear the most distorted.
6. Find your wingman — somebody who will ride shotgun.
Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but that all roads do lead there and that we’re as concerned about the journey as we are the destination. A healthy dose of patience, a good sense of humor, and the abilities to pivot and flex will make your experience more manageable. So will having a seasoned partner. Whether you ride mostly solo or you prefer the company and expertise of others, you will need a trusted spotter and fixer who can read maps as well as tea leaves.
7. Get started
Congratulations on taking an important, first step in your journey — doing your research and conducting due diligence. The road to a successful ESG and sustainability report can feel long and winding at times. However, with the right internal team, a unified vision, a smart workflow and a supportive design partner committed to your success, the path will be smoother and more efficient than without. We see you. And we’re in a position to help. We’ve been down this road before. Let’s talk about your goals and priorities and how best to tell your story. In the meantime, we hope these tips help fuel your efforts. Happy trails. Actual mileage may vary.