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Some 40% of sustainability professionals spend between a quarter and half of their time on reporting and disclosure (Edie research). Important work, but most would want to spend more time driving and supporting strategic initiatives and contributing to overall performance. How can copywriters help CSOs and their teams produce better reports more efficiently?
Three learnings from my experience of writing these reports:
1. Sustainability reporting is much earlier in its development than financial reporting and the ground rules are still emerging. So your copywriter needs to understand sustainability and be able to consult on content throughout the process.
2. Sustainability reports need to engage beyond the bubble, so your writer needs to be able to translate technical information into clear, jargon-free language. The greater opportunity created by the updated ESRS to engage senior leadership inside the organisation and broader audiences outside it through the Leadership Message and Executive Summary, can be wasted by sustainability-speak.
3. The lawyers matter, but your writer needs to have enough legal know-how to be able to turn legal-speak, where possible, into confident statements of action and purpose. Working on these reports made me grateful (finally) for my legal training. And initiatives like truMRK’s Transparency Reports gives good actors the confidence to communicate harder and not feel overly constrained by legal caution.
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