Elaine Cohen is a prolific CSR blogger and the chances are if you’re reading this you should already well aware of the excellent content she puts out without ever appearing to flag.
On Christmas Day she published what she considers to be the Top 10 CSR reports for 2010. Trusting her judgement implicitly, and following my usual MO, I decided to have a look at these companies’ websites and see whether their excellence in reporting extended to their websites, picking up a few hints and tips on the way.
To put it another way, do they get one thumbs up or two?
I’ve addressed the companies in the same order Elaine did, and she makes clear this is in no particular order whatsoever.
Danisco
A Danish food, clothing and chemicals conglomerate whose 2010 CSR report also won a top award in Denmark.
A well presented website with good granularity content touching on many issues to a surprising depth. Topics are presented simply but with further information always available. Further links take the reader on to the latest report for greater detail and performance figures. The only shame is that those figures aren’t available immediately on the website.
Alling Henning Associates
A small US marketing agency which, among other services, produces CSR reports and communications.
An exceptionally innovative one-page online only report which reports facts and figures only. Programmed in Flash, little speech bubbles and other interactive widgets pop up as you browse through it and once you’ve spotted the ant on the apple core you can’t help but smile. Just a shame I couldn’t find a link to it from their main webspace!
Impahla Clothing
A small clothing manufacturer from South Africa, part of Puma’s sustainable supply chain.
Impahla don’t have a website so it would inappropriate to comment, other than to say they gained a lot of coverage as the carbon neutral manufacturer of several African nations’ kit at the 2010 World Cup.
Coca Cola
The US based world-bestriding drinks manufacturer.
An excellent example of arranging hardcopy report information in an imaginative way which allows the user to skip between sections at will. There’s very little which is technically groundbreaking, but the design just works really well. I especially like the way the Data Summary’s been put in the top right corner, always available but not dominating proceedings.
Campbell Soup
A worldwide food and drink manufacturer from the US .. not just soup any more!
Another great example of reworking a linear report into the more dynamic web environment. Specific data is embedded within the individual items and section headers have a java scroll of pertinent individual examples. My only quizzical moment is when realising a section header lists the contents both in the left sidebar and at the bottom of the page, the latter seeming to be unnecessary.
(Part 2 of this post will follow next week)
A former CTO, Chris has a broad and varied background. He’s been involved with blue chips, consultancies & SMEs across a wide variety of sectors and has worked in Europe, the Middle East and Australia.
In 2007 he decided to combine his knowledge of business and IT with his passion for all things sustainable and has been busy writing ever since. However, his greatest ambition remains to brew the perfect cup of coffee.
