Just over 50% of 948 business professionals working in CSR, reporting or communications stated engaging key stakeholder groups is the number one issue in the coming 12 months.

This is just one key finding from our newly published State of CSR Reporting and Communications whitepaper. From a pre-determined list, based on months of research for our upcoming event, survey respondents indicated how important particular issues are to them in the coming months. There are six issues that over 30% of all respondents classed as essential for the year ahead.

(the above graph and analysis is taken from the newly published State of CR Reporting and Communications 2016 whitepaper that's free to download here)

The number one issue is ‘increasing engagement with key stakeholder groups’ – which 51% of respondents identified as an essential focus for 2016/2017. Following that are ‘quantifying CSR impacts in financial terms’ and ‘engaging investors' around sustainability initiatives’, with 37% and 36% respectively, and then ‘understanding the regulatory risk landscape’, ‘using the CSR report to inform business decisions’ and ‘creating a year-long reporting communications strategy’ with 34%, 31% and 30% respectively.

As identified earlier in the report increasing engagement with key stakeholder groups is of course a critical issue for business. Rather surprisingly for us fewer CSR respondents perceive it as an essential issue in 2016, with 48% labeling ‘increasing engagement with key stakeholder groups’ as essential.

We did drill-down into the area of engagement and asked our respondents whether they're successfully engaging their CFO, and whether the CFO is convinced of the value of the CSR report.

  

(the above graph and analysis is taken from the newly published State of CR Reporting and Communications 2016 whitepaper that's free to download here)

The CFO controls the budgets of an organisation, so convincing the CFO of the value of the CSR report is a critical internal issue. CSR respondents are most positive about the perceived value of the CSR report with 30% stating their CFO is convinced of its value.

The rest were more negative, with nearly twice as many (13% compared with 7%) stating their CFO isn’t convinced of its value. It would appear that there is a lot more work to be done to around engaging the CFO on the CSR report and its value. This leads us on nicely to our next question…

      

(the above graph and analysis is taken from the newly published State of CR Reporting and Communications 2016 whitepaper that's free to download here)

Utilising the CSR report to its fullest potential offers an array of opportunities for a company, both internally and externally. The benefits of a successfully constructed and communicated CSR report can include; increasing internal buy-in and helping identify new opportunities, improving investor engagement and showcasing leadership in responsible business.

Just over 10% of our respondents feel they’re leveraging their CSR report to its full potential. Rather concerning is the fact that more respondents (15%) stated that they’re not able to derive any real benefits from their CSR report. When splitting out the responses the main negativity comes from the respondents not working within the CSR department, where 20% indicated they’re not delivering any real benefits from their CSR report.

It appears that sustainability practitioners need to work with their key stakeholder groups, both internal and external, to help them better understand the CSR report.

The above is an extract from the newly published 16-page whitepaper that outlines some of the key trends, issues and opportunities as outlined by nearly 1,000 CSR, reporting and communication professionals. The whitepaper is available as a free download, simply click here to get access to the report.

csr reporting  stakeholder engagement  sustainability reporting  trends 

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