Eight Essentials for ‘Greening’ the Company Website

A common question we’re hearing from corporate sustainability managers is how to better use the company website for communicating and engaging with key stakeholders. To help answer this question, we recently analyzed the websites of sixty companies publicly recognized as sustainability leaders, with the goal of highlighting practices common to successful online corporate environmental sustainability reporting.

As a result of this process, we identified eight key attributes for effective stakeholder reporting and engagement via the website:

• Access
• Navigation
• Clarity and relevance of graphics
• Timeliness
• Completeness
• Performance statistics
• Engagement
• Assurance

Many of the leading company websites we reviewed succeeded in presenting basic information about sustainability efforts, offering improved visibility and access to data traditionally contained in a stand-alone, annual sustainability report. But most companies are not yet using the web to its full potential—as a channel for bidirectional communication and delivery of information in a more complete and timely fashion. A company networked in this way can provide up-to-the-minute sustainability information to support relationships with customers, suppliers, investors, watchdogs, and other external parties.

This is an important question, as corporate sustainability reporting is growing rapidly, and increasingly, web-based formats have become an essential part of the process. Recent statistics from SIRAN (the Sustainable Investment Research Analyst Network) show that 66 of the S&P 100 published a formal corporate sustainability report with performance data in 2008, a 35% increase from the previous year. Further, 93 S&P 100 companies presented some form of sustainability-related information on their websites in 2008, up over 60% from 2004.

Our observations included the following:

• The sixty companies reviewed were generally excellent at presenting environmental sustainability information. For example, nearly all the websites provided helpful navigational signposts to their sustainability pages. On a scale from zero to three (0–3), the average score for navigation was nearly three (2.94).
• Companies were generally less effective at providing environmental data of substance. We found that quantitative environmental data is often updated annually, at best. The lowest-scoring attribute overall was timeliness of the data, for which the average score was less than one (0.87).
• Effectiveness varied widely across sectors and industries. We found no definitive relationship between industry and quality of online sustainability reporting or engagement practices.
• The average score per attribute was two (2.01) on a scale from zero to three. Companies of all types have opportunities to improve sustainability reporting and communications through their corporate websites.

Businesses have reason to present sustainability information on their websites in more dynamic and engaging ways. Many consumers and other stakeholders use social media for their business and personal activities. Corporations may believe they need a Web 2.0 presence in order to stay in contact with their audience; they may also realize they can reach many more stakeholders through social media’s networking effect.

Both ideas are borne out by a recent survey (“How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results,” McKinsey Quarterly, September 2009), in which nearly 1,700 executives worldwide reported that corporate investment in Web 2.0 activities is worthwhile. The survey found that 69 percent of companies “have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues.”

A simple example of effective interactivity: the ability to quickly and easily get information through graphical information. Some companies—including the iconic green business Patagonia—use interactive pictures to communicate about such matters as supply chain and carbon footprint.

A further motivation is that customers and other stakeholders want to understand how corporate activities and products affect the environment, and what companies are doing to mitigate any negative effects. Consumers that care about health and environmental issues around the world are demonstrating this through their discussions—and purchases—of brands. They insist that companies be transparent and responsive, demands that online reporting can readily meet.

We’re seeing that online sustainability reporting is growing in use and importance. Today’s experiments are the first achievements of what will very likely be a long series of developments in networking a company into a community of stakeholders around environmental responsibility.  Leading companies are setting a new standard for corporate sustainability reporting, using their websites to better communicate with their stakeholders and engage them in sustainability efforts. For these companies, websites have become community-building tools that keep stakeholders up-to-date and involved.

Jaclyn Pitera is a senior analyst at AltaTerra Research, a sustainable business research consultancy. Ms. Pitera has consulted for Williams-Sonoma, Business for Social Responsibility, H&M, Cummins, and JBG, a real estate developer in the Washington, D.C., area. Coauthor of the book High Performance Hospitality: Sustainable Hotel Case Studies, Ms. Pitera holds an MBA, an MS in sustainable systems, and a BS in biology from the University of Michigan. To view a summary of the study described in this article, Greening the Company Website, click here.

Don Bray is co-founder and President of AltaTerra Research, a market research and services firm focused on sustainable business and clean technology solutions in the corporate marketplace.  At AltaTerra, Don has led a broad variety of market research and consulting projects on corporate sustainability, building and IT energy efficiency, and commercial solar. Don holds a Masters in Engineering Management from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Davis.