Ask Our Experts: Principles on Creating Meaningful Sustainability Reports

Written by Cristina Mihăiloaie on July 8, 2024. Posted in Consultants, Interviews, Strategy

Q: How can an organization create meaningful sustainability reports?

I will reply with a question: meaningful for who?

My point was to bring to your attention the importance of knowing your audience and the information they expect or need to receive. To identify what your sustainability report focuses on, one must identify the needs of the audience, and as you can assume, there will be one approach to report internally to the top management on the latest progress and a completely different perspective if the annual sustainability report must be released for external stakeholders. Moreover, there are compliance issues that must be considered since regulators, depending on your location, will require certain aspects to be captured in the reporting.

Putting aside the specific context of each organization and the local compliance issues, I find the following principles valuable for producing a quality sustainability report:

1. Identify the materiality issues – Identify what is the most relevant issue for your organization and consider the informational needs of the report’s users.
2. Ensure data accuracy – Misinterpretation of results or simple error calculation can lead to serious legal consequences, reputation damage, and loss of stakeholders or shareholders’ trust.
3. Focus on impact  – Use specific KPIs or metrics to measure the achievements of objectives, avoid presenting only what the organization is doing, and include more data about the performance achieved and the impact created.
4. Provide regularity – Information should be reported on a predefined schedule (e.g., quarterly, annually).
5. Communicate with clarity – Use simple language, include essential information (not all data available), and use visuals that convey the data’s meaning effectively.

Read more: ESG’s impact on business: driving organizational performance and beyond

Cristina Mihailoaie

Managing  Director  MENA  and  Executive  Manager  

Center  for  Government Performance,  The  KPI  Institute

• Business Unit Manager of Research Programs at The KPI Institute.
• Her professional experience embeds research skills with performance management consulting and practical strategy development and execution for the Research division.
• In the last 10 years, Cristina contributed to the development of best practices and standards in how to use and leverage KPIs that are taught in the premium certifications of The KPI Institute worldwide and assisted large organizations in industries like oil and gas, financial sector, telecommunications, manufacturing, and utilities.
• She conducts maturity assessments for performance management systems and has trained over 500 professionals over the last years getting first-hand experience with the most stringent issues organizations face.
• Get in touch on LinkedIn.

**********

• Continue Reading

What KPIs are a MUST in reporting sustainability matters?

Written by Teodora Gorski on March 13, 2024. Posted in Articles, KPI

The popularity of sustainability has surged in recent years, causing organizations to grapple with balancing short-term profits with long-term sustainable practices. This has led to concepts like shared value and corporate social responsibility, with companies aiming to create economic and social value while reducing their environmental impact. The movement has sparked active efforts, with social innovators, policymakers, investors, and academics all striving to measure sustainability.

In today’s world, companies must move beyond outdated economic metrics and adopt KPIs that consider the triple bottom line, including social, economic, and environmental aspects of their operations, all while promoting sustainable human well-being.

However, sustainability is a constantly evolving concept that adapts to context and cannot be measured with a single yardstick. The balance between social, economic, and environmental considerations is crucial to achieving sustainability. It is like walking on a tightrope, requiring constant adjustments to maintain equilibrium in a changing world. Each context requires a unique approach, with varying weights and measures for different factors. Customized solutions are needed that address stakeholder needs while maintaining long-term balance, as a one-size-fits-all formula won’t work.

About the Expert

• As a Managing Director, Teodora leads development initiatives to support and enhance the organization’s strategic plan and manages the development and growth of the MENA branch of The KPI Institute.

• An expert researcher, consultant and practitioner with six years of experience in the deployment and implementation of KPI Management Frameworks.

• Pursuing a PhD. in Management on the topic: Rethinking the Performance Management Systems to ensure organizational sustainability, Lucian Blaga University, Romania

• Postgraduate Program in Entrepreneurship and Venture Creation, ISCTE Business School Lisbon, Portugal

• Master’s Degree in Project Management, Romanian-German University, Romania

***

This article was originally published in the PERFORMANCE MAGAZINE Issue No. 26, 2023 – Sustainability Edition for the Ask Our Experts section.

• Continue Reading

How can governments leverage data to improve performance?

Written by Kimberly Tilar on December 25, 2023. Posted in Practitioners, Strategy

Islam Salahuddin is a data analyst with a strong focus on storytelling and data visualization, growing statistical knowledge, and developing a set of technical skills and tools. As an expert in data analysis at The KPI Institute, Islam leads the generation of research on the domain of data analytics and the development of business analytics toolkits.

• Continue Reading