“Who reads these reports anyway?!”

Sustainability reporters often wrestle with the challenge of ensuring that their reports are read by all relevant stakeholders, and not only those that have the time, patience and inclination to read bulky reports.

The challenge is not being innovative – there are a number of sexy reports out there – it’s ensuring that reports are in line with widely recognized and respected frameworks, to ensure transparency and comparability, among other things.

Together with Migros, Switzerland’s leading supermarket chain, we’ve developed an innovative report style, which is complimentary to international reporting standards, and – the coup d’etat – presented in a digestible format for those low on time but high on interest.

And for that, we thank our creative in-house designer, Alena.

Following talks with Migros, its event partners, and participants of their events, Alena shredded the lengthy reports apart – metaphorically-speaking: there was not waste involved!) and produced a short report (innovative in everything but the name!).

These short reports are designed not as a replacement for the lengthy reports – there needs to be a repository for all of the information – but to replace these reports’ executive summaries.

Short reports focus on the material issues – issues that demonstrate the impact of the event and are relevant to key stakeholders – and they offer a balanced – positive and negative – view of information represented in the full report.

Alena – with guidance from Migros’ event partners and our own team – has been very successful in illustrating large chunks of text as infographics. She has made a series of short event reports in different formats: unfolding horizontally and vertically, unfolding as an A4 or A3 size, as a booklet, and so on – and all in ‘postcard’ size.

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. And these formats have been found to be especially handy for those at festivals or sports events, who don’t have space for a full report but do find a pocket-size version easy to read on the move.

Find a sample of these reports on Migros’ site – in German and French.

What’s your favored reporting format? We’re always collecting fresh approaches. Get in touch with us to send us your favorite report and to continue the discussion!