May 17 2010
Sustainability Reporting Grows Up
SAP has just released its 2009 sustainability report, and it’s a game changer. This is more than a report. It’s an interactive, experiential site with great visual appeal, and a number of innovative ways of expressing sustainability information. The “materiality matrix” shows sustainability issues analyzed by the impact on SAP’s business and by the importance to stakeholders. Community feedback is solicited for the matrix and then shared, as are changes in material priorities year-over-year. Stakeholder engagement is clearly a highly regarded value, emphasized by the banner running across the top of the site asking for feedback and a “share your thoughts” comment box on most pages. SAP achieved an A+ rating from GRI, and has committed to quarterly updates of its carbon footprint. Of course, not every company can do this. What SAP has done requires resources, lots of them. It’s daunting enough for most companies to collect, validate and disseminate the data required for a sustainability report. And SAP makes no secret of the fact that this strategy brings other benefits, such as a large market opportunity for products in the SAP lineup that capture and manage environmental data. Still…a sustainability report that can be experienced as a participant, instead of as a recipient, is a new way to play, and one that will have lasting effects on sustainability and CSR reporting.