How many pages in a report?

24 Feb 2011 – Jean-Philippe Renaut

Last week, I presented the findings from our Reporting Change study in a webinar with our partners Futerra and KPMG. The study comprised a survey of 5200 ‘readers’ who had consulted corporate sustainability publications during the past year. Among other things, the study concluded that companies need to:

• Tailor reporting to regional preferences and to the needs of your audience: Whether you target Brazilians consumers or global investors, one size does not fit all

• Build separate but complementary stakeholder engagement plans: Simply producing an annual report does not equate to having a comprehensive engagement plan

• Provide clear account of your actions and performance over time: Clarity on progress is the best way to create trust, ahead of third party assurances and stakeholder panels

Given the rather strategic nature of these conclusions and the debate around them, I was surprised during the webinar by one particular question from the audience: “What is the ideal number of pages for a report?”

Why was I surprised? Companies are reporting on their sustainability progress to different types of audience, in different ways and through different channels. The idea that such complexity could be boiled down to a single ‘ideal’ number of pages confused me. Not quite in the same league as “How long is a piece of string?” perhaps, but that was my initial thought. And that, of course, only goes to show that we in the sustainability field need to remind ourselves that however insightful and strategic we like to be, at the end of the day pragmatic guidance is what’s needed by the people who actually have to sit down and write the reports.

So I’d like to thank the questioner for bringing things – and me – back down to Earth. And for the record, here’s the answer I gave: If you want to influence researchers and analysts, the size of your report can be 100 pages. If you need to convince your customers that your products have the best specs and lowest environmental footprint, stick to a 10 page brochure. Focus on what you want to accomplish and the audience you are targeting.

Short, targeted reports: this echoes a point we made as far back as 2002 in our Global Reporters – Trust Us report: bigger reports do not lead to better reports. At that time reporters seemed to be carpet bombing readers with facts, with little regard for relevance and materiality.

Since then we at SustainAbility have been continually pushing for more targeted and relevant reporting from companies, and thankfully things are improving. But our recent study confirms that we all need to do more. And what does that mean for webinar audiences? Please keep asking those questions!

The webinar was recorded and will be available shortly to members of our Engaging Stakeholders Program.