In October, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Craib Design & Communications released CSR Trends 3, a comprehensive survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) report trends, benchmarks and best practices. As part of the report, PwC's Mel Wilson offered a list of eight key components that should be part of the preparation of any CSR report. They are as follows:

1. Scope of your report
The first thing readers need to see is a "road map" that tells them what is in the report and what is not. Usually readers have to infer what is not covered, but some companies explicitly identify information that is not in the report. The report scope should also contain a description of the process and criteria that were used to determine the information that has been included.

2. Description of your company and its operations
This should contain information such as who runs the company, what the company does and where it operates. This crucial information sets the context for the remaining sections on your sustainability performance.

3. Performance domain
Most corporate sustainability reports take a "triple-bottom-line" approach by covering three performance domains: social, economic, and environmmental. Although conceptually these three domains are inter-connected, in a sustainability report it is important that they be distinguished in order to effectively set the direction of the story arc.

4. The specific issues of interest to stakeholders
There are many issues within each performance domain and it is critical that your company makes an effort to determine which are of interest to your stakeholders and which are not. Once the important issues are identified, they should be clearly presented in the report along with an explanation of why the issue is important and how it relates to the company's performance.

5. Your company's policies and perspective
Once introduced, your report should articulate where your company stands vis-a-vis the issue, either by describing your policies or through a more general discussion that reflects management's perspective. This does not need to be a long section. In fact, conciseness makes it easier for the reader to determine whether the company's perspective aligns with his or her own.

6. Description of your company's processes and initiatives to manage the issue
Your report should talk about what you are actually doing about the issue. The goal is to demonstrate that your company not only talks the talk, it walks the walk. This section should contain numerous brief action-oriented examples of what your company did in the previous year to address the issue. This is a good opportunity to use photographs and graphics to explain your initiatives. However, it is important not to overdo it with too many examples, especially if some of them are weak. Pick the best examples of your programs and highlight them.

7. Performance indicators
Your report should present quantitative performance indicators related to each issue. For many stakeholders, this is the proof-in-the-pudding moment. Your company can talk about your programs all you want, but in the end you have to measure your performance and show progress. For this reason, it is important to show year-over-year changes in performance wherever possible. This section should also contain management's comments on the performance — were they satisfied or dissatisfied with it? — and factors that contributed to success or failure.

8. Future goals and targets
Your report should conclude with a brief discussion of future performance goals and targets relating to the issues. The concept of including goals and targets in a sustainability report is a relatively contentious issue. In general, you should not set out detailed goals and targets unless you are confident that the performance metrics are accurately measured, and that you have a reasonably well thought out plan to achieve the targets. Publicly stating goals and targets without having confidence in both is not only misleading to the reader, it sets the company up for serious problems in the future.

Using this framework for your next sustainability report will help you organize both your thoughts and information. It will also help you convey key messages in a way that flows logically, making your report easier to read and more engaging for your readers.

Framework component	Example
1	"This report includes information on our environmental, social and economic performance..."
2	"We have 20 facilities located in six countries..."
3	Environment
4	Climate change
5	"We are concerned about climate change and we recognize we need to improve our performance"
6	"We have initiated numerous emission reduction programs, as follows..."
7	Greenhouse gas emissions in tonnes CO2e
8	"Our goal is to reduce our emissions by a further five per cent by 2012 by undertaking the following..."

Applying this framework to climate change leads the reader from the report scope through to specific GHG PIs and targets.

This article has been reprinted on Green Business with permission of the author. Mel Wilson (mel.j.wilson@ca.pwc.com) is Associate Partner, Sustainability Reporting and Assurance Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. To read the full CSR Trends 3 Report, click here.

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