Reporting

p>The latest batch of reports represents a quantum leap in the range of issues covered, the level of detail provided and clarity of linkage to the business strategy. As reports to society, they address diverse stakeholders, going far beyond the narrow accounts of community involvement previously published. From now on, old style reports will serve simply to whet the appetite, fuelling demands for more.

Of course, it is no coincidence that the companies in the lead are either those with the most visible environmental and social `footprint' on society - oil, chemicals, airports - or those using social responsibility as a marketing USP - The Body Shop, Cooperative Bank. Retailers, financial services and others under intense consumer and competitive pressures will be next. Then expectations will go down the line to business-to-business companies, with scrutiny extending to their supply chains as is already evident on the environment and child labour.

But this is not just a quantum leap for reporting. It presents a personal challenge to community affairs professionals (and the companies that employ them) to make a similar quantum leap - from running the contributions programme alone to become managers of the interface with society.

Corporate Citizenship Briefing, issue no: 40 - June, 1998