The contents of a CSR report almost never reach consumers’ eyes because they’re not visible on the company’s website and they aren’t relatable or engaging. Companies write CSR reports for their stakeholders, but few take the critical steps to engage consumers in their accomplishments (and shortcomings!).  And so they leave tremendous value on the table.

SAP is releasing a new website this week  to share its sustainability efforts with the aim of spurring conversations and feedback.  ”[The days of] putting a PDF on your website and waiting for people to find it and download it are over. We want to use technology to get stakeholders’ feedback and input,” says Peter Graf, SAP’s Chief Sustainability Officer. Read more.

• If you do nothing else, put a link to your report on your homepage. Incredibly basic, but often overlooked. Campbell’s has a link to its widely praised CSR report on its homepage, which helps signal its commitment to sustainability.  Companies with strong social responsibility programs like Burt’s Bees and CVS are leaking air by burying their initiatives on another page or corporate site.
• Don’t write a report.  Reports are read in the boardroom and the classroom, not by consumers and employees.  Create something that celebrates what your company has done and gets stakeholders excited about the future challenges you’re set to tackle.  
• Signal your social mission on your homepage by sharing what you care about and the impact your company has made.  There’s room for more than just product and sale signs on the homepage–these aren’t the only consumer carrots.
• Who you want to reach? Maybe you have two or three strategies that relate to different stakeholders. Timberland shoes come with a simplified sustainability report in the form of a ‘nutrition label’ that speaks to consumers primarily.
• Don’t be afraid to experiment.  Seventh Generation is a paragon of sustainable business, in large part because it experiments and learns from sub-par ideas. A couple of years ago the company ran a contest to reward people who read its sustainability report and submitted an inspiring idea, but it came across as a veiled attempt to pay people to read the CSR report.

Ditch the report.  Execute, measure and share the message with as much creativity and experimentation as you want.

1. Consumers trust brands more than they trust the government.

(Annie Longsworth, Managing Director, Cohn & Wolfe)
Republicans and Democrats meet at the checkout. Brands have a colossal toolkit to affect positive change. They’re working from a current level of high consumer trust.

2. 4  motivators in consumer behavior: Status, Altruism, Safety & Value.

(Mike Kraft, Senior Manager of Environmental Sustainability for Clorox)
Kraft used these principles to help turn Clorox’s Green Works line into the #1 consumer choice across every category of natural cleaning products.

3. Sustainability needs to be expressed honestly.

(Duke Stump, North Star Manifesto)
Consumers are highly skilled at sniffing out inauthentic brands and campaigns. Be authentic, be transparent, be honest.

4. The movement begins inside the company.

(Duke Stump)
Business initiatives need to stem from the company’s value-system. Creating an environmental campaign around saving the rain forest when you’re a cruise line or cereal manufacturer lacks internal (and customer) resonance.

5. Consumers are willing to pay 60% more for Fair Trade products.

(Rob Cameron, Fair Trade International)
Fair Trade Certification has become a brand, which draws its strength from its multilateralism. Many brands can be a part of this umbrella designation.

6. 76% of people will spend the same or more on green products in the next year.

(Annie Longsworth)
If you solve the top consumer obstacles to buying green–price, limited selection and limited availability–3/4 of consumers will be attracted to your product.

7. 83% of people want a label that tells them where their was grown and produced and clearly lists all ingredients.

(Annie Longsworth)
Given the bombardment of claims, certifications and nutrition information on our consumer goods, I’m surprised that consumers would look for additional (and esoteric) product information.

8. Interest in personal health correlates to interest in health of the planet.

(Thomas Oh, Director of Marketing, Frito-Lay)
SunChips connected its message of healthy, whole-grain snacking to environmental sustainability and appealed doubly to its target consumer.

9. 88% of people interviewed say the business sector should play a role in contributing to social and environmental change.

(Andrew Winston, author of Green Recovery)
Brands have consumers’ trust (see #2) and dollars (#4 and 6) and now consumer expectation for a product that’s both of value and of values. Business is now a powerful vehicle for social and environmental improvement.

10. The top green brands are found across sectors and aren’t ‘granola.’

Toyota, Walmart, Burt’s Bees, Green Works, Procter and Gamble, Ikea, Disney, SC Johnson, Toms of Maine and Dove.
(Annie Longsworth)
Your brand does not have to be organic, unprocessed or carbon-neutral to be a sustainability heavy-hitter. Social and environmental responsibility is not reserved for the benevolent; it’s just smart business.

Sustainable Life Media is a fantastic resource for sustainability news, trends and best practices, and they put on one heck of a conference.

I spoke with upstart entrepreneurs about five ways they can incorporate cause into their business, regardless of its size. Although the methods range in their levels of commitment and implementation time, they all display action on the behalf of a cause.

1. BOGO: Buy-One-Give-One

   With a BOGO business (a company that donates an exact item match for every item sold) cause is at the core of the business model. BOGO businesses have dual objectives, to support and enhance their causes and to turn a profit (the latter, the distinguishing factor from a nonprofit).  Exemplary BOGO businesses are Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child, The BoGo Light by Sunnight Solar and TOMS Shoes.
   
   WHAT TOMS GIVES: Millions of pairs of shoes to children in need in South America and Africa.
   WHAT TOMS GETS: Recognition for pioneering the BOGO business model and a vocal following of die-hard fans.

2. Portion of Profits Donated

   The most common way companies engage in social responsibility. A company will pledge and donate a portion of proceeds to the community it serves.  In 1983, long before cause marketing was the term du jour, American Express ran a campaign to fund restoration of the Statue of Liberty. For every dollar spent on an Am Ex card, the company donated 1 cent toward restoration.

   WHAT THEY GAVE: $1.7 million toward Lady Liberty’s overhaul.
   WHAT THEY GOT: A 27% increase in card use and 47% growth in new card acquisitions.

3. Transparency and Call-to-Action

   Transparency is primarily effective when a company pledges to support a cause and publicly charts its progress. The one-two punch is the follow-up call-to-action, which motivates the customer to act on behalf of the same cause. Timberland cares about environmental stewardship and has for some time. But many customers to whom this might matter, were unaware. Only with the introduction of something called the Timberland Nutritional Label, however, did Timberland weld its cause to the consumer.  The Timberland Nutritional Label is affixed to the boxes of all 3 million pairs of footwear sold annually. It shows the buyer where the footwear was made, the amount of energy that went into making it and the amount of renewable energy Timberland uses.

   WHAT THEY GAVE: By calling itself out as a conscious company, Timberland held itself responsible in the public’s eye.
   WHAT THEY GOT: Sales grew 10% annually and stock prices doubled from 2006-2008.

4. Employee Volunteerism

   Paid time-off for employees to volunteer, either on a company-sponsored or individually chosen project. Imagine the culture of a corporation that truly values giving back, to the extent that it will trade temporary profit for employee satisfaction and loyalty and a tested public image of its commitment.
   
   WHAT THEY GAVE: One week of paid-time off and loss of productivity per employee.
   WHAT THEY GOT: Increased brand awareness and enthusiasm and employee satisfaction that translated to growth in sales.

5. Employee Incentives

   Inculcate your employees in your company’s mission not through processes, call scripts and company retreats, but through participation, collaboration and incentives. Burt’s Bees incentivizes employees and reinforces the company goal of environmental sustainability in several ways. Employees receive bonuses based in part on how well the company meets jointly established energy conservation goals, and plum parking spots are reserved for those that carpool or drive hybrids to work.

   WHAT THEY GAVE: Nothing really. No additional bonuses were given nor were extra parking spots created.
   WHAT THEY GOT: Employee buy-in, reduced energy costs, a strong culture of teamwork and conservation, brand authenticity as environmentally friendly.

Make it into a contest or promised prize. Everybody loves a goal. Companies know this as incentivizing, employees as a performance-based financial reward, and Burt’s Bees as the only way of doing business.  Burt’s Bees, a manufacturer of natural beauty products, believes that if companies are socially responsible, they will attract profit.

Burt’s Bees gets creative as it aligns social impact efforts with staff performance:

• Employee bonuses are partially based on how well the company meets energy conservation goals.
• There are plum parking spots for staff that drive hybrid cars or carpool.
• By 2020, Burt’s aims to send no trash to landfills.

Burt’s began as a home-spun operation (literally, Burt’s beehives) and grew into a multi-million dollar niche industry. Despite its recent acquisition by Clorox, Burt’s maintains its original ethos. You’ll still find hybrids and carpool vans lining the entrance.