Developing sustainability reporting - Case Cargotec - Aaltodoc

eport’s key figures. In order to be able to include sustainability issues among the key figures,
Isaksson & Steimle (2009) note that the company has to identify its most important sustainability
aspects and create relevant indicators for monitoring them.
Hausman (2008) recommends using pictures and stories to personalise the information reported
to stakeholders. However, the author reminds that case examples do not give a holistic account
of the corporation’s impact, so company-level numerical proof is needed and trends should be
presented to make it easier for stakeholders to understand the performance of the company.
According to Hausman, numbers should be put in context and data should be used meaningfully
to highlight issues that are material to the company. To sum it up, “a good report provides a
narrative about progress and backs up these claims with data. The stories and the numbers are
put in context with the historical performance of the company and peers in their industry.”
PwC (2011) emphasises that also future plans should be reported – currently reporting is focused
on past performance. They suggest that corporate responsibility management calls for explicit
targets and reporting on whether targets are reached should also be improved. Similarly, Two
Tomorrows (2011) highlights the importance of meaningful targets, which should be measurable
and specific as well as have context and demonstrate impact against the overall issue. That way,
stakeholders can assess the company’s sustainability performance. Two Tomorrows’
recommendation is that the benchmark for sustainability should be best practice.
Relevance and credibility of sustainability disclosure are very important since there are potential
problems if stakeholders perceive that a company is only engaging in public relations without
demonstrating concrete action that leads to social and environmental improvements (Cormier et
al. 2011). According to MacLean & Rebernak (2007), there is no better way to generate trust
among stakeholders than through transparency. However, the authors warn that the trend towards
greater transparency in reporting has resulted in longer reports, which makes their content less
manageable for the readers. MacLean & Rebernak suggest that companies should therefore avoid
overwhelming readers by providing executive summaries supported by comprehensive metrics
on their websites. For the same reason, it is better to use quantitative indicators and specific goals
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