Reuters Global Sustainability Awards 2025 judge Mike Scott explains how any company can turbo-charge its sustainability stories and their impact to create a competitive advantage
Sustainability reports are an increasingly important part of modern business. Research shows that almost all the world’s largest and finest companies produce them. As reporting becomes mandatory in the EU and elsewhere, more firms will soon need to rise to the challenge of showcasing their sustainability credentials effectively.
While this may seem like another box to tick, it’s actually a significant opportunity. Being on top of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues has become a minimum requirement for doing business. But a good sustainability report can offer a competitive advantage in its own right. Research shows quantifying green initiatives can boost brand reputation, attract investors and help to identify unexpected opportunities as well as risks.
The best reports are compelling, telling stories – of innovation, initiatives, people – that explain clearly why sustainability is important to the business and that also recognise its impact on the wider world. They go beyond the statutory data required by regulators to explain how companies are using that data to shape their sustainability initiatives.
So, how can you make your report sing? Here are my top tips.
It’s the data, dummy
Many hours spent reading reports as a judge for the Reuters Global Sustainability Awards 2025 show the recipe for success is relatively straightforward, at least in principle. The starting point for any good report is data. Traditionally, collecting and analysing sustainability data has been challenging – this was information that companies were not used to gathering, and in many instances it was difficult to do. But new digital technologies – from sensors to satellites – are enabling better-quality data to be collected.
AI and machine learning are then helping to interpret this and turn it into actionable insights. The most innovative reporters are using these insights to become more transparent, not just to tell their sustainability stories, but to explain how what they are doing is improving their business. This might be by reducing environmental impacts, mitigating risk, helping to meet (or get ahead of) regulatory requirements or reducing the cost of capital.
Zurn Elkay Water Solutions, for example, explains the social value its products create by reducing the use of water and single-use plastic while curtailing flooding and filtering out dangerous chemicals.
Tobacco manufacturer BAT, meanwhile, is using satellite monitoring to track forest cover in Brazil in real time, which means it can see where deforestation is occurring and act to prevent it. Another water solutions company, Ecolab, uses digitally improved data collection to identify new ways to save water and energy; operating techniques at its best-performing sites are then applied across its entire network. It aims to deliver $18 billion of cumulative value to its customers by 2030, and save 300 billion gallons of water, equivalent to the water needs of one billion people.
In the UK, Liverpool Football Club has used the insights it has gathered around fan behaviour to increase plastic bottle recycling at its home ground, Anfield, from 25 per cent to over 90 per cent. Reporting also showed that air travel was a significant emissions hotspot, leading to the club becoming the first in the Premier League to adopt Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to eliminate emissions for domestic team travel. Analysis of its suppliers’ emissions has led to more local procurement, reducing transport-related emissions and enabling the club to further strengthen its ties in Liverpool and the surrounding region. And it manages to explain all this in just 44 pages.
Telling your story
Collecting data, however, is only the beginning. In a good report, the data enables the actions that create the stories. For too many, though, the numbers seem to be the only point, with pages of tables and figures presented without context. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Case studies are a great way to humanise the often dry workings of a business. In this regard, some companies are luckier than others. The Premier League champions or luxury brands such as the watchmaker Breitling, which boasts actress Charlize Theron and surfer Kelly Slater among its celebrity ambassadors, can call on star power to get their message across. But there are still fantastic stories to uncover for the makers of even the most basic products, and stories about your company are important to illustrate not just what you are doing, but why. Packaging producer RDM Group, for example, managed to turn the decidedly unglamorous subject of wastewater into an engaging case study (page 47). It highlights how, through circular economy thinking, a byproduct of its production process becomes an essential building block for a new, sustainable form of bioplastic.
Give your stories space
When it comes to pulling your report together, how do you know the right length? You need to be comprehensive but can vary the ways in which you present the information, including graphics and highlights of key stats. You may have the greatest story ever told, but if you simply present a dense wall of text, it may never be read.
You can solve a lot of these problems with good design – great pictures, enticing headlines and avoiding the temptation to put as many words on to the page as possible. Give your stories space to breathe with simple but effective design tools such as breakout quotes and plenty of “white space”. In essence, don’t cram in as much text as you can, but rather leave space around the different design elements to make it easier to read and more engaging, as in this report from technology company Cadence. Chemicals and plastics manufacturer Radici Group even created a cartoon to explain its approach to sustainability, which is a lot more accessible than the conventional report that it also produces.
Keep in mind, too, who your report is designed for. Investors are a key audience of sustainability reports and they will often look as much for what is not there as what is. So, it is important to highlight any standards and certifications you have signed up to, such as those of environmental impact organisation CDP and of the TCFD (Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure), as well as corporate commitments, such as an internal Climate Transition Action Plan.
Regulations – and sentiment towards ESG issues – are always in flux, so what matters to investors is ever-changing and it is important to be aware of emerging concerns. One area that is growing in importance, for example, is nature and biodiversity. Many companies are not aware of their impacts and dependencies on nature, but investors increasingly see this as a business risk.
Sustainability has come under fire recently. Yet investors, employees and the communities in which companies operate still want to know how you are tackling issues ranging from cutting emissions and navigating the growing impacts of climate change to what natural resources you are using. So tell them.
Sustainability reports may seem like a headache. But done well, they can be an asset to your company, helping you to tell your stories clearly and convincingly to the audiences that matter.
Dos and don’ts of sustainability reporting
- Aim for compelling and concise rather than shooting for a specific length. And if you need to add dense reams of information or tables, move as much as you can out of the main report into annexes.
- A glossary can also be useful for reports dealing with highly technical subjects.
- As most people will read the report online, separate out the most compelling details you want to highlight into easily digestible chunks, as technology multinational Cisco does in its Purpose report.
- Clear signposting – sections such as At a Glance, What Matters Most and Highlights pages – will help guide readers around your report, as in this report from software provider Autodesk.
- Hire a good designer – good design can make the difference between a report that is widely read and one that languishes ignored. Hire writers, too, if you don’t know how to move from collected data to compelling stories.
- Don’t forget that infographics can be useful to convey complex information in a more engaging and informative format . Microsoft is one company that does this very well.
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