In a world obsessed with perfection á la cosmetically improved iPhone faces, the most powerful stories often come from honest, imperfect journeys. Transparency about your impact isn’t just a box to tick — it’s a chance to connect, inspire, and lead.
Here’s why embracing your progress, flaws and all, is the way forward.
We have worked with tons of organisations who do lots of great stuff for planet and people but sometimes struggle when it comes to talking about it, showing, and ultimately, utilising it. They wonder how impact stories fit into their overall brand, and are worried about getting called out for not doing perfectly or being perceived to greenwash. Businesses who aren’t sure how to get the whole team on board with green practices, who don’t know where to start when it comes to reporting on their achievements, and so on.
We have been through these challenges ourselves and worked through them with many of our clients and collaborators. Here is how we approach communicating impact, and over the next few months we will be sharing nuggets of insights and tips diving into each of them in more depth.
1. Strategic Foundations
The first step is to take stock. What are you already doing that has a positive impact? When you start compiling this information you might be surprised to see that there is a lot. If that is the case — yay, give yourself a high five and keep going. And on the flip side — what are the areas of the business that have the biggest negative impact? The things you want to work on. And to that end, think about what your goals and impact ambitions might be. Are you just looking for year-on-year improvement, dreaming of B Corp certification, wanting to offer transparency to your customers, going for net zero, looking to change the world of business from within, or something else?
Yes, it can feel overwhelming or like a ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’ situation. Leaders often talk to us about the value of an outside perspective. Do you need help setting up processes for measuring and reporting? Think about what metrics you want to report on. And speaking of reporting, we find that it’s a good idea to consider at the start of the process how you might want to present the findings and to who? Who are you doing this for and who do you want to tell about it? Certified B Corps for example, are legally required to produce an annual impact report.
If your brand’s communications have never before included anything related to purpose and impact, it may take a little work and thought to figure out how to introduce that change. The prominence of impact stories as part of overall comms will vary from business to business and can evolve over time. Don’t worry too much about what Patagonia or Innocent are doing — find a way that feels right for you.
2. Building Trust through Transparency and Authenticity
Think about your favourite film or TV character. What do you love about them? Chances are, it’s not how they always get things right all of the time, or how they pump themselves up to appear better than they really are. We tend to like real-ness. Honest, not perfect. Yet, the fear of getting it wrong stops lots of companies from saying/doing anything at all.
It’s ok to get things wrong. As long as you are open about it, don’t try to cover it up, and show willingness to get better.
Eyewear brand Ace & Tate famously told customers: “Look, we f*cked up. Our bad moves” in a boldly worded mini report going through mistakes made around sustainability and their efforts to change as part of their B Corp certification. And people responded to it. As a customer, honest communication makes you feel respected and trusted to make your own decisions and judgements.
3. Effective Storytelling and Messaging
Language shapes thought, thought shapes action. It’s not just what you say but how you say it too. A phrase like Impact Report conjures up blocks of dense, academic text but it doesn’t have to be. What is your brand’s tone of voice, what do you sound like? You might prefer to write a picture book or present your data in the form of rap — good for you. As humans we are wired for stories and storytelling is how we make sense of the world. Dig around to find the story you’re trying to tell. Look at narrative structure, what’s the hook, is there some form of resolution? Connect with the reader by making it personal, try to find common ground.
If your brand wants to talk about global challenges like climate change, look at it from your audiences’ point of view. Why should I care what these guys (and gals) have to say about this topic? Why are you talking about it? Do we have licence to talk about diversity for example if we’re falling short ourselves? Where can you add value, educate, make a statement, influence change?
4. Leveraging Design and Data Visualisation
So you’ve finally recorded all that amazing impact data, organised it in descending order in the slickest spreadsheet anyone’s ever seen only to realise no one wants to spend an afternoon browsing tables and lists of percentage increases. Your hard work and effort deserves to be seen.
Some people say, ‘never judge an impact report by its cover’ (..apparently..) but let’s be honest now, we all know we do. And what’s on the inside needs to deliver the data to your audiences both internal and external in a way that doesn’t feel like homework. This is where you can leverage design to make sure that you come out with a resource that is inviting, interesting, that reflects your values and brand, and hopefully opens up interesting conversations.
If this is your first time producing something like an impact report, you’re probably exploring areas of your brand that haven’t been developed before, have fun with it. It can be an opportunity to build out your brand language with data visualisation etc. in a way that works alongside your current assets. We love working with brands that realise that these, perhaps somewhat daunting, new design needs are in fact an exciting opportunity to expand their brand world. A chance to bring audiences and internal teams along for the ride.
Sure, it’s great having something that looks good, but also have a think about the format. Some organisations favour a page or interactive hub on their website, downloadable pdfs, a highlights spread or suite of social media infographics. Others create limited edition packaging, produce a video, or print a coffee table magazine. Believe it or not — data CAN be beautiful AND accurate! The options are endless, what would work for your audience? If you need some inspiration, check out our Impact Reporting Archive resource.
5. Engaging and Understanding Your Audience
When working on your impact comms, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the pride you feel at your achievements and everything you want to tell, forgetting about who’s reading the thing. What does your audience need and want? How can you best communicate with them in terms of channel, the format, volume etc? Perhaps it’s not a one-size-fits-all, different segments of your audience might need different things.
And don’t forget to learn along the way. Allow engagement analytics and audience feedback to inform the strategy for making next year’s report or impact communications even better.
Go forth and report
We hope that our tips have given you some confidence and thought-starters. Impact reporting and communication is a really powerful way to drive individual businesses forward and making business as a whole better and more transparent. If you read this far, chances are that you recognise the need and potential for change that the business community has.
Follow along for more tips, insights and stories over the next few months.