Mitigating Risk and Communicating Corporate Responsibility Risk report.pdfemployee consumption, and SAP also has training and education programs. These are throughout the workforce,

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Mitigating Risk and Communicating Corporate Responsibility

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Speakers:

SAP, Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz, Global Director, Sustainability Management & Strategy

Hewlett Packard, Ellen Jackowski, Environmental Sustainability Strategy & Futures Planning

Moderator:

GlobeScan: James Morris, Associate Director, CSR & Sustainability

As reporting becomes increasingly prevalent for corporate social responsibility, brands recognize the need for a positive

relationship with customers and stakeholders. Ben & Jerry’s, GAP and Nike are examples of companies who have

embraced this, and currently have best practices in place to create dialogue and transparency as it relates to operations,

supply chain, and organizational structure.

What is good reporting, and how is data purposed? How do you communicate your sustainability strategy and tell the

story? What are some of the new tools in sustainability reporting? How does sustainability reporting engage

stakeholders? What is the value of sustainability reporting?

As sustainability becomes more relevant, how does increasing visibility mitigate risk in brand reputation and how does

positive or negative brand awareness affect a corporation? What are some methods to mitigating risk?

On August 8th, we will discuss the considerations that sustainable corporations must evaluate in order to remain

competitive, and present case studies that demonstrate the value of responsible reporting.



Contents

CORPORATE ENGAGEMENT IN CSR 3

Importance of Communicating CSR 3

General Communication about CSR 4

FIRST Q&A 6

Funding Projects 6

Gamification 7

Participation 7

Granular Monitoring of Resources 8

Customer Demand for Reporting 9

COMMUNICATOIONS AND REPORTING 11

CSR and Customer Communications 11

Executive Engagement in CSR 13

NGOs 13

SECOND Q&A 14

NGO Relationships 14

Climate Change 15

ISO Standards 15

Third Party Communications Strategies 16

Traditional Reports, Online Presentations, and Integrated Reporting 16

Channeling Audiences 18



“Our employees do a lot of reaching out to us, and this goes

back to the culture at the company. If my team and the report

went away, a lot of the formal efforts would still get done

because our employees are really committed to this space…”

– Ellen Jackowski, Environmental Sustainability Strategy & Futures Planning, Hewlett Packard

CORPORATE ENGAGEMENT IN CSR

Importance of Communicating CSR

Moderator James Morris from GlobeScan began the discussion by asking the panelists why they believe that

it is important for a company to communicate CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in general.

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz responded that transparency has always been a part of SAP’s core strategy.

“In 2008, SAP made a strategic commitment to have a more sustainable strategy and we launched our first

report at that time. We have always had the annual report, which is focused on the financials, but we launched

an independent Sustainability Report.

“The reason to have a report is very clear for any organization. If a company is starting to make commitments about their strategy,

they are holding that organization accountable. The easiest way to communicate with stakeholders is to first communicate with

them about what the company is trying to do – things that work, things that do not work, and things the company is thinking about.

SAP has always made a big effort to make sure that its’ sustainability report is a truly interactive way to communicate to

stakeholders.

“The report for SAP is really about brand, building accountability, and staying true to our commitments. We have also found that

the report is the best way to communicate with employees about what we are really doing.

“Traditionally, reporting is thought of as a communications tool for investors and NGOs, who have a clear opinion about the

organization. But, for SAP the Sustainability Report has been a powerful vehicle for our employees to understand what is going on,

and to celebrate the employees who contribute stories.



Moderator James Morris with GlobeScan followed up by asking Ephi what the relationship is for SAP

between sustainability and building their brand.

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz from SAP responded that SAP made the connection between its brand and

sustainability when it announced its sustainability focus in 2008.

“SAP has always been in the business of managing resources. Therefore, it was a natural progression to say we

are going to help businesses run better. The natural correlation is that we want to make sure we empower

communities and our employees. Thus, it has been a way to communicate a comprehensive story of what we

are about and what SAP would like to be.”

Returning to the original question Ellen Jackowski from Hewlett Packard (HP) commented that sustainability

is part of the brand and something that has been embedded in their company since 1957 when their

founders put global citizenship as one of their seven corporate objectives.

“Ever since then sustainability has been a part of our culture, strategy, and part of what we are trying to do

within the community and company, which is being transparent and accountable. To the point about CSR's

effect on the brand, because we have a legacy in this space we have a responsibility to keep that up and to

strengthen our position goings forward.

“The report is a cornerstone for how we communicate this gigantic effort. HP has over 300,000 employees in 170 countries and our

supply chain is over $50 billion. We have a lot to talk about and we have a lot to do in this space. Going through the reporting

process and gathering the data to see what we did and did not do, the report ends up being the annual cleanup of where we are,

where we want to be, and what stories we want to tell.”

General Communication about CSR

Next, Moderator James Morris from GlobeScan asked how HP and SAP communicate in a more general way

about CSR and sustainability to their employees and customers.



Ellen Jackowski from HP reiterated her comment about the report being the cornerstone method for

identifying the stories and key messages HP wants to tell.

“HP uses the report as the basis for everything it does in this area. In the coming year we want to know which

products to watch that have a particularly strong environmental story to them in order to put that in our next

report. As a part of our outreach we have a continuous dialogue with various stakeholders. We also use social

media like Facebook and Twitter, and we also participate in conferences among the ways that we reach out.

“In terms of our employee base, we have some strong programs with our sales force, and they are the best people to communicate

with our customers about what we are doing. We highlight stories we want to tell, and we work with our sales force through the

“Sales University” process to make sure they know what to say, what to talk about, and, what our story is.

“Our employees do a lot of reaching out to us, and this goes back to the culture at the company. If my team and the report went

away, a lot of the formal efforts would still get done because our employees are really committed to this space. They want HP to be

a sustainable company and we try to harness that energy to do something bigger.

“HP has something called the Sustainability Network, which is a volunteer organization for anyone interested in this topic and we

fund their projects. We give our employees money for their own sustainability project, in each region and each HP site, as a way to

work with them to funnel their energy. We also have another group called the Eco-Advocate. Using this, employees interested in

learning more about the HP story in the space and talking about it more formally with customers can learn how to tell that story to

customers. They can learn about topics such as what recycling options we have and all the complicated regulations around them.

Through all these programs, we give employees outlets to contribute to and they are hugely successful.”

“What I have found is that when we talk about sustainability, the term

often hinders further discussion. It goes over people’s heads. But,

when we talk to them about sustainability in terms of caring for the

environment and people’s health and personal sustainability, all of a

sudden light bulbs pop on. Then they can see the personal connection.

At that point we can go to the other topics, like how it relates to

business and other aspects.”

– Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz, Global Director, Sustainability Management & Strategy, SAP



Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz with SAP responded that the sustainability report is the primary platform her

company uses to communicate to their employees and customers.

“Aside from that, SAP has internal communities where we have additional stories, which are mostly for

employee consumption, and SAP also has training and education programs. These are throughout the

workforce, but are especially for sales and marketing because they have direct access to the customer. The one

thing to note with our most recent report is we featured a lot of employee efforts and profiles. We received a lot more profile

submissions than we could print, but the real benefit is our employees became interested in other aspects of sustainability because

there was a personal element for them in the report. It has been a great way for us to start conversations.

“What I have found is that when we talk about sustainability, the term often hinders further discussion. It goes over people’s heads.

But, when we talk to them about sustainability in terms of caring for the environment and people’s health and personal

sustainability, all of a sudden light bulbs pop on. Then they can see the personal connection. At that point we can go to the other

topics, like how it relates to business and other aspects.”

FIRST Q&A

Funding Projects

Question from Laura Rodomer (McKesson): Can you expand a little bit about your sustainability project where you were having

people come up with ideas and you were funding them? Where does the funding come from? What are some of the projects that

have been brought to you? What has been successful?

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): The funding for sustainability projects comes from the sustainability team’s

budget and is distributed to each of the sites who can organize and have their own team. They have their own

volunteer leader, so that money is split up among all the different chapters, if you will, of the sustainability

network. Once we dole out the money, they can decide what kind of projects they want to do. At one of the

sites, they wanted to set up a community green space for a garden. Another group wanted to emphasize biking

to work, and so they did a project to motivate the rest of their site to bike to work a day a week, and the

managing director of that office actually started participating. It is dependent on whatever the interest is in

that region and what people are inspired to do.

We have also run contests between the chapters. This entailed doing a baseline audit of a site to see how many lights were left on

in the conference rooms and how many monitors were on at people’s desks. We then went back a month later, after the chapters

had educated their employees, to measure which site had reduced energy consumption the most. When we published who the

winners were, it drove increased interest among those who wanted to get involved.”



Gamification

Question from Nico Johnson (Trina Solar): Are HP and SAP using “gamification” to engage your employees

and your stakeholders?

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “Gamification has been one of the key techniques that we have been using.

We have found that if we add the element of game, people will definitely join in. We actually have a

gamification guru within SAP, who has been creating all these different buzzes in the different organizations.

We also have the “Champions”, which is similar to the HP networks. They come up with their own programs,

games, and ways for people to engage. One of the key things we tried last year we called “InnoJam”, which is a

game where there are teams that come up with solutions for a particular problem. We launched it during the “Seven Billion”

campaign. Because of the competitive spirit, they worked on a problem and tried to figure out a solution. There is a group of

panelists that picks the winner. People get more engaged in that way.

”We try to do it through face-to-face type games, and we are also trying to see what we can do from the technology perspective.

We have some solutions that have a gamification element, where you get points for things you achieve. We expect to see more of

that because we are getting a lot of great feedback. It seems to be really healthy for people to engage, especially in sustainability.”

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “We should probably be exploring this a little more. A couple of years ago

we launched “The Power to Change”, which was an App that people can download and it had all sorts of energy

efficient tips and tools. It went over fairly well, but I think that is something we should do more of.”

Participation

Question from Cedric Christensen (Agrion): Can you give us some numbers or percentages for how many

people participate? Is it really a big thing or is it marginal?



Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “For our sustainability network, we have 52 chapters and we operate in

170 countries. HP has somewhere around 20,000 employees who participate in the sustainability network.

Again, we have the Eco-Advocate, which is different, and we have programs with Sales University, which is the

sales force. If you add it all up, it is significant.”

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “The same is true with SAP. I do not have complete numbers, but we have

over 100 people with sustainability champion titles. Also, there are a lot of people that do it anyways because

they are passionate about it. We have so many communities within SAP. Every community you can think of

that runs its own programs, has its own games, and tries to grow into the topic. But there has never been a

way to stay connected. From what we can gather, looking at least half of the people who look at our report are

our employees, which was about 50,000 unique visitors, at least each year. They are the ones that want to find

out what is going on and read all about the progress.”

Granular Monitoring of Resources

Question from Ted Howard (Agrion): You may have heard about the Green Button initiative and the CTO and

so on. More specifically, is it possible to get it down to the department level for the monitoring of energy

usage and then have the employees compete in a gamification sense?

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “We have a lot of people in the energy management space that come and

speak to employees for brownbag sessions, and some of them have even provided some great incentives to

employees to learn about it. It would be very interesting to run a competition amongst employees and

departments, but we do not have that kind of program right now. It would not be difficult to make it happen,

though.”

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “One of the sustainability network teams came up with a sustainability kit

that we have now replicated at each of the sites in the network. Employees can check it out like a book at the

library and take it home. It has the water bag so they can check to see if their faucet is low flow and it has an

energy meter to measure the energy consumption of the appliances. We are sharing that data among

employees so that they can compare where they stand.”



Customer Demand for Reporting

Comment from Nico Johnson (Trina Solar): “Anyone who follows the solar space is aware that solar is an

energy intensive manufacturing process. Trinasolar, has been focused on not only its global responsibility

efforts but also its energy efficiency efforts and coining terms like Triple Crown. If you are a Greentech Media

reader, you will see Trinasolar is a Triple Crown winner. Essentially we are creating a conversation within the

solar space about energy efficiency, about sustainability as a core principle, given that our whole business

model is about creating sustainable practices around energy use globally.

“At Trina, we focus on social responsibility not only to talk about how we are giving back to the community through donations to

charitable events and partnerships, but also to communicate our reduction of energy use. We are trying to create a conversation

within the solar space that gets our customers, and our customers’ customers, to start asking questions about whether solar

manufacturers are good to their employees, whether they are reducing their energy consumption, whether or not they do have high

efficiency ratings, etc.

“To give two clear examples, PRTM recently completed a study on global solar manufacturers, with a focus on strategic growth and

sustainable growth. They did this study without our knowledge. In the industry, our company ranked number one in sustainable

growth through a look at the balance sheet and cash to debt ratios etc. The other example is the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has

created a reporting mechanism that basically scores solar manufacturers in their ability to meet certain sustainable criteria. We are

trying to communicate a message to the industry that not only are these two independent reports important, but customers who

are buying solar actually should be asking where a manufacturer ranks on the sustainability criteria.”

Comment from Bonnie Nixon (Independent Consultant, formerly with Hewlett Packard): “One of the reasons

that companies report is that customers are asking for it and demanding it, more and more. This started with

large European companies many years ago, and now we see it spreading to government institutions

throughout the world. Customers are demanding transparency around goals and achievements. Next, it will be

stakeholders, whether that is the NGOs or stakeholders that are interested in what you are doing around a

particular topic.

“Ephi spoke about the fact that the report ‘holds their feet to the fire’. It is important to coalesce around the three most important

goals each year and tell people these are the things we are going to make real progress on. That will permeate throughout a

company and it is a way to say to the senior management where the company is and that it needs to be accountable in this area.”

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “SAP also communicates about this because our future employees have asked

us this question. In the tech industry, we all know that the war on talent is fierce. When we talked to HR and

recruitment teams what we found is they thought they were the ones being interviewed by the prospective

employees. They were being asked what does SAP do around sustainability, and most of the candidates had

done their homework. They have read the sustainability report. Without the report it would be more difficult



to put the story together. They want to work for a company like SAP or like HP. It is been a great way to sustain the company’s

growth.”

Comment from Bonnie Nixon (Independent Consultant, formerly with Hewlett Packard): “HP started

releasing CSR reports in 1998 and in 2002 it released its really big report. When we first put out a report,

everyone in the company was excited about it. However, we cannot capture everything we have done for 20

years. What happened in 2000 was that we were pulling together our whole supply team and everything they

were doing in the field of social/environmental, health/safety and ethics/bribery to do an audit and generate

the report.

“In 2003, a group of NGOs came to HP, Dell, and IBM with a list of practices they were unhappy with. At that point, we had already

started auditing and assessing our supply chain, and they came to us and asked who our other colleagues were at other companies.

We did not really know who they were at IBM and Dell. The NGOs put out a public report with some of these things, and so that was

a real opportunity to reach out to the largest contract manufacturers.

“At the time, our investor relations and some of our senior management were asking us why we would give all of our practices,

developments and secrets from the last five years to our competitors. I replied that this is a space where true leadership is raising

the bar entirely, and that there was an opportunity for us to work together. From that decision we started the Electronics Industry

Citizenship Coalition, which many companies have since joined. It includes 65 of the largest electronic companies in the world, and

HP has been leading throughout the whole thing.”

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “HP learned a lot from that experience. The tech industry is facing

pressure on conflict minerals, and so we are taking a similar approach to what we did with the EICC for conflict

minerals in order to stake out what should be our leadership position. We need to be working in a much

broader way with our competitors on solving these issues because we cannot just try to solve it for ourselves.”

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “SAP is purely a software, so the industries we have been working with are

similar in our space. The area where we have put a lot of investments is green IT, in order to really understand

how we can gain more efficiencies in that space. SAP has taken the leadership at the forefront of a lot of these

discussions.”



“Because the customer is asking about sustainability, it has now

propelled the sales team and the front-line team to be asked

more about the story. One of our key challenges is getting the

people who do not see the business reason to go into this

journey.”

– Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz, Global Director, Sustainability Management & Strategy, SAP

COMMUNICATOIONS AND REPORTING

CSR and Customer Communications

Moderator James Morris from Globescan next asked the panelists how CSR and sustainability come into

communication with customers and how much importance HP and SAP put on that.

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz from SAP brought up the fact that it is a way to start discussions both internally and

externally.

“Because the customer is asking about sustainability, it has now propelled the sales team and the front-line

team to be asked more about the story. One of our key challenges is getting the people who do not see the

business reason to go into this journey. There are a lot of those in every company and we are not the

exception. We do realize we cannot just work on the grassroots–the network, the champions and so forth.

“Work also needs to be done at the very top. In the last year we have launched several pilots called a leadership transformation

training series. We have really made our executives uncomfortable because sustainability is really a discussion about going back to

the human level. We are talking about survival of our world, and of our species, so the executives need to realize how that connects

to the overall company purpose and business case. We found a number of ways to do this. One was asking them to go through

retreats and reflections where we had them close their eyes and imagine a better world. The uncomfortable feeling from doing that



broke a lot of ice in these conversations because we were asking them to set aside what was going on at SAP and to go back to the

human level.

“This particular story has really hit home for a lot of SAP employees because they heard their leaders talk differently. They were still

talking numbers and business profit, but also about responsibly working toward a greater purpose. We call this the

Transformational Leaders Quest. In this training, participants meet not just their peers, but also transformational leaders from small

businesses, NGOs, and CEOs in top companies. Most importantly they rediscover what it really means to be leading with a purpose.”

“Like most companies, HP is seeing a continual increase in

customers asking about what are we doing. Over 80% of the

RFPs we get from our customers include questions about

sustainability…”

– Ellen Jackowski, Environmental Sustainability Strategy & Futures Planning, Hewlett Packard

Ellen Jackowski from Hewlett Packard has also seen an increased interest in CSR from customers.

“Like most companies, HP is seeing a continual increase in customers asking about what are we doing. Over

80% of the RFPs we get from our customers include questions about sustainability in this space. The questions

keep getting harder and deeper. What we originally tried to do a couple of years ago, was start the Eco-

Advocate program. We were originally targeting it to marketing and sales as a one hour training module, but

we were not getting the broad scope that we needed.

“Then we rethought the approach and decided to embed our content in their processes and tools, instead of trying to get them to

come to us. That is when we started working with Sales University, which is HP's formal approach to our enterprise sales force.

They really welcomed us with open arms. They said this is a format for something worth hearing a lot about. This is a strategic

selling point for HP because of our leadership in the space. We also started an internal social media community tool for our sales

team, which is separate from those most of the other HP employees use, so they can get their messages there and take it out to the

customer. That has been great at the enterprise level.

“At the consumer level, it is tricky because sitting behind HP.com is a very sophisticated set of systems. Therefore, while we have

this grand vision for HP.com to be able to provide CSR information for every single thing we offer, this goal has been harder to

achieve and the project has been ongoing now for several years. It is our main project to give the consumer that level of detail.”



Executive Engagement in CSR

Moderator James Morris from GlobeScan followed up by asking how the integrated CSR teams are engaging

employees at all levels of their organizations, from the sales teams to the C-suite.

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz with SAP responded that her company employs a number of different strategies.

“We reach out to the content owners and find out what is going on. Then we start following the audit trail to

find out who is behind the story, and we reach out directly to those individuals. Often they are surprised that

we want to feature them in the sustainability report. I have always asked the team to find out what that

person’s story is in general, instead of just asking for a sustainability story, as a way to get the other person to

open up. Then we figure out what we can use from that in the report.

Ellen Jackowski talked about the sustainability councils that HP has created at the executive level.

“At HP we have a couple of different senior leadership councils that touch this topic. One is the Global

Citizenship Council where several of our senior executives participate. It meets quarterly. We also have an

Executive Environmental Advisory Council that meets twice a year. On the Executive Advisory Council are HP

executives, as well as experts from NGOs and other companies that are leaders in this space. It is been a great

tool for us to get the harder messages and harder topics discussed between experts sitting in the room and our

senior executives.”

NGOs

Moderator James Morris from GlobeScan asked the panelists how they are engaging NGOs to tell their stories

and provide insights into sustainability issues.

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz spoke about how SAP has engaged NGOs as a way of furthering their

communications reach about CSR.

“We have brought NGOs to the table and let them ask deep questions about our story so they can write and

talk about it. We have also put a lot of emphasis on using our technology when helping organizations, because



this is what we are good at. Because we are not in the manufacturing business, we do not have NGOs coming after us usually. Often

we have had to reach out and be more proactive. Through our reporting we have been able to address a lot of their concerns.”

Ellen Jackowski from Hewlett Packard spoke about the importance of engaging NGOs.

“One of the things that is important to remember when dealing with NGOs is how valuable their advice and

guidance can be. They can really help highlight, internally and externally, where the company should be going.

We look at NGOs as partners to help tell our story, but even more we want to learn from them too. We want

to engage with them at a really deep level and understand where should be going next.”

“The bottom line is in figuring out what really resonates with the

readers and determining the message we want to present to

different audiences, since the report is supposed to

communicate value. This is where we should have more

innovation; it is not about how long the report may be, but how

well it communicates the different elements of a company's

value.” – Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz, Global Director, Sustainability Management & Strategy, SAP

SECOND Q&A

NGO Relationships

Audience Question: Can you talk a little bit more about some of the NGOs you work with and what solutions you have come up

with.

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “We have had close relationships over the years with WWF, Conservation

International, most of the major actors in this space, and with Greenpeace. HP continues to be under the

scrutiny of Greenpeace and has worked very successfully with them to overcome issues they have highlighted.



HP has developed a unique partnership with them in terms of meeting with them regularly. We have very serious discussions about

a product roadmap – what materials are excluded, what are not excluded, and we are learning a lot along the way.”

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “I am not the direct person who engages the NGOs. The space that we have

put a lot of emphasis on is green IT and data center efficiency. We also get a lot of inquiries from Greenpeace

because they also have criteria for energy efficiency.”

Climate Change

Question from Ray Saracino, (U.S Environmental Protection Agency – Region 9): Going back to the theme of corporate leadership,

I wonder what role leadership in sustainability might be able to play in terms of achieving the critical mass we need to start taking

real action on climate change.

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “At HP this is of paramount importance. We understand the

responsibilities that we have, as the largest technology company on the planet, to do our part and to help our

customers do theirs. IT is responsible for 2% of greenhouse gas emissions and 98% of our customers’. What

can we do to control our 2%, and what can we do to help our customers reduce their 98%? HP has looked at

both parts of that spectrum and have strategies and plans along both of those paths. HP has also partnered

with the United Nation's UNFCCC Climate Change Conference Process and we have been the IT provider for

their conferences in Cancun and South Africa. We are in support of those discussions and negotiations, and we

are there when they happen.”

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “Looking at our indicators, a lot of our emphasis has been on environmental,

even if what is material to SAP is on the people side. We have been able to demonstrate that even if we are

not in an industry that has big impact, such as manufacturing, we can play a huge role in enabling our

customers to do better. The opportunity we really have is through our solutions, and we have been advocating

to our customers about how our solutions can help them. Our annual report puts climate change front and

center on the list of important things to focus on. SAP has taken a keen interest in making sure that our

solutions are going to be ready to really help organizations.”

ISO Standards

Question from Nico Johnson (Trina Solar): Some folks in the solar manufacturing industry have adopted

ISO14001, which is a way to actually validate what your greenhouse gas emissions are. Is that standard

becoming more popular across the electronics industry? How do we promote it and are either of your

companies adopting it or some other standard?



Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “We have done a number of pilots with ISO 14001. We are not a

manufacturing organization, but we see having an environmental management system (EMS) as being key to

demonstrating what we are doing. We do use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to help with our carbon emissions.

I would like to see more manufacturing organizations have, at the very minimum, an EMS system that follows

ISO standards. From SAP's point of view, we have piloted a few, and we will see what the benefits are. The fact

that our customers have asked us about an EMS has propelled SAP to take a second look at the technology.”

Third Party Communications Strategies

Question from Emilie Jessula (Agrion): When it comes to external communication or third-party validation,

do you have different strategies when you are communicating that externally?

Ellen Jackowski (Hewlett Packard): “When we started looking at the traffic and what content people are

interested in from the report it became clear that the report is serving an audience that is very sophisticated

and one that is looking for the data. The storytelling's nice, but they want that data, so then becomes the

question of where do you tell the story. Our HP.com/environment website is a great tool. It gets great traffic

especially for recycling, and from that we have looked at the usage patterns to understand what people want to

know and were they are going.

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “The beauty of the web, versus just doing a PDF of the report, is that we are

allowing the readers to navigate it and consume the information easier. With the PDF, you have to look at the

table of contents, and go through the pages. With the web, we analyze a lot of the traffic touch points. Our

focus has been ‘Purpose’ and ‘Strategy’, which people really look into. Our audience, in particular, scans

through the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and then they dive into the stories. A company can do a lot

with the web, so I recommend using it if you are doing more of a PDF report right now.”

Traditional Reports, Online Presentations, and Integrated Reporting

Question from Moderator James Morris (GlobeScan): Today the trend is to go toward integrated reports.

You also mentioned having a PDF and putting videos on the website. Do you believe a traditional report is

actually necessary now, or will we see much more of a website of its own where the company gathers the

information?



Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “Ever since we created a separate sustainability report, we have had

information in an annual report and in a sustainability report. This year we sent a signal, both internally and

externally, that we are doing a more integrated approach in our reporting. This demonstrates how SAP is

becoming a more sustainable company and integrating sustainability into our core strategy.

“To the question about the need for a report, the answer is ‘yes’. If you are trying to serve the financial community there are legal

requirements that need to reported on. As a public company, you have to have the annual report. Perhaps one could do a mix,

printed and web, but you need to have a report to be able to talk about performance, the numbers, and the data.

“The next question is how to demonstrate the context and interdependencies of your whole strategy, which brings to light the social

and environmental context? That is where you have more opportunities to experiment. In our case, we used the past five reports

to experiment with how to communicate and what to communicate.

“The bottom line is in figuring out what really resonates with the readers and determining the message we want to present to

different audiences, since the report is supposed to communicate value. This is where we should have more innovation; it is not

about how long the report may be, but how well it communicates the different elements of a company's value. Unfortunately, the

bulk of the annual report is regulatory. Thus, we need to figure out how to communicate the messaging so that there are sections

where you can just go straight to the point.

“When it comes to sustainability, the next phase we are moving into is integrated reporting. The annual report and the

sustainability report connect to each other and feed into each other. The challenge is how to demonstrate that linkage and explain

it.

“Once you start talking about sustainability, the context of true profitability enters financial success. Now, we are trying to bring the

conversation to the core business. That is where it really gets exciting. Sustainability will not be an afterthought anymore. It will be

seen as the way you survive as an organization.”

Ellen Jackowski (HP): “We are also looking at HP's annual report. Starting back in 2003, the annual report had

links to the global citizenship report, and in 2005 we had about seven pages dedicated to global citizenship in

the annual report. Now, as we are looking to take that next step, with everything that came out of Rio+20,

Paragraph 47, and other developments, the question for us is what will be next. HP has gotten involved in a

pilot with the IIRC, and that is something we are interested in learning more about and understanding.

“To your second question, yes, it is really important for a company to have a report. Just looking internally, it is really important for

HP to have a report because what we learn in going through that process is valuable to our environmental strategy and the strategy

of the company overall.



“There are plenty of people inside of HP who hate the process of gathering data and going through legal verification. But, there are

big benefits to the business, environmental and social sides of the company from doing it. This is regardless of whether you

communicate the information in another manner, like on the web.”

Comment from Nico Johnsom (Trina Solar): “I daresay that we will not see a transformational change until

sustainability drives margins. When you can draw the lines between sustainability making a difference and

margins specifically, we will see a radical transformation in business. But, still, we are still challenged with how

to communicate it.

“I work for a Chinese company, where the report seems to be created in China with input from the regions. It is all gathered there, is

put on the website, and it stays there. I am trying to figure out a tangible way, within our organization, to get it out there to people

so that they can see that this is real and just ‘greenwashing’.”

Channeling Audiences

Question from Nico Johnsom (TrinaSolar): Based on your data and metrics gathered from your website, what

channels are driving them there and how are you communicating the message outwards? I mean this in

terms of not just the investment community that naturally comes to your website, but to the other

stakeholders.

Ellen Jackowski (HP): “In my mind, the report is the report, and the stories you want to tell need to come from

within it. How many people do you know what to sit around and read a sustainability report that are not in this

specific world? It is not a lot of people. But, if a company is doing something relevant that will fundamentally

change the way I live and work; that is something I am interested in and what the general population is

interested in. I want to push the stories, the good news, the exciting news, and the bold goals. What I want is

to increase the education and awareness of the good stories, our progress, and the issues that we found in the

report.”

James Morris (GlobeScan): “We have certainly seen this change manifested in a lot of the organizations that

we work with. We are using videos to get the CEO to speak about their sustainability efforts. It is not

necessarily the details of the report, but to talk about what sustainability means to them.”

Ephi Banaynal dela Cruz (SAP): “We employ a similar approach. When we look at the analytics from the traffic

at SAP.com, people are often looking for what we do, our capabilities, and our stories around that. Also, our

sales team uses our report site as their business card to enter conversations. This is especially true with

companies we are talking to that are already on their own sustainability journeys and trying to figure out what

to do. The stories have been our most powerful way to communicate who we are. When we humanize the



story and talk about things people can relate to, they actually read our data. The key is to show progress and to keep pushing the

boundaries, especially with the senior leaders, so they understand that it is important to the company.”

End

Documents

Mitigating Risk and Communicating Corporate Responsibility Risk report.pdfemployee consumption, and SAP also has training and education programs. These are throughout the workforce,