Stakeholders might be demanding clear disclosure on issues of sustainability, but it doesn’t mean they’re getting it: Here, Harriette Hobbs compares the introductions to two CSR reports and finds a graphic illustration of why you need to keep it simple – or KISS

One of the great advantages of word clouds has to be that they show very clearly whether or not you are saying what you think you are. They also show how clearly you are saying it. There is an important principle of successful corporate communication at play here. It is that you have to get straight to your point and not try and make a lot of other points at the same time. Your audience will switch off and be confused if you do. Research on audience recall of corporate messages has famously confirmed how little is taken in…

 

So what do these clouds from energy companies BG Group and Linde Group show us?

 

One thing to bear in mind with both of these CEO letters or introductions is that they are part of a sustainability/CSR report. So the audience is expecting clarity around that. Do they get it? Possibly not. In both clouds, there are a lot of different words, which suggests that the core message may be getting clouded by too many things being said…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Starting with BG, we see that the words ‘group’, ‘performance’, ‘safety’, ‘BG’, ‘business’ and ‘communities’ are largest – though to be fair the word ‘sustainability’ also gets in there. What this does tell us is that for this business sustainability is primarily about safety and reducing risk for host countries and communities. Reducing emissions and combating climate change get only two short paragraphs and this is reflected in the cloud by the fact that the word ‘climate’ does not appear at all and ‘environmental’ is quite small. Worryingly for the BG Group the word ‘died’ is as big as the word ‘environmental’. Another important word that fails to make it into the cloud, although one would think it is central to any discussion of sustainability, is ‘transparent’. The BG Group seem more attached to mentioning the words ‘BG Group’ than being transparent.

With the Linde Group the biggest words are ‘change’, ‘economies’, ‘emerging’, ‘energy’ and ‘global’, which does provide quite an accurate and helpful guide to the content of the letter. ‘Climate’, ‘population’ and ‘process’ come next. However, again there are some real omissions here. In the letter one of the most powerful messages is the acknowledgement that companies need to review how they think and act – two words that fail to make it into the cloud. Another key word in supporting the business’ claim to be ‘transparent’ and ‘sustainable’ is ‘innovate’ – this does appear but only in very tiny size. The words ‘transparent’ and ‘sustainable’ do not appear at all.

Claims to sustainable behaviour and corporate and social responsibility are clearly very important issues now for every business. But what these clouds show is that you really do have to tell it like it is – and mean what you say, otherwise when it is put into a word cloud, the world can see whether you have a sound focus or you’re attached to ‘green-wash’.