Corporate responsibility (CR) reports have become an integral part of companies’ annual reporting. Though not legally required, many stakeholders have come to expect companies—especially stock-listed firms with global operations—to report each year on a wide range of social, environmental, ethical and governance issues.

Reporting standards for CR issues have become more rigorous in recent years, and that creates a challenge. How can companies make their CR report accessible to both the general public and specialized stakeholders, including non-government organizations, analysts and socially responsible investors?

For ING Group’s 2008 CR report, the answer was to include memorable case studies that could bring ING’s CR strategy to life. “We wanted to make the case studies easy to read with as little corporate language as possible,” says Chris Wurdemann, Corporate Responsibility officer. “The cases were intended to illustrate the main strategy outlined in each chapter by showing real-life experiences.” ING assigned Diane Baumann Corporate Communications to do the writing.

From the financing of a project to create a new nature reserve in the Netherlands to an HR manager’s experience training headmasters in India as part of a UNICEF project, each case quickly captured ING’s corporate commitments to sustainability in a refreshing and accessible style.

• Research
• Copywriting
• Final editing