Monday, November 24, 2014

30 Sustainability Reporting Thanksgiving messages

Last Thanksgiving, I posted about how Thanksgiving shows up in Sustainability Reports. This year, renowned commentator and sustainability writer, Marc Gunther, inspired me to write another Thanksgiving post. Marc expressed his thanks to sustainability leaders who are doing great work. Thank you, Marc. I echo that and join in the applause. However, no less worthy of mention are the folks that battle away, year after year, to fill our inboxes and download queues with annual Sustainability Reports. I love opening new reports. It's like getting a gift. I approach a newly published Sustainability Report with a sense of anticipation and eagerness. I love the first flick through to see what it's all about, and then, I enjoy a more deliberate read and analysis. Yes, it's true. I'm a reporting geek. So thank you to everyone in the sustainability reporting world for helping me to stay so geeky. 

Thank you.. to everyone who says "no-one reads Sustainability Reports". The more you say it, the more people write reports.
Thank you.. to all the CSR and Sustainability Managers at my client companies around the world who give me the opportunity to serve them by doing what I love doing.
Thank you.. to all the companies that published Sustainability Reports at any time in the past 15 years. You have enriched my life. My life is now completely materialized, measured and metricated. That's good, right?
Thank you.. to the designers who create fabulous report designs. Sustainability Reporting as an art-form has emerged.
Thank you.. to my loyal CSR Reporting Blog readers and following. It gives me a totally warm and fuzzy feeling to know that there may just be one or two more reporting geeks out there.
Thank you.. to the cleaning staff in all the offices that go around cleaning up after all the people involved in Sustainability Reporting. Aside from the hundreds of discarded drafts, the volume of ice cream cartons that people throw out after consuming the contents at reporting time must be phenomenal.
Thank you.. to the students of sustainability from all around the world who often approach me with questions about reporting. I love helping students. Sometimes the questions are really focused... like: What does that word on page 321 mean? and sometimes they are more general, like: Do you think this is REALLY what they meant?
Thank you.. to the companies that include me on their stakeholder lists and want me to give them free advice. If they decided to include me in their budget as well, I would thank them more sincerely.
Thank you.. to all the babies in the world. Everyone is writing Sustainability Reports JUST FOR YOU!
Thank you.. to the companies that publish their Sustainability Reports as ebooks or flip books. You save me a lot of time not reading your reports.
Thank you.. to my staff team at Beyond Business who put up with having a geek for a boss, and an awkward one at that.
Thank you.. to thanksgiving, for giving me the opportunity to thank the sustainability community for its existence.
Thank you.. to Simon Cowell. I love the X Factor. I would love to write the X Factor's Sustainability Report.
Thank you.. to the GRI for the Sustainability Disclosure Database. It's a great resource for finding current reports. Real geek-food.
Thank you.. to all the millions (millions?) (is exaggeration hereditary?) of people who bought and read my book, Understanding G4: The concise guide to next generation reporting, published by DoSustainability.  I receive a lot of feedback from many different people who have read/used the book and found it to be very helpful. Watch out for the sequel ;). But while we are on the subject, thank you also to Alan AtKisson, President and CEO of AtKisson Group, a pioneer of sustainability initiatives and renowned throught-leader, who wrote the best review of any book I ever read and it was about Understanding G4
Thank you.. to numerous friends, colleagues, associates, followers, Twitter pals, Facebook friends, Linkedin members, social media connections who inspire, inform, amuse, encourage, support, engage, retweet, like, comment, forward, share, give Klout and generally feel like a fantastic community of professionals that I am proud to be a part of. Whenever I meet any of you at conferences and meetings, it seems that we grew up together.  And at this point I will single out the formidable Leon Kaye who never fails, each EcoMonday and each FollowFriday to publish a CSR Tweep list which I am honored to be included in. He is a generous supporter of people in our community and that deserves more than one thank you. But I have to be careful not to overdose on thankyou's here so I will leave it at one.
Thank you.. to all the Sustainability Report translators who translate reports into English. You usually make me smile. Especially if your name is Google Translate. If your name is Bing Translate then I actually roll about on the floor laughing my head off.
Thank you.. to all the people who work in companies who publish Sustainability Reports. I am sure you know who you are. Ahem. If you are not sure, thank you anyway. Maybe you contributed even though you don't know it.
Thank you.. to my friends in the Sustainability Reporting news communities at Triple Pundit, 2Degrees, 3BL Media and others who reprint my CSR Reporting Blog posts to help spread the Sustainability Reporting gospel to their audiences. I am humbled that you find my content worthy of redistribution. And you don't even edit out the bad bits. Often.
Thank you.. to Faversham House and edie.net for organizing the Smarter Sustainability Reporting Conference, which I chair, every year in London. A whole day all about Sustainability Reporting. It's so much fun. Next one is 24th February 2015 and we have a great line-up. Many geeks and several geeks-in-the-making. Will you be there?
Thank you.. to all the people who use Sustainability Reports to help them make decisions. Like which recycling bin to put them in. Or whether to use them to eat your fish and chips out of. I understand in Japan that Sustainability Report Origami has become quite popular. Just think, lots of little origami cranes complete with materiality matrices. Sustainability Reporting makes anything possible.
Thank you.. to Siri. When ever I feel like a bit of fun, Siri never lets me down. I think we should let Siri write some Sustainability Reports. 



Thank you.. to Ethical Corporation for publishing my reviews of newly-published Sustainability Report. It's always nice to have another place to practice being geeky.
Thank you.. to my family who reads every single Sustainability Report that I work on for clients. OK. Exaggerating again. But putting up with a geek like me deserves more than thanks. It deserves an ocean of ice cream.
Thank you.. to SustainabilityIllustrated for producing fabulous entertaining and informative sustainability videos. Soon to include one on Sustainability Reporting. Watch this space. Haha. Another scoop from the CSR Reporting Blog.
Thank you.. to Greenleaf Publishing, who published my first book on CSR for HR, and has agreed to publish my next full-length book in 2016 on the subject of ... guess what.. Sustainability Reporting. But, Sustainability Reporting from a perspective that I don't think any one else has written about before. Something that I hope will change our perspective about reporting. I am currently selecting relevant companies to be part of my research and have their reporting activities showcased in my book. Coming soon to a company near you.....
Thank you.. to the creators of Sustainability Reporting apps. I admit that I rarely (never) read reports via an app, but it's nice to know Sustainability Reports are appable just like everything else. Maybe someone should invent an app that shows our reactions when we read a Sustainability Report on an app.
Thank you.. to the inventor of PDFs. My life would be just terrible without you. Sustainability Reporting to me is synonymous with PDFs. If I don't get my PDF fix every single day, my knees start to shake and my teeth start to clatter. Someone told me that might be due to the fact that my air-conditioning is set to 12 deg celsius. But I know the truth.
Thank you.. to Blogger.com and Feedburner. Without you, I would never have been able to reach so many fabulous people who read and subscribe to the CSR Reporting Blog. In our inter-connected digital world, you help me get my message through. What's the message? Sustainability Reporting is cool. It's worth blogging about.
Thank you.. to readers and users of Sustainability Reports everywhere, and especially those who give feedback. A Sustainability Report without feedback is like ice without cream. Feedback is what makes Sustainability Reports worthwhile. Whenever you check out a report, take some time to give feedback to the reporting company. It's good karma. You will be rewarded. With another Sustainability Report. 

So there we have it, 30 Sustainability Reporting Thanksgiving messages. If I left anyone out, don't be offended, it's on purpose. I am saving you for next Thanksgiving. In the meantime, 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

And here's a little treat:




elaine cohen, CSR consultant, Sustainability Reporter, HR Professional, Ice Cream Addict. Author of Understanding G4: the Concise guide to Next Generation Sustainability Reporting  AND  Sustainability Reporting for SMEs: Competitive Advantage Through Transparency AND CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices . Contact me via Twitter (@elainecohen)  or via my business website www.b-yond.biz   (Beyond Business Ltd, an inspired CSR consulting and Sustainability Reporting firm).  Check out our G4 Report Expert Analysis Service - for published G4 reports or pre-publication - write to Elaine at info@b-yond.biz to help make your G4 reporting  even better. 

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