Topics

Blog Posts by Thom Elkjer

Why Integrated Reporting is Inevitable

June 14, 2016 —

Why Integrated Reporting is Inevitable

Integrated Reporting These days, integrated reporting is a corporate dog everyone loves to kick. People will tell you it’s a bore, a chore, a snore. It’s another corporate cost center, a straightjacket on corporate communication, a full-employment program dreamed up by do-gooders to give jobs to bean counters. To its harshest critics, integrated reporting is not even a dog. It’s a tail that wants to wag the dog. A dozen years ago, people said all these things about the Global Reporting Initiative, known as GRI. The first time I wrote a corporate sustainability report, one of the client’s...
Read more >
Sustainability Reporting Trends

June 10, 2016 —

Sustainability Reporting Trends

Keeping on top of sustainability reporting trends is not easy. The field of corporate sustainability reporting is maturing and evolving, making it important to keep up with the changing standards and expectations long after you complete this lesson in Sustainability 101. As you get more experience in this discipline, continue to watch what the leaders do. Keep up with issues on the horizon through the conversations on blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn. And, attend conferences to hear from the experts when you can. At Emotive Brand, we strive to keep our finger on the pulse of the industry in order...
Read more >
Five Company Experts You Need for a Good Sustainability Report

March 31, 2016 —

Five Company Experts You Need for a Good Sustainability Report

Producing a corporate sustainability report (CSR) is a team sport. The stronger the team is, the stronger the sustainability report will be. Each player needs to bring specific expertise that is complementary to the team as a whole. So, it is important to recruit and rally the key experts that can deliver what you need to make the company’s report a success. Choose carefully and look for people who already demonstrate some passion about sustainability. In most organizations, there are one or two departments that lead the sustainability report. Those functions will likely be a reflection of...
Read more >
Preparing for Transformation

January 7, 2015 —

Preparing for Transformation

One of the big themes for business is constant change — transformation. With globalization making markets more volatile and cross-border financial flows making bondholders and investors more powerful, companies have to keep evolving to keep up. So they change their business model or their brand strategy. If they keep doing the old things, they do them in new ways. Or they do entirely new things in ways that haven’t been invented yet. For our parents, IBM was a computer company. For us, it’s a consulting company. Time Warner was a media company; now it’s a content company after selling...
Read more >
Love Your Critics

February 11, 2014 —

Love Your Critics

Nobody likes being criticized. This is one of the least productive of human traits, because few things are more effective than good criticism when it comes to changing our results or our ways. If you went to schools that gave out report cards, you’ll remember how few critical words it took from a teacher to alarm your parents. “Not focused in class” or “Tends to talk out of turn” were enough to get mom and dad engaged in a hurry. As adults, most of us get criticism from only a small handful of people: family, bosses, and spouses. Friends could be a great source of criticism, but the implicit...
Read more >