34 pages. www.hsbc.com
Good social reporting is essentially about achieving a fine balance on
all fronts: not too much data, but enough to have meaning, not too
glossy but engaging nonetheless, and a focus on past achievement while
looking, with targets, to the future.
Although HSBC may not be a world leader in socially responsible
business behaviour, it is certainly one of the few companies to have
achieved such a fine balance in the reporting of its social and
environmental impacts.
Its fifth stand-alone corporate social responsibility report is
unlikely to satisfy the hard core of Global Reporting
Initiative-obsessed stakeholders who
crave ever-increasing complexity and nuance, nor may it win a major
social reporting award. But it does provide the lay reader with a good
snapshot of the bank’s impacts and objectives – and that surely must be
one of the main aims of such a document.
The 34-page hard copy report’s key achievement is its simplicity. Data
highlights are collected together in a slimline table on page two,
followed by the chairman’s introduction and then a logical sequence
of sections outlining what the business does and where, how it
tries to manage the impacts of its lending, the direct effects of its
operations on areas such as the environment, and how its internal
structures take account of CSR.
Each section has a series of related commitments for 2005 which, while
not always as specific as they ought to be, are clear, succinct and
assessable. It’s a half-hour read at maximum, with web links for further information.
Assured by The Corporate Citizenship Company and designed without
clutter or gimmick, there is nothing in here that needs a second take;
even the one rather labyrinthine flow diagram on global warming over
the centre pages is easy to follow and more than justifies itself – not
least for its revelation that HSBC has decided ‘tree planting is not
the answer to preventing climate change’.
Overall, substance is refreshingly allied to style even if there are
gaps – such as a lack of sector comparability – in some places. If
you’re looking for a good example of social reporting, here it is.
