Page 180 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

14 Corporate Sustainability Reporting 163

The Internet allows a company to present an integrated view of different aspects of
sustainability and interested stakeholders to select, from a large information data
base, that information which is of specific interest to them. Moreover, the Internet
offers possibilities such as 24-hour accessibility, addressee-specific information tai-
loring and distribution, individual access for stakeholders, and the combination of
different media elements such as words, figures, images or videos (Isenmann 2005).
Finally, there is a much greater range of communication possibilities through stake-
holder engagement and dialogue tools in online sustainability reporting than in
printed sustainability reports (Unerman and Bennett 2004; Unerman 2007). While
in printed reports stakeholder dialogue mainly takes place prior to production and
results of these stakeholder engagement processes can be documented in the reports,
dialogue-based online relationships can include various forms of dialogue (mutual
asynchronous forms such as mail-to functions or discussion forums as well as
mutual synchronous forms such as chats, audio or video-conferencing).
However, there are also several disadvantages to using the Internet. Information
on websites can be changed and the assurance of web content is difficult. Traditional
printed reports are thus often said to enjoy a higher degree of credibility among
users than online reports. Because some stakeholders tend to be excluded from the
Internet or hindered in their use of it, and as stakeholders and reading situations may
still favour a printed report, their combined use is usually recommended as the primary
way of communication. On the other hand, considerations to encourage a wider
application of EMAS by reducing the costs of publishing environmental statements
has raised a debate about the necessity of printed reports. Also, in practice some
companies have abandoned printed reports and now concentrate on Internet-based
sustainability reporting (e.g. Adidas or E.ON UK).
Overall, most of the studies mentioned above reveal that to date many companies
do not make use of the Internet’s full potential for sustainability reporting. Research
into trends in the use of Internet-supported sustainability reporting for German
DAX30 companies over a 3-year period provides a graphic illustration of the
increased consideration of Internet features for reducing information costs for com-
panies and stakeholders but not for enhancing corporate value through more inten-
sive and credible dialogue (Herzig and Godemann 2010). There remains potential for
improvement, particularly in the use of tools for stakeholder dialogue, in the intro-
duction of, for example, multimedia elements and in the use of other Internet tech-
nologies to improve the dissemination of past and present information (e.g. through
archives, website updates, news, and newsletters). Still, there is a growing body of
evidence for using the Internet to provide information to various stakeholders. Among
the stakeholders who use this information are ranking and rating organisations.

Rankings and Ratings

For sustainability research and rating organisations, sustainability reporting has
become an important source of information. In addition to data from questionnaire
responses from management, these organisations use publicly available company