Sustainable Engagement in a Hypertransparent World

Speakers

• Aman Singh Das, Contributing Writer, Forbes.com
• Leonardo Bonanni, CEO , Sourcemap Inc.
• Suzanne Fallender, Director, CSR Strategy and Communications, Intel Corporation
• Chris Jochnick, Director of Private Sector Department, Oxfam America
• Peder Michael Pruzan-Jorgensen, Managing Director, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, BSR (Moderator)

Highlights

• The rapidly changing media landscape now requires that companies disclose more information about their sustainability and corporate responsibility practices than ever before.
• Hypertransparency provides opportunities for companies and NGOs to build trusting relationships with their stakeholders and remain accountable to those stakeholders. That said, hypertransparency can also create risks due to potential privacy issues and challenges around the ability to verify and hold sources accountable.
• The real challenge for companies is not just to release data about their sustainability and corporate responsibility practices, but to present that information in a way that empowers consumers to make informed purchasing decisions that are aligned with their values.

Memorable Quotes

“[Hypertransparency is about] communicating and engaging with consumers and about collecting data from suppliers in a bunch of ways through the web, Twitter [and other sources] … And it’s about creating much more sustainable supply chains as a result of that information.” —Leonardo Bonanni, Sourcemap Inc.

“When Oxfam pushes out information, we have a theory of change–to raise awareness of an issue and then to work with companies to create tools and norms about disclosure through multi-stakeholder and voluntary initiatives … But that’s only intended to be the halfway point. Then we hope to push toward regulatory requirements so that information release becomes mandatory.” —Chris Jochnick, Oxfam America

“Give me the data and I [as a journalist] will create the headline.” –Aman Singh Das, Forbes.com

“It’s important to trust your employees to use social media. This continues to hold us accountable.” —Suzanne Fallender, Intel Corporation

Overview

Pruzan-Jorgensen opened the session by introducing the theme of hypertransparency and the changing media landscape that now requires that companies disclose more information than ever before. He outlined a few questions to guide the discussion:

• What information and data are companies choosing to disclose?
• What is the process that creates information, data, and decisions?
• Who is involved in creating information and data? Are the sources reliable?

Pruzan-Jorgensen went on to explain both the benefits and the inherent risks that arise when companies disclose such a high level of information about their operations and sustainability efforts. He challenged the group to think not only about the benefits of this kind of disclosure but also the risks that hypertransparency can present. He warned of potential scenarios where hypertransparency can actually create misinformation about companies and their activities.

Next Pruzan-Jorgensen asked each speaker to provide an overview of their views on hypertransparency along with their perceptions of how companies should adapt to this changing media landscape. Bonanni described how Sourcemap is providing opportunities for companies to map their entire supply chains online, empowering companies, their stakeholders, and ultimately, their consumers to make decisions based on this information.

Jochnick then discussed what motivates Oxfam America to demand such a high level of transparency from the companies it works with. He stressed that Oxfam American’s commitment to this issue stems from its mission to help the 3 to 4 billion people around the world currently living in poverty. He also stressed the potential that quality data and information have to empower people around the world and promote a sense of agency.

After Jochnick, Singh Das provided her thoughts on hypertransparency from her perspective as a journalist. She urged companies to be more open to media and journalists that want to report on companies’ CSR and sustainability efforts. She provided examples of companies that are doing a good job of communicating transparently and referenced Zappos’s efforts to live stream their board meetings for employees, among other transparency and communications efforts.

Finally, Fallender described her thoughts on hypertransparency from her experience at Intel. She highlighted how quickly information is now released, along with the high level of detail now available in that data, requires that companies constantly refresh how they think about transparency. She discussed how Intel has evolved its approach to CSR reporting and disclosure, beginning in 1994 when the company published its first CSR report to 2007 when it launched its first CSR blog. She then introduced ExploreIntel.com, an interactive and transparent platform that Intel released to provide real-time information about one of their facilities in New Mexico.

Next Pruzan-Jorgensen opened the floor to questions from the audience. He started the Q&A session by asking: What is the real value of transparency? Is more information always better? Bonanni answered by saying that transparency is really the only way that a company can achieve a high level of trust from its external stakeholders. Fallender and Singh Das agreed, but they both cautioned that companies need to be sure that they are releasing quality information that is actionable for stakeholders and consumers. Fallender then added another dimension to the conversation by stressing the important role that transparency plays in holding companies accountable to the commitments they make with regard to their sustainability and corporate responsibility efforts. Jochnick then said that hypertransparency can help empower external stakeholders around the world.

The session concluded with a discussion of how companies should package information and data in a way that will empower consumers to change their behavior and align their purchasing decisions with their values. Jochnick made one of the last comments of session by saying, “It’s not enough to just pour information out, there have to be ways that we can package it and get it to people in a way that they can use it.”