Sustainability reporting is boring and annoying?

Both workshops used interactive group work with fictitious company examples to illustrate fundamental analyses that are necessary in the course of reporting - or that can also represent an important cornerstone for the strategic orientation and resilience of a company when carried out individually.
Impacts along the upstream and downstream value chain were considered and opportunities and risks from climate change and social changes were identified.

Workshop A demonstrated the systematic approach that can be used to discuss and answer key questions:

1. Stakeholder analysis: identification of the relevant interest groups
2. Materiality analysis: Which issues are central to the company? Where are the greatest levers in our company for effectively implementing sustainability? In other words, to drive positive change and minimize risks.
3. Strategy: Definition of goals and priorities, such as "Which risks absolutely must be managed?" or "Where is there potential for growth through sustainable management?"
4. Operationalization: Translating the strategy into concrete measures - "How can the strategy be put into practice?"
5. Communication: Transparent presentation of progress and results.

An important recommendation from the workshop: "Just get started!", for example by putting together an internal team to tackle the issues. Employees often bring a surprising amount of knowledge and new perspectives to the table, even from people who have not previously been the focus of attention. With a little courage, openness and trust in your own organization, the full potential can be exploited to develop and implement sustainability strategies in a structured process.

The aim of workshop B was to identify opportunities and risks in the context of climate change and social change using the fictitious company and to derive strategies from this. The STEEP method was used as the methodological approach. This analyzes opportunities and risks, taking into account the social, technological, ecological, economic and political dimensions.

Important topics identified in the workshop:

• Climate change: effects on production sites and supply chains.
• Scarcity of resources: Rising costs and limited availability of materials.
• Biodiversity loss: Impact on raw material sources and social requirements.
• Health risks: Changes due to working conditions or environmental pollution.

How should companies deal with the findings from the analysis? It is important to identify those topics that are essential for the company in advance using a materiality analysis in order to carry out the scenario analysis based on the results. Only then can strategic measures to minimize risks and exploit opportunities be best derived. It is important for companies to act proactively in order to give opportunities more weight than risks.

The concluding round of questions and discussions also provided a number of additional impulses: many companies are unsure how they can approach the topic of sustainability in concrete and strategic terms. Companies often only consider the environmental aspect of sustainability ("We're already doing enough") and neglect the financial, social and societal dimensions, which are also integral components.

The dilemma of mandatory reporting was addressed several times. Although this topic is interesting and relevant, it is also associated with considerable additional work for companies and is therefore "annoying". Pragmatic approach "Doesn't help" versus "How do you communicate the topic as an opportunity and not just an obligation?": Here, participants feel most motivated to act by positive examples from their own region.

The desire for best-practice presentations by managers from companies that have already successfully implemented CSRD provided insights as input for further event formats. Such success stories could inspire other companies and show them concrete benefits.

Many participants said that they had gained more confidence in the topic as a result of the event, particularly when arguing their case to CEOs or CFOs. The balance between regulatory requirements and practical implementation options remains challenging. The new, streamlined VSME standard could potentially be helpful here. The task remains - especially in SMEs - to raise awareness of the issue of sustainability and to convince people to see sustainability as an opportunity.