Kingsmill - toast well done

Kingsmill has become the first UK bread brand to include the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Reduction label on its packaging. I'm not sure if consumers will understand but this could be the start of a battle in the sector for openness and environmental credibility. You can read the background on the Kingsmill website.

On the button - and I don't mean Formula One

Mallen Baker has a great post on his blog - Who's reading your online CSR report? It is quite remarkable that given that stakeholder feedback is the holy grail of CSR reporting that some clients lack a basic understanding or interest about the people reading their on-line reports. Worse still they spend a great deal of time and money without any thought to how they can measure effectiveness -easy with an on-line report, almost impossible with a printed report. Our clients, even fledgling reporters, are really embracing this stuff and we are actively encouraging them to track activity to measure the effectiveness of their reports. It must make sense, surely?

Joined up thinking from M&S

This week Marks & Spencer is launching a national advertising campaign supporting its £200m ethical Plan A. This coincides nicely with the launch of its new ‘How we do business’ report. Read the report here. The national campaign, called "Doing the Right Thing", starts this weekend with a "manifesto" press ad outlining the key points of its ethical trading initiative. The campaign hits halfway through the M&S five-year plan. There’s a interesting report on the campaign in The Guardian.

UPDATE - quite interesting to see that M&S took one double page spread plus another three full page ads in The Sunday Times (14 June) to get their message across and meanwhile over in The Independent on Sunday there's a discussion on how companies are cutting back on CR - obviously some businesses understand this stuff and the BP's and Shell's in this world just jump on the bandwagon when times are good.

Vodafone's new report

Another top reporter, Vodafone, has published its CR report for 2009. The theme this year is 'Mobilising development' and demonstrates the challenges of managing responsibility in emerging markets. You can read the full report here at Vodafone.com

Good and bad use of illustration

Two major reports recently published take an illustrative approach to support the narrative. Done well, illustration is a great way to communicate complex information - Tesco's report is testimony to this. I think illustration used in a superficial way really undermines the quality of content. Here's a good example where poor illustration doesn't help one of the most lauded reports around - BT!

Spiderman meets CR

RWE npower has launched its new 2008 CR report. To quote the words of Stan Lee, creator of Spiderman, as the title of your CR report does sound a bit obvious in this case. Still, it is a web based report!! The actual narrative is 'With great power, there must also come great responsibility" featured in Amazing Fantasy the first Spiderman story. See the full RWE npower report here

Social Media and CR - The future?

I discovered an interesting report from Suzanne Fallender at Intel on how social media
is starting to permeate CR communications. It also links to Intel's latest CR report.