Businesses in the European Union will soon face a major change in the requirement for reporting on environmental, social and governance performance, under the terms of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
The family-owned Klingele Group has long put sustainability at the heart of its operations and decided – rather than wait for the legal necessity to publish information – to create its first Sustainability Report proactively.
The aim was to be transparent to its environmental products and processes, and also to a set a benchmark for future monitoring and goal setting.
Having previously worked on projects for Klingele, Nielsen McAllister was asked to be the copywriter on the Report. The German owned & headquartered Group has many sites internationally so it was decided that the Report would be written in English.
Klingele provided all data and key information about the Group’s many ESG initiatives. We wrote all copy – including captions for images and graphs, and quotes from senior stakeholders within the Klingele Group.
We held weekly meetings with the Report’s project manager, Klingele’s marketing team and the design agency hired to create the final Report.
Along the way, we made recommendations on how to improve the clarity and style of Klingele’s sustainability messaging, as well as ensuring that all claims could be substantiated so as to avoid ‘greenwashing.’
The first Klingele Sustainability Report was published towards the end of 2023.
Feedback from Klingele’s customers and employees about the 62-page Report was excellent – with many noting that the written content played a huge role in helping readers to understand what actions the company was taking.
Following the successful launch, we immediately embarked on Klingele’s next Sustainability Report, with the intention of this becoming an annual publication.
The team at Nielsen McAllister was a superb partner on this project. Their understanding of sustainability issues, the quality of their writing, and the close collaboration with the project stakeholders, all played a key role in the success of our inaugural Sustainability Report.
Christina Lauber, Chief Services Officer, Klingele