Severn Trent
Best-in-class sustainability reporting
Severn Trent’s third Sustainability Report stands out from the crowd, gaining recognition for its honest and transparent disclosure and engagement with stakeholders across its communications. We were excited to build on the success of last year’s award-winning report and showcase the positive progress Severn Trent has made as well as its ambitions for the future.
We aimed to evolve and elevate Severn Trent’s sustainability communications and capture the company’s ambitious goals and leadership in sustainable business practices with social purpose and sustainability embedded fully in the report.
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As a company committed to and focused on Green Recovery, we wanted to maintain a focus on ESG. Firstly, we conducted a double materiality assessment to identify issues and provide a solid foundation for Severn Trent’s sustainability strategy by understanding which ESG issues mattered most to its key stakeholders.
Next, we enhanced each material issue to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with the company’s own KPIs. We also captured Severn Trent’s ambitious and credible diversity and inclusion goals, something many companies hesitate to do, with engaging case studies.
Finally, we made sure to align Severn Trent’s sustainability and financial objectives, with a strong focus on TCFD, and communicate this approach throughout the entire reporting suite.
Having created Severn Trent’s first standalone Sustainability Report in 2020, in 2021 the company adopted a ‘digital-first’ approach, creating the report as a landscape interactive PDF which includes animated content, hyperlinked page drivers and a top navigation to provide a ‘browser-like’ experience.
We built on learnings from previous years, taking advantage of the digital space, to develop a highly engaging report utilising elements such as scroll features and pop-ups to cater for readers who want just a top-level amount of information as well as those who want to delve deeper into the content and data.
A video introduction from the Chief Executive provided an overview of the theme and focus of the report. An animated infographic highlights the most important impacts. Readers can click into these stories for a video introduction before delving further into the deeper content within the report. Finally, the report contains a plethora of mini case studies that bring to life Severn Trent’s efforts to live its promises. Where relevant, these are linked through to external content, such as the Annual Report or website, where the reader can get more detailed information.
Awards
Sustainability Reporting and Communications, Edie Awards
Most Meaningful use of Materiality, Strategic Comms Awards