Building trust

After its recent IPO in 2021, we had the exciting opportunity to work with Trustpilot to investigate and understand its material sustainability impacts and opportunities, and bring these to life in its first ever Sustainability Report.

The focus for Trustpilot’s Sustainability Report was to showcase that content integrity lies at the heart of its purpose, to establish a ‘trust layer’ for the internet economy. The purpose that drives Trustpilot as an organisation is ambitious and challenging, and we aimed for the Sustainability Report to support this over the long term.

We worked closely with the Trustpilot team to understand its sustainability goals and ambitions and determine how this aligned with its overall vision. First, we conducted a detailed double materiality assessment to identify new and existing stakeholder groups and develop their ESG ambitions. In addition, we looked at global ESG trends, reporting frameworks, peer reviews and sector benchmarks to identify potential material issues.

For each group, we used existing engagement channels, and supplemented these with a mix of surveys, interviews, and desktop reviews, to understand which issues were the most important for each stakeholder group, and had the largest impact – whether on people, the environment, and society, or on Trustpilot’s financial performance and its ability to operate.

After a thorough analysis, we got to work on bringing this to life in Trustpilot’s maiden Sustainability Report, with each of the four material issues expanded on via a dedicated multi-page spread, with pull-out statistics and quotes.

Finally, we linked each material issue to Trustpilot’s purpose, reputation, people and the environment, with further case studies supplementing each material issues in focus, demonstrating how the company is responding to and overcoming the issue.

Trustpilot’s first Sustainability Report worked hard to develop and identify the company’s key material issues and implement this further in a sustainability strategy, which will be launched next year.

A recent brand refresh gave us the opportunity to experiment with the assets and explore interesting ways to bring the elements together. We used both the new brand colours and the Trustpilot ‘star’ to help navigate the reader through dense information by clearly colour-coding sections and layering information. Photography based on user ‘experiences’ allowed us to surprise and delight readers by giving them the unexpected, taking the visuals beyond the standard. Honest, unfiltered language added that final layer of accessibility for a fun and engaging read. Trustpilot shared its new sustainability journey via multi-channel activation, with a key focus on ESG, diversity and culture.