Put designers on it

We’ve had some recent correspondence with Paul Druckman, CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC), to determine whether the IIRC will put Zephyr’s team of designers on to the challenge of integrated reporting.

As previously blogged, the IIRC is underway with a Discussion Paper on integrated reporting, collating the views of anyone with an interest – either for or against – in this becoming the standard form of reporting.

Following publication of the Discussion Paper, we imagine the IIRC will pull together a team of people from listed companies, regulators, accountancy firms and investment houses, to deliberate on the best way to take integrated reporting forward.

But in our view it could well be design that helps companies get over their resistance to integrated reporting. Designers have as significant a role to play as the list makers and box tickers from the aforementioned groups.

A design team could resolve how the interdependencies of social, environmental and financial performance are presented. It could determine how the calculations behind performance figures are laid out. It could also define the best overall structure of an integrated report, with the aim of ensuring the majority of people, not just a tiny minority, are effectively taken through the full range of performance information an integrated report contains.

We’re waiting on the IIRC’S new head of communications to come on board in March before we pick up with the IIRC again. Hopefully our discussions will lead to some early sight of contributions made to the Discussion Paper. And also a project that gives Zephyr a central role in the further reinvention of annual reports.

If you’re a corporate communication designer and/or strategist interested in having a role in this reinvention too, then please get in touch.