Disney Does Good in More Ways than One

Blog 5 - by Meghan Schimpf

Disney Does Good in More Ways than One

This is a topic of high interest to me. I am really fascinated in better understanding the ways companies engage in the reporting process and communicate how they are putting their words to action, or not. I feel corporate social reporting and community investment reporting can often be done merely out of lip service, while I feel that others have a strong desire to ethically communicate and share the things they are doing beyond their responsibilities to make a profit. I am of the belief, unlike that of Milton Friedman, that organizations have a wider responsibility beyond simply making a profit, which includes social, environmental and other such areas.

When I was researching for this blog I attempted to find companies who were well known for their responsibility reports. One of the best I came across in my search was Disney’s Citizenship Report (performance summary). I think this report stood out to me because of the way it attempted, and in my opinion, successfully communicated its efforts toward social responsibility and community investing with its stakeholders. Reasons I found the report to be a success and perhaps best practice takeaways for other companies would include:

• Readability of the report itself – it was not written in jargon language, but was rather communicated in more simplistic language, with easy titles and navigation tabs to take readers wherever to whatever sections of the report they wished to further investigate
• Beyond just communicating successes, the report also highlights areas for improvements and targets that were not achieved and also offers yearly comparisons – this type of authentic, transparent communication makes reports more valuable and trustworthy
• In addition, it indicates its GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) status – this is important to indicate that they had in fact used a standard of reporting, because as not many may know, reporting of this type is currently voluntary and by no means mandatory. Report validity/veracity can be questionable, so to use a set standard that requires having content verified and approved of is key to reassuring stakeholders that what is being communicated is actually truthful and not just done out of lip service or merely to boost reputation
• Beyond the GRI status, the report also included stakeholder feedback and veracity of the report. Areas for improvement within the reports were indicated and Disney proactively provided the requested documentation/information.
• The inclusion of an ethical conduct section is also a good component to share with stakeholders.
• Disney’s report also has a section of awards and accomplishments that they’ve received from externals who have analyzed their CSR efforts – this is another key piece to include that offers a credibility component for stakeholders.
• The detailed data inclusion that highlights very relevant, real and often controversial information was another great piece to communicate. By having things such as gender and ethic representation, child labour, wages and actual environmental impacts, Disney again shows its transparency and willingness to communicate and become vulnerable to do so.

There were many other aspects of the report that made it a success, but overall I was pleased as a stakeholder myself to read how their actions are being tangibly put into words.