Unbelievably early NFL games, kids wondering what happened to summer break, and newly released Corporate Sustainability Reports to review – it must be August.

Looking over some of the latest Corporate Sustainability Reports, it seems some companies use these pieces as year-round marketing brochures with glossy pictures of happy employees and a few key metrics buried deep inside. (I’m not the only one who has reached this conclusion.) But is that what stakeholders really want?

My cynical side might answer “yes”. In my own industry, I’ve been told before that “all carpet is green enough”. Do stakeholders want a report that puts a happy green sheen on the company’s past year – offering reassurance that everything is fine, products are “sustainable enough”, and we can check the box and move on to the next most pressing issue?

Having the good fortune to hang out with some of the leading sustainable architects and designers in the country, I can refute my inner smart alec. Stakeholders want to know what’s really going on behind the scenes in corporations. They want Radical Transparency. They want to know if a company is questioning assumptions. They want to know about challenges and headaches and they want honest reports from the trenches of the new industrial revolution. At least, that’s what I’ve concluded from the perspective of my own trench.

Interface published one of the world’s first Sustainability Reports in 1998, and has its own unique perspective on this issue. We’ve been releasing and posting our EcoMetrics and sustainability updates consistently for 13 years on our comprehensive global website, which has served as our sustainability reporting tool. Through our EcoMetrics results, we share our annual progress – good or bad – toward our aggressive Mission Zero goals. We annually share our sustainability progress in hundreds of speeches, and both of Ray Anderson’s books provide clear examples of our progress and challenges. Finally, we disclose important product information for some of our key products in Environmental Product Declarations.

As we face the final ten years before our 2020 Mission Zero deadline, we want to embark on a new journey of dialogue with you, our stakeholders. We are currently working on a new tool for publicly updating our sustainability progress, and since our stakeholders expect leadership from Interface, our updated sustainability communications will be a departure from the traditional static report. Corporate Sustainability has evolved tremendously over the years; we believe it’s time for Corporate Sustainability Reporting to catch up.

We’re deep in the process of developing our new interactive sustainability communications update, which isn’t ready yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go ahead and start a dialogue with you on the value of sustainability reporting.

So, please jump in and tell us what you think: are Corporate Sustainability Reports valuable? Why do you read these reports? Do you read them? How can we have a dialogue about our sustainability progress? What was the most honest and transparent sustainability report you’ve read? Have you ever read a report that has affected your choices?

Interface has a strong history of transparency and we’ll continue to publicly update our sustainability progress – celebrating our progress and sharing our challenges – throughout our journey to Mission Zero. With your insights, we’ll be able to share our message in a way that is relevant to you.

- Lindsay James, Director of Strategic Sustainability at InterfaceFLOR