In 1999, Buzzword helped Ford Motor Company make a successful transition from environmental to triple bottom line reporting. Since then, BuzzWord has provided the content for all Ford Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability reports.

These reports have been important tools for dialogue and engagement with diverse stakeholders and have supported development of Ford’s sustainability strategy and goals. In 2005, BuzzWord developed and carried out a materiality analysis that helped refocus Ford’s reporting on a set of key material issues.

Ford has maintained its commitment to reporting through good times and bad. Its reporting has helped the company forge strong relationships with stakeholders, develop a more sustainable business model and reinvent itself as a successful global automaker that leads in fuel economy, safety and innovation.

Ford was a pilot tester of the original GRI Guidelines; reported in accordance with the 2002 Guidelines and then to the GRI G3 Guidelines, with the most recent report at a GRI-checked A level.

From 2003 to 2006, BuzzWord helped this integrated aluminium company develop its sustainability strategy, including a vision and goals, performance indicators and internal and external stakeholder engagement. Buzzword also provided editorial advice and input to Alcan’s first three subsequent sustainability reports, helping the company meet the challenges of reporting on diverse and decentralized businesses.

Alcan’s reporting received several awards, for example, the 2004 report awarded the “Excellence in Sustainable Development Reporting” award by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA).

Calvert Group Limited is a small (200 person) firm with outsize sustainability influence due to its socially responsible investment approach and advocacy. BuzzWord helped CGL analyze and articulate the nature of its sustainability impacts, influence, and performance in its 2006/07 report. Buzzword also carried out a materiality analysis to help form the report content and helped CGL achieve a GRI-checked A application level.

Darden Restaurants Inc., the parent company of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Capital Grille, and Seasons 52 is a company with complex sustainability issues ranging from sourcing sustainable seafood to ensuring food safety. It also has tremendous influence as the employer of 180,000 people in the United States and Canada.

BuzzWord developed the content for Darden’s first sustainability report in an innovative Web-based format that provides quick “vignettes” about its major issues backed up by “deep dive” white papers.

As one of the smaller companies in the competitive and sometimes-controversial pharmaceutical industry, candor and disclosure are keys to helping Lilly building trust with stakeholders. BuzzWord has worked since 2005 to help Lilly develop and implement print-, pdf-, and web-based reporting strategies that build on its leadership in transparency around key industry practices. In 2010, we worked with Lilly to develop its first UN Global Compact Communication on Progress, which has been recognized as a model.

In 2008, BuzzWord developed the content for Kellogg’s first Corporate Responsibility Report, which laid out the company’s corporate responsibility strategy and performance. BuzzWord helped Kellogg build on analysis of its most material issues to focus its reporting on the issues most important to the food iindustry, while meeting the demands of GRI reporting.

Smithfield Foods sought BuzzWord’s help in improving its Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting. Using the GRI G3 framework, BuzzWordReporting strategy, GRI analysis and content development for 2007/08 to 2009/10 Corporate Social Responsibility Reports and materiality analysis for 2009/10 report.

BuzzWord developed Waste Management, Inc.’s 2010 Sustainability Report, which tells the story of the company’s evolution from a company that collected and disposed of waste to one that helps its customers recover value from the waste stream.

Using a unique three-books-in-one format, the report provides thorough discussion of Waste Management’s approach to operating in a safe and environmentally sound manner and progresses through to a look at the company’s future direction.

White Memorial Medical Center is a large non-profit community hospital serving disadvantaged neighbourhoods of east Los Angeles. In the mid-2000s, WMMC launched a social responsibility program to better respond to and communicate with its diverse stakeholders. WMMC turned to BuzzWord to advise on its social responsibility strategy and reporting strategy and develop content for its first (2005) Social Responsibility Report. This report was the first in the hospital sector and one of the few produced by a non-profit organization.