This year’s climber in the design category of this year's Annual Report Rating is our corporate member Givaudan! We asked Dominique Marolleau – she heads the team for sustainability and annual reporting – about her success. In the interview, she gives an insight into the main features and changes of the annual report and explains what the motto "Committed to Growth, with Purpose" means.
with Dominique Marolleau
Ms. Marolleau, congratulations on being awarded “The rising star of the year” in the Design category at this year’s Annual Report Rating. What does this award mean to you?
Receiving this award is a pleasing recognition of our continuing efforts to create a report that people enjoy reading. Corporate reporting has become more complex, due in part to the increasing number of regulations as well as the rise in different reporting frameworks available to companies. When Givaudan first decided to embark on the journey to integrated reporting we saw it as a way to help readers navigate through our reports and find the information that matters most to them. Each year, we review our past reports and ask ourselves how we can present the information differently, how to build on what worked well and how to progress in the areas we feel need improvement.
You have been working in Givaudan’s Corporate Communications for several years. What are the main characteristics of the current Integrated Annual Report?
The 2019 Integrated Annual Report brought sustainability even further into focus in the main narrative. For example, the business strategy targets and progress sit next to the sustainability approach targets and progress. This was the first time we had such a double-page spread which helped readers quickly understand the full story.
We also made sure that all main sustainability topics were in the integrated report and that the “peripheral” reports were aimed at specific target audiences. The holistic story of our value creation was told in the integrated report, our sustainability highlights packaged our sustainability efforts around the pillars of “A Sense of Tomorrow” (our former sustainability approach), and for in-depth information on our sustainability efforts we created a report that followed the GRI index for clear and easy access.
In terms of storytelling, we used a people-oriented focus to our success stories. Three main overarching stories were written from the point of view of an employee and were longer than we had written in the past. And there was greater focus on stories and examples of our work along with the more technical reporting – a strong combination.
Givaudan recently announced its strategy 2025: “Committed to Growth, with Purpose.” How will this new strategy impact Givaudan’s future annual report?
Our 2025 strategy is derived from our purpose of “creating for happier, healthier lives with love for nature” and our future reports will highlight our progress during these five years and narrate how we deliver sustainable value creation for all our stakeholders. Our current sustainability approach, called “A Sense of Tomorrow”, will be phased out as our sustainability commitments are unified with our purpose ambitions. It will be easy to track our progress against our targets in the reports and our sustainability narrative will be embedded in – and weaved into – the stories and the reporting narrative.
One of the results of the Corporate Reporting Monitor 2020 was that sustainability nowadays is an integral part of the strategic agenda. How do you see this development within Givaudan?
The sustainability agenda is very important to Givaudan, and over the last five years our aim has been to deliver responsible growth and shared success for our shareholders, our customers and all our key stakeholders. I invite readers to look at our 2020 Integrated Annual Report for the stories on how we delivered on this ambition.
For the next five-year strategy cycle, we will continue to deliver sustainable value creation that benefits all. “Committed to Growth, with Purpose” is our intention to deliver growth in partnership with our customers through creating inspiring products for happier, healthier lives and having a positive impact on nature, people and communities, whilst achieving the ambitious financial targets.
And what does this mean for our reporting? Each year we will strengthen our reporting suite, ensuring a holistic view of our influence and impacts on the economy, the environment and society. Our sustainability narrative and commitments are not separate from our overall approach but are woven into our business model and our strategy.
You have helped shape Givaudan’s annual report for some years. What in your personal view have been the major changes in this time?
The major change has been in offering a holistic explanation of the value we create. Each year we have focused on the best ways of presenting both financial and non-financial performance, and this has resulted in the move to a model of close collaboration and co-creation.
For 2020, instead of separate teams on the annual report and the sustainability report, we have just one team working across the full reporting suite. This means we co-create the outlines of the reports and work towards the same publication deadlines, collaborating with the same internal experts for content and so on. This highlights the cross-functional nature of our initiatives, promotes integration and demonstrates the interconnectedness that is normal throughout the business.
Dominique Marolleau joined Givaudan in 2010 and has held several responsibilities within the corporate communications department. She has led the annual report project since 2015 and in 2020 took on the responsibility of leading one team for sustainability and corporate reporting. Dominique holds a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in Canada and a Masters from IMHI in France.