For the past 12 years, Jennifer Thomas-Larmer has worked with BuzzWord, a network of writers and consultants with expertise in corporate sustainability strategy and reporting. She’s written sustainability and corporate responsibility reports for multinational companies, including consumer-facing brands such as Nike, Ford, and Kellogg, as well as business-to-business firms such as Novelis, Bunge, Waste Management, Hess, and Southwestern Energy.

“Sustainability reports are akin to corporate financial reports, except they focus on the ‘people’ and ‘planet’ legs of the sustainability stool more than ‘profit,’” Thomas-Larmer said. BuzzWord uses internationally recognized standards – primarily those developed by the Global Reporting Initiative – for determining report content. The reports cover everything from environmental impacts to human rights issues in the supply chain to workforce diversity and more. Thomas-Larmer’s job is to make sure each report tells the company’s story in an authentic, transparent, and credible way.

“Nike’s Sustainable Business reports have been particularly fun ones to write, because the company is so committed to environmental and social sustainability,” she said. “Also, Nike is willing to push the boundaries of transparency and discuss difficult issues openly and honestly.” In these reports, Thomas-Larmer has covered Nike’s groundbreaking environmental footprinting process: The company has developed sophisticated scoring tools and indices that help them determine the environmental impacts of every single product ­– as well as every material that goes into the product.

“Back at SNRE I never envisioned myself working with huge multinational companies,” Thomas-Larmer said. “But the fact is that the actions and decisions of these companies have tremendous impact on our planet. And if they are reporting on those impacts publicly, they want to show progress year-over-year. The process of measuring and reporting on key issues inevitably means those issues get additional attention, which often means reducing those impacts over time.”