IBM Impact
2022
New website for IBM's inaugural Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework and report, featuring IBM's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
context
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In an era where an increasingly sustainability-conscious public begins to hold companies accountable for "greenwashing"—talking the talk about their sustainability commitments without taking clear action—it's more important than ever for companies to substantiate commitments to impact with results.
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While not new, Environmental, Social, and governance (ESG) programs and reporting have become increasingly popular as a data-driven mechanism for companies to make—and pursue—goals related to sustainability.
Whether through supply chain transparency, ethical materials sourcing, carbon offset, or workplace diversity and inclusion initiatives, audiences are now able to turn to a company's ESG report to track progress on sustainability commitments. Reporting standards such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) are just two systems that companies can use to benchmark and showcase their ESG metrics to the world.
the challenge
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In early 2022, the ESG and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) teams at IBM approached us to create IBM's first-ever ESG website. They wanted one central place to house their inaugural ESG report, showcase key initiatives and stories, host key reports for investors and analysts, and demonstrate progress toward their commitments.
Their Corporate Responsibility site, ibm.org, was primarily an editorial site geared towards storytelling as opposed to reporting. In addition, it existed on a separate architecture from ibm.com, which could imply a distinction between core IBM activities and IBM's CSR initiatives.
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They hoped to create a brand-new site that would serve as a one-stop-shop for their audiences—investors, analysts, potential employees, and curious members of the general public—to engage with their ESG reports, impact commitments, CSR initiatives, and progress to date.
how we worked
We led this project from initial discovery and content strategy through development and implementation. The project included a thorough content audit, strategy, and information architecture (then design and development) for each page of the new site, IBM Impact.
I guided content strategy sessions with our client to uncover our key objectives, audiences, and messages. Noting the team's internal capacity for regular site updates, we prioritized a relatively static site with minimal—but poignant—storytelling in order to emphasize IBM's measurable progress, and drive traffic toward their groundbreaking ESG report.
the results
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Once we concluded our strategy sessions and a comprehensive content audit, we crafted a digital content strategy and content mockups to bring their vision to life across a new site. For this project, which saw heavy involvement from IBM's current CEO, we worked closely with dozens of stakeholders for eight months to bring their vision to life. The site officially launched after a four-month content, design, and development process, with the release of the inaugural ESG report. Over the next four months, we adapted dozens of webpages from ibm.org to the new design and content standards of the new site, ibm.com/impact.
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At the project's conclusion, we phased out ibm.org completely, and introduced IBM's streamlined, refreshed ESG & CSR presence to the world.
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(View the live site here)
