Waggener Edstrom Releases Fifth Annual Corporate Citizenship Report
Report is company's most interactive yet, first-ever integrated reporting experience
Today, we are excited to announce the publication of Waggener Edstrom’s fifth annual Corporate Citizenship report, our first integrated report with our most interactive user-experience yet. With this report, we proudly outline the priorities that sustain our daily business, our plans for the future and the strides we have made towards sustainable and responsible operations.
As Waggener Edstrom Worldwide CEO & Founder Melissa Waggener Zorkin is fond of saying: as an independent company, we get to chart our own course. And that purposeful independence allows and inspires our employees and our agency to drive forward WE’s Corporate Citizenship year after year, making each new report a testament to our progress as we work to grow our agency’s positive impact on our clients, employees and communities. And we don’t underestimate how powerful defining impact can be. One of the goals we’ve set for ourselves in the coming year is to better define social impact metrics—that is, how our citizenship investments make a difference in peoples’ lives.
Here are some highlights from our 2012 report:
- Integrity & Human Rights: We externally published our Code of Conduct, the agency’s set of expectations for the way we conduct business as well as the standards of behavior for our people, to ensure consistent and uncompromising integrity. And, as a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact, we have integrated our communication on progress to the UN’s ten principles into our annual report to help tell a more thorough story.
- Influence, Growth & Expansion: New offices opened in Geneva, Switzerland as well as Bengaluru and Delhi, India. In addition, WE acquired Patzer PR in Germany and purchased a minority stake in Shout Communications in South Korea. In 2012, the agency’s global revenue was $118.6 million.
- People & Community: We exceeded our annual 1 percent community giving target. Over 650 employees used some of their 16-hour volunteer benefit in 2012, totaling more than 5,000 hours and positively impacting the lives of more than 10,000 people. We partnered with more than 150 charitable organizations to implement and support programs.
- Operations & Environment: The agency’s 2012 carbon footprint is down 3 percent over the 2008 baseline. However, we did fall short of our goal to reduce our carbon footprint year-over-year from 2011 to 2012, with the company’s carbon emissions increasing by 6 percent in 2012 from 2011 levels. This is largely due to year-over-year increases in headcount and changes to commuting habits.
We want to know how people think we’re performing and what we could be doing better. Please take a moment to share your feedback.
