Pepsico: Reporting restrictions

Choice of format limits the value to readers of a report.

The Site

Pepsico, the US-based food and drinks giant, has published its latest sustainability report online in a format that limits its readability and usability.

Pepsico’s Corporate Sustainability Report, Performance With Purpose, was ‘released’ on its website on 17 December in PDF only. Interested readers can access the 87-page document in full or by chapter from an index page within the Citizenship section of the site.

Movement between pages in the report is possible using the thumbnail Pages index and Bookmarks tabs in the PDF display or its forward/back arrows, but not from within the document. Both the main contents list and the Global Reporting Initiative index, which maps the reporting system’s indicators against report content, are static (not hyperlinked) and neither is aligned for cross-referencing with the numbering sequence in the PDF Pages index. For example, the main index lists the GRI section as starting on page 81, whereas its Pages reference is 83; and the GRI reference for the CEO’s statement is page 3, while in Pages it is number 5. The report is not covered by the site search engine.

The Takeaway

Pepsico’s claim that Performance With Purpose is an online report may be true in the sense that it has been published on its website, but the way it has been produced shows little appreciation of the possibilities inherent in the web for making the contents of the report more readily available. Worse, it has been done with a lack of attention to basic detail – the misalignment of page numbering – that reinforces the impression that the user experience has had little if any consideration.

The decision to publish only in PDF is not unusual but is becoming rarer; Pepsico makes a good case for why the option is second-best for the reader or information seeker. Navigation is more cumbersome than from web pages, more effort is required from users to find or cross-reference information, and there’s a lack of integration with other material on the site and with functionality such as search. Much of this can be alleviated with the latest generation of professional PDF makers and enhanced search functionality, but at the end of the day that is only playing catch up with the web.

First published on 08 January, 2008