Sustainability Report Writing for ECOM Group

ECOM is a global agricultural commodity merchant and supply chain business, with operations spanning coffee, cocoa, cotton and other agricultural products. Working across major producing origins and international markets, the Group connects producers with customers through trading, sourcing, processing and supply chain services.

I was commissioned to support ECOM with two major reporting projects: its 2025 Group Sustainability Report and its 2025 Cocoa Sustainability Report. The work involved developing a substantial body of source material into clear, evidence-led reporting that communicates ECOM’s sustainability strategy, activities and progress to an international audience.

Building a Group-wide sustainability narrative

The Group Sustainability Report had to bring together activity from across a large international organisation within a coherent narrative.

Resilience provided a loose theme for the report, connecting ECOM’s environmental and social priorities with the wider pressures facing agricultural supply chains. My role was to develop this narrative across the report and create stronger connections between ECOM’s sustainability priorities and its wider business strategy.

The source material covered a broad range of subjects, from responsible sourcing and climate to human rights, producer livelihoods and governance. I developed and refined this material to reduce repetition, draw out the strongest evidence and create a more consistent account of progress across the Group.

The resulting copy placed sustainability activity within its wider commercial and operational context, connecting long-term environmental and social priorities with the realities of managing complex global supply chains.

Developing the Cocoa Sustainability Report

Alongside the Group report, I worked on ECOM’s dedicated Cocoa Sustainability Report, which provided a more focused account of the environmental and social issues affecting cocoa supply chains.

The subject matter included areas such as traceability, deforestation, producer livelihoods, child labour, gender equity and climate adaptation. These issues required a careful balance between explaining the scale of the challenges and communicating the work taking place in response.

My role was to turn detailed technical and operational material into accessible reporting for a broader stakeholder audience. This involved establishing a clear narrative across sections, giving readers sufficient context and using evidence, performance data and case studies to demonstrate progress.

The report retained the nuance of the source material without becoming overly technical, helping communicate complex sustainability programmes in a credible and accessible way.

Creating consistency across complex source material

Both reports drew on information from different teams, regions and areas of technical expertise. A significant part of the work involved bringing this material together into a consistent reporting voice.

I edited and developed contributions to improve structure, reduce jargon and remove generic corporate language. Case studies were refined to focus more closely on the activity taking place and its significance, helping connect Group-level commitments with practical examples from across ECOM’s operations.

Sensitive subjects required particular care. The report had to acknowledge ongoing challenges, communicate progress accurately and avoid overstating outcomes. This meant keeping the writing grounded in available evidence and presenting sustainability as an ongoing area of business activity.

Across both publications, the aim was to create reports that remained technically credible for specialist readers while being accessible to customers, partners and other stakeholders.

Outcome

The completed reports provide ECOM with two complementary accounts of its sustainability work. The Group Sustainability Report brings together activity from across the international business within a unified narrative, connecting environmental and social priorities with ECOM’s wider strategy and operations.

The Cocoa Sustainability Report provides greater depth on one of ECOM’s core commodities, communicating complex environmental and social issues alongside the work taking place across its cocoa supply chains.

Together, the reports turn a substantial body of technical and operational information into structured, accessible corporate reporting, giving stakeholders a clearer account of ECOM’s priorities, activities and progress.

Please get in touch to see examples of this work.