But here’s the catch: getting it right isn’t always easy. A poorly translated or incomplete sustainability report can lead to non-compliance, confusion and eroded trust – not what you want when building global credibility. Enter Sandberg, your trusted language partner. We understand that clear, concise and consistent communication across multiple languages is key to keeping your brand’s reputation intact.

In this article, we’ll explore why ESG reporting matters, the challenges of translating it, and how partnering with an expert like Sandberg can make all the difference. Ready to take your sustainability reporting to the next level? Let’s dive in!

The evolution of sustainability reporting

Sustainability reporting has come a long way since the , laying the foundations for a global standard in corporate transparency. Fast forward to 2014, and the was introduced, focusing on sustainability and social responsibility. Now, with the , more businesses than ever will be required to produce sustainability reports, shining a brighter spotlight on data quality and amping up scrutiny on sustainable practices.

What makes sustainability reporting so important? It isn’t just about adhering to regulations – it’s your opportunity to highlight your company’s eco-friendly initiatives, earn trust, and attract like-minded customers and investors who care about the planet.

However, ESG reporting isn’t without its challenges. , which can have significant consequences, including consumer distrust, regulatory scrutiny, and a delay in genuine sustainability progress, is a major potential consequence for those who lack transparency in their sustainability reporting.

For example, in 2015, German car manufacturer Volkswagen was involved in a massive greenwashing scandal known as . The company falsely marketed its diesel vehicles as low-emission and environmentally friendly, even though they were equipped with software designed to cheat emissions tests. This deception not only damaged Volkswagen’s reputation but also led to costly lawsuits, fines and a loss of consumer trust.

Greenwashing can mislead consumers into making eco-friendly choices based on false information, ultimately undermining efforts to combat climate change. Additionally, meeting only the bare minimum standards, and the lack of consistent measurement metrics can also make sustainability reporting a tough task to get right.

Translation plays a crucial role here, ensuring your sustainability message reaches international audiences with precision and clarity by reducing the risk of miscommunications, or worse still, legal complications that could put your entire organisation at risk.

Balancing consistency, culture and compliance in sustainability reporting

For successful ESG translation, consistency is the name of the game. The world of sustainability is rich with terms like “net zero”, “greenwashing” and “carbon footprint” that can vary in meaning and nuance across languages and cultures. Maintaining terminology consistency ensures your message stays comprehensible and credible, no matter where it’s read.

But it’s not just about the words themselves; cultural accuracy plays a major role too. A term that works in one market could be confusing or even misleading in another. For example, the often interchangeably used terms “carbon neutral”, “carbon zero”, “carbon negative” and “net zero” all carry different definitions yet can be used in similar or identical contexts to demonstrate commitment to the climate.

Then there’s the issue of compliance – a critical piece of the ESG puzzle. Different regions have different rules and regulations, and failing to navigate them properly could expose your company to legal risks – see “顿颈别蝉别濒驳补迟别”. Whether you’re dealing with the EU’s CSRD or other local mandates, thoroughly understanding these regional differences is paramount to remaining compliant.

There are numerous potential cases where differences in terminology and local regulations may obscure meaning in certain markets:

“厂耻蝉迟补颈苍补产濒别”

• English-speaking markets: In many English-speaking countries, sustainable may refer to practices that are ecologically sound, but it can often be used in vague or broad terms without strict criteria.
• French-speaking markets: The French term “durable” is similarly used, but there’s often more focus on long-term environmental and social impacts, including labour practices, which could cause misunderstandings if not clearly explained.

“贰肠辞-蹿谤颈别苍诲濒测”

• English-speaking markets: In many English-speaking countries, eco-friendly is commonly used to describe products that have a reduced environmental impact, though it can sometimes be vague or unverified.
• German-speaking markets: The term “umweltfreundlich” is understood in Germany, but without clear certifications or metrics it could be seen as a marketing buzzword. Consumers in Germany may expect detailed evidence or certifications, such as Blauer Engel or EU Ecolabel, to back up such claims.

“翱谤驳补苍颈肠”

• English-speaking markets: In countries like the US or the UK, organic typically refers to products grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilisers, often backed by certification labels like USDA Organic or EU Organic.
• Chinese-speaking markets: In China, the term “有机 (yǒujī)” also refers to organic products, but due to limited regulation and certification enforcement, products might be marketed as organic without meeting stringent standards, potentially misleading consumers.

Sandberg’s approach to sustainability reporting translation

With ESG and the nuances of sustainability always evolving, new terms and concepts are constantly emerging. That’s why it’s vital to partner with linguistic experts who ensure your reports are accurate, culturally aligned and legally compliant, helping you communicate your sustainability efforts effectively to a wider audience.

Here at Sandberg, we’re no strangers to translating complex content across industries. With a proven track record working with clients in consulting, logistics, energy, technology and healthcare, we’ve got the expertise to handle it all. But sustainability? It’s woven into our Nordic DNA.

From energy usage data and renewable data sourcing reports, policies for human rights and labour practices, to codes of ethics and business conduct and risk management and internal audit reports, our qualified experts are at your disposal.

We know that sustainability isn’t just about compliance, though – it’s about building trust and showing the world your commitment to positive change. That’s why our team of subject-matter experts and specialised translators ensures your sustainability reporting resonates with global audiences, while staying true to both the technical details and cultural nuances that really matter, and with data safeguarding always at the forefront. Our seamless tech integration methods – TMs, termbases and so on – ensure consistency, accuracy, and ultimately save you time and money whilst maximising efficiency and productivity.

Best practices for successful sustainability reporting

Building your stakeholders’ trust starts with coherent, multilingual content that aligns with your brand’s commitment to transparency and responsibility. Here’s how to get it right:

• Involve professional translators with ESG reporting expertise early in the process to avoid missteps or oversights.
• Partner with a reputable language services provider that combines human expertise with tools like TMs and termbases for efficiency and compliance.
• Collaborate with in-country experts for cultural validation, ensuring your message lands just right.
• Keep your content up to date – a frequent, ongoing partnership with Sandberg ensures you stay at the forefront of change and we build a deep understanding of your content.

From seed to success: Let’s cultivate your sustainability message

The CSRD is here, and it’s shaking up the world of sustainability reporting. As companies face more intricate and standardised requirements, one thing is clear: sustainability reporting is no longer just a trend – it’s the new business norm. Businesses that rise to the occasion will bolster their stakeholder relationships and stand out in the marketplace, leaving competitors green with envy.

Of course, the hurdles we mentioned – like greenwashing, inconsistent metrics and ever-evolving terminology – aren’t going anywhere. But with the right strategy, your reports can rise above the noise and truly make an impact. That’s where we come in. We’ve got the Nordic precision and expertise to ensure your sustainability message isn’t just compliant, but compelling.

Ready for your sustainability reporting to flourish and stand out? Get in touch with us today or browse our services to see how we can help you nurture your success and stay ahead of the curve and competition.

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There are two main contributors to my colleague’s incredulity. The first one is the Nordic mentality. The second is the nature of the translation industry.

Janteloven (the Law of Jante) is an idea of equality where individuals don’t think themselves as being any better than the rest of the community. You don’t consider yourself any lesser either, but you try to see other people’s value as equal to your own. In the Nordic workplace, this mentality creates a culture where trust and respect do not have to be earned. I place substantial trust in each of my colleagues as a default. They can lose my trust, but they don’t initially have to jump through hoops to earn it.

This is different from the UK company culture, which is characterised by a distinct hierarchy.?The polite and indirect communication style of British managers can disguise the fact that they are the sole decision makers at their company. In a earlier this year, a quarter of the UK employees interviewed said they had left a job because of a lack of trust in their workplace.

My British management peers might still have their junior employees make them a cup of tea, whereas I am sometimes found at the sink of our office kitchen cleaning dirty cups so that the others don’t have to. For a Nordic professional, the CEO rolling up their sleeves is an indication of the high level of mutual respect between colleagues, regardless of their role in the organisation. Courtesy across the levels of hierarchy makes the office atmosphere more relaxed and minimises power games and the need for office politics.

The translation community is characterised by a similar disregard for hierarchy in its interactions and collaboration. Size does not always matter in our industry since specialisation lends importance to the smaller players. The client/subcontractor roles may alternate and be reversed in the complex supply chains. The need for innovation drives language companies into R&D partnerships and technical alliances. Business is still based on personal contacts and recommendations through networks.

I was contemplating these characteristics when planning STP’s campaign to support Translators without Borders in their holiday fundraising appeal this month.

STP has been a corporate sponsor of this charity for the past seven years. The focus of their work is to provide people with access to vital knowledge in their language. This involves translating for non-profit organisations in the areas of crisis relief, health and education, and training new translators in under-resourced languages.

STP is registered with Translators without Borders (TWB) as a reviewer and translation provider for the Nordic languages, but our languages are not the ones they need most. We only get to donate a few hours of linguistic and project management work every other month. Yet we cherish opportunities to raise awareness of why language matters in humanitarian work.

To this end, the members of the STP team have cycled through Hampshire as a part of TextPartners’ European tour (Operations Manager Susan Hoare), completed the Great South Run (Project Manager Emma Tamlyn) and had their hair dyed (Executive Chairman Jesper Sandberg). I myself walked around with “Language matters” tattooed on my back for two months last year.

To support this year’s holiday fundraising, we have set up a with a promise from the senior members of our management team to perform embarrassing dares for publication online as we hit certain milestones.

Rosie Marteau, TWB Senior Development Officer commented: “TWB is privileged to have the support of its colleagues in the commercial language industry, including STP who have been steadfast allies of our work for many years”.

“In many ways we are two sides of the same coin; just as LSPs deliver translation services for corporate clients and brands, we support global charities and small local NGOs alike to ensure their life-saving information is in a format and language that people can understand, at times of humanitarian crisis. We understand each others’ work, and that makes us a natural fit for CSR partnerships such as STP’s sponsorship”.

The work of Translators without Borders is of course serious, and it deserves to be supported even without silly dares like ours. But in the spirit of Janteloven, we wanted to muck in, add a little extra incentive and a touch of Christmas cheer to . We hope you enjoy!

To read more about the work of Translators without Borders, visit

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TWB is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to remove the language barriers that hinder critical humanitarian efforts across the world.

It provides translations for non-profit organisations in the areas of crisis relief, health and education. It also trains translators and interpreters in the language of crisis-affected countries and helps translate and disseminate messages before crises occur.

Sue, who is also a freelance translator for STP, spoke about the important work TWB does around the world and its vital role in translating for victims of the Grenfell fire disaster in London.

She also thanked STP for donating its time and translation resources to helping integrate refugees into Europe during the ongoing refugee crisis.

‘’There aren’t many Nordic translators available to us, so when STP volunteered its services, we were very grateful.’’

‘’We simply couldn’t do the work we do without the volunteers we have, but we always need more. Currently, we have a very urgent need for professional and experienced English to Swedish translators,’’ she said.

Many of STP’s in-house staff attended Sue’s talk at the HQ and staff working at STP’s other locations listened in via Webinar.

If you would like to volunteer your translation expertise, or to sponsor TWB’s important humanitarian work, visit their website for more information.

Photo: STP’s Quality and Training Manager, Raisa McNab, accepts a token of thanks from TWB ambassador, Sue Fortescue.

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The from the global refugee crisis, and the stories of human suffering behind them, are almost beyond comprehension.

And while the situation stirs deep sadness and sympathy in most observers, its unfathomable scale creates a feeling of powerlessness in many of those who long to help.

It’s a feeling we’ve all known at STP. So when Translators without Borders (TWB) contacted us with an urgent project involving the Nordic languages, and a chance to contribute directly to the crisis response, we were only too glad to volunteer our support.

A call for help

TWB is a US-registered non-profit that gives the world’s most vulnerable people access to vital knowledge in a language they can understand.

The group connects aid organisations with a professional network of volunteer translators, helping them to build local-language translation capacity and remove language barriers.

As part of its response to the ongoing crisis, TWB is working with UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, to educate host communities in the Nordic and Baltic countries about the needs and experiences of incoming refugees.

An information website is being created to support those efforts, with 7,000 words of English content needing to be translated into Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish, among other languages.

TWB’s regular Nordic volunteers, however, were at full capacity in mid-November, when the translation work needed to start.

And with no time to source and screen new linguists on its own, the organisation needed an urgent solution from elsewhere.

The Nordic network responds

We received TWB’s request for help on the morning of 11 November. By the end of the day, our response was already taking shape.

The winter edition of our company newsletter, scheduled for late November, was in production at the time. So our first move was to replace our usual news round-up with a special appeal on TWB’s behalf.

This, we hoped, would inspire our Nordic freelancers to volunteer for this or future projects. And, with the newsletter going out to 4,300 subscribers, it would at least ensure good exposure for TWB’s cause.

Meanwhile, Raisa McNab, from our senior management team, wrote directly to a selection of our preferred Nordic freelancers, urging them to give whatever time they could spare to TWB.

Translators in our preferred category, like all our linguists, comply with the qualification and competence requirements of the ISO 17100 translation quality standard.

But they also translate at least 100,000 words per year to our demanding requirements – thereby proving their skill and trustworthiness.

With this in mind, TWB agreed that our tried-and-tested freelancers – as well as our similarly qualified in-house linguists – could work on the project without any extra screening.

This would allow the organisation to bypass its usual recruitment process and potentially shave weeks off the project’s turnaround time.

Special delivery

The response was swift and heart-warming, with 35 of our preferred freelance translators pledging time and support to TWB’s project.

With our in-house linguists also eager to contribute, it meant that we were able to cover all 28,000 words of Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish, manage the project ourselves – and deliver to TWB in time for Christmas.

Our preferred Icelandic partners, meanwhile, have pledged their full internal capacity to the project. Working directly with TWB, they will provide most of the remaining seven thousand words of Icelandic content.

Kathy Walters, a member of STP’s 25-strong project management team, took charge of setting up the job, splitting the work between volunteers and managing the translation process through to delivery.

For Kathy, the work offered a break from the commercial norm, and a chance to use her skills for the good of those most in need. “It’s been great to contribute something positive,” she said.

“Nobody wants to have to flee their home and seek shelter thousands of miles away, and I hope the content we’ve translated will help others to understand the desperate situation these people are in.

“I’m really grateful that STP chose to donate in-house time to the project at such a busy time of year.”

Trine Poulsen, one of our Danish in-house translators who worked on the project, was similarly thankful for the opportunity to support the work of TWB.

“The content of the job itself was hard and emotional to read,” she said, “as it relates to innocent people affected by war.

“But it feels good to have been able to translate something that can hopefully make a small but real difference to these people’s lives.”

Minna Helminen, from STP’s Finnish in-house team, added: “I believe that translation – the act of bringing a message to someone in their mother tongue – is a powerful tool in the fight against miscommunication, misrepresentation and prejudice.

“I’m proud to work for a company that supports an organisation like Translators without Borders, and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the invaluable work that UNHCR does every day.”

Every word counts

TWB translates over eight million words each year, which makes this particular project a mere speck in the organisation’s annual output.

Nonetheless, every translated piece of humanitarian information – no matter how small – makes a positive difference. And every new volunteer gives TWB the capacity to do even more of its essential work.

“With new volunteers on board we can divide tasks between more people, giving volunteers the option to take on the volume of work that suits them,” said Amy Rose McGovern, director of external affairs at TWB.

She added: “Having a trusted partner such as STP assist us with work for non-profit partners is one of the most valuable kinds of support we can get.”

“Knowing that professional, reliable translators are there to help on important projects such as this means we can be sure of getting the job done – and doing it well.”

To read more about the work of Translators without Borders, and to register as a volunteer, visit

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gives people access to vital, often life-saving, information in their own language. It does this by connecting non-profit organisations with a community of professional translators, building local language translation capacity and raising awareness of language barriers. Since 2011, TWB has translated over 30 million words in over 150 languages in the areas of crisis relief, health and education.

The organisation has responded to recent humanitarian crises by using its Words of Relief model, working with partners to provide vital information in the appropriate languages to those affected by the European refugee crisis, the Ebola crisis and the Nepal earthquake. Words of Relief ensures better communications with communities when crisis response aid workers and affected populations do not speak the same tongue.

The financial support provided by STP and other sponsors is critical to sustaining and expanding TWB’s operations. “In the course of our work, we’ve become aware of a huge need for people in poor countries to be able to access global knowledge in their own language,” said Aimee Ansari, Executive Director of Translators without Borders.

“According to UNICEF more people die from lack of knowledge than from diseases. People in poor countries are simply unable to access global knowledge in a language they understand. Mobile technology may be bringing more people information, but we still need to bridge the ‘language last mile’. Translators without Borders is delivering this much-needed help through myriad tools and programs so that more people will be able to access the knowledge they need in a language they understand.”

Commenting on the renewal of STP’s bronze sponsorship, Jesper Sandberg, the company’s executive chairman, said: “We started supporting the work of TWB after the AMTA conference in Denver in October 2010, where we met users of translation services in less commercial settings than those STP usually encounters.”

“To be reminded of how diplomats, intelligence agencies and aid workers rely on translations when making life-or-death decisions, or how refugees end up living in a vacuum due to the lack of appropriate interpreters, really puts our daily commercial realities into a humanitarian perspective. We are therefore pleased to continue to be involved in sustaining and growing Translators without Borders, which has made great progress in recent years in the volume of translations handled.”

Aimee Ansari added: “We are incredibly grateful to STP for this assistance, which is critical to enable us to support more humanitarian work around the globe.”

About Translators without Borders

Translators without Borders envisions a world where knowledge knows no language barriers. The US-based non-profit provides people access to vital knowledge in their language by partnering with humanitarian organizations. Originally founded in 1993 in France as Traducteurs sans Frontières (now its sister organization), Translators without Borders translates more than five million words per year. In 2012, the organization established a Healthcare Translator Training Center in Nairobi, Kenya. For more information and to volunteer or donate, please visit the TWB or follow them on or .

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