Last month, a survey of corporate annual reports found companies lacking in outlining their governance practices. This week, in Turin, Italy, the Lundquist CSR Online Awards examined the presence of corporate sustainability reporting on corporate websites. It found that stakeholder engagement with CSR remains low.

The CSR Online Awards, which rate European companies’ websites for CSR reporting and stakeholder engagement, assessed around 250 companies on 68 criteria. British companies have topped the European tables for CSR reporting. Centrica, Unilever and SABMiller all placed in the top five in the survey.

Overall, the Europe 100 ranking dropped 5.8 points from last years score of 50 due to more stringent standards regarding user expectations. The websites surveyed were lacking compared to last year’s lot in navigability, usability and visual communications.

“Many companies are stuck in ‘cut-and-paste’ mode of communications in which the online CSR presence is dealt with as an after-thought, a space to be filled with text and tables recycled from ‘official’ reports and documents,” James Osborne, head of CSR at Lundquist, says.“Stakeholders notice this static, disclosure-driven approach to communications and it impinges on their opinions of companies. Our vision is for the internet to be not just an after-thought but a strategic lever for corporate responsibility an integral part of the CSR strategy.”

Only 10% of companies give a voice to stakeholders regarding CSR but over half effectively communicate their CSR targets and positions.