A2A turns the colour of sustainability
In harmony with the company’s new Web Identity, the A2A Sustainability Report stems from the need to provide users with a helpful and intuitive tool for understanding Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) results and objectives, without having to give up the features specific to A2A.
A2A’s need was fundamentally to make the print version of the report “talk” maintaining its parallelism, but at the same time differentiating reading “routes” based on the type of user.
Whence the introduction of (a) a search engine for GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), addressed to an audience of “experts”, and of (b) a “route based on stakeholders”, which instead targets the parties involved in corporate value-generation processes.
From Print to Web
The elements of continuity with the print version are readily evident also in the functionalities of the site, which features:
- A perfect match with the print version in terms of pagination
- Symmetrical utilization of the colour schemes and claims identifying the environmental, social and economic areas of responsibility
- Use of key concepts associated with the contents in order to sum up their substance.
It is not, however, the digital duplication of a print product. The added value desired for this web tool consists of the possibility of managing contents, customizing them, thanks to:
- Utilization of interactive highlights associated with each area
- Use of a tag cloud that permits transversal conceptual browsing of the site, as an alternative to the more classic menu
- A battery of interactive tools like “take note” and “add to basket”.
Three Browsing Levels
A2A has intentionally put the accent on the different browsing routes of the site, providing differentiated and preferential points of access to CSR contents, “customized” for the user target.
The animation present on the homepage clearly illustrates the various browsing options:
- Browsing by Stakeholder: the gear metaphor comes to life on the web, animated by a Flash application that accompanies the user in the browsing of corporate responsibility
- GRI: a tool useful for experts of the sector that is based on a targeted search engine by GRI indicators and making it possible to extrapolate all contents relating to GRI
- Responsibility: browsing of the three areas of responsibility follows an approach guided by colour (which accompanies the texts, interactive tools and graphic elements of the section) and by key concepts and keywords.
Further levels of transversal browsing of contents consist of use of a popular search, a kind of quick link to the section’s more significant contents and use of a guided text search engine.
Sustainability that is consistent but “original”
A2A’s sustainability fits well with in the concept of coordinated communication, respecting and conjugating the corporate site’s web identity without, however, sacrificing its own distinctive features. Thus we find a homepage organized in 6 conceptual boxes and the use of devices like the slide show (typical of corporate sites), well harmonized in terms of distinctive details compared with the institutional site, such as use of a different colour for the menu items selected (not blue but red) and introduction of the accordion menu device (see example).
