In an article from Environmental Leader, IBM Global Business Services’ Corporate Sustainability leader, Jeff Hittner, likens companies’ approach to CSR to the early days of the Internet, when “People would come to us and say, ‘Wow. We need a Web site.’ We’d ask what their customers wanted in a Web site and they’d say ‘We don’t know. We only know we need a Web site.’”

Hittner and his colleague Eric Riddleberger talked to leaders at 224 companies around the world about CSR efforts, publishing their findings in a white paper, “Leading a Sustainable Enterprise.” Their surveys show that while two-thirds of companies focus on CSR as an integrated business strategy, most of them don’t know what their customers or partners expect when it comes to sustainability information. Thirty-seven percent of companies had done no research on customers’ CSR concerns, and 35 percent of them had done research for less than three years.

Most of them are in the dark when it comes to communicating about what the company is doing and engaging stakeholders, be they customers, partners, or anybody else. Hittner and Riddleberger found that a little over half (fewer than you’d think) are even trying to communicate with investors, business partners, government, and the community. It’s a bit better for employees, with 63 percent of companies engaging with them.

Not surprisingly, Hittner recommends that companies do customer research, find out who is most interested in sustainability, and develop programs that education and engage customers about sustainability.

That way, when you say, “We need a website for sustainability,” you’ll know not only what you need to communicate, but who you need to reach and what they want to hear from you.