Every year from June to September, New Zealand companies with June year-ends publish their annual reports. For us, it’s also the time to pause, look back, and reflect on what this year’s reporting season has taught us.
Having delivered around 20 reports for some of the country’s most prominent listed companies in the past few months, we’ve seen both continuity and change — and some clear lessons for anyone preparing their next report.
Familiar themes, subtly shifting
The broad themes we identified in 2023 and 2024 — storytelling, returning to fundamentals, sustainability, and digital-first delivery — are still with us. What feels different in 2025 is tone and intent.
There is still caution, but also more evidence of activity — whether that’s staying the course with greater certainty or carefully adjusting priorities to reflect changing conditions. Companies are using this year’s report to reinforce their value proposition, restate their story, and ensure the market understands the fundamentals that underpin their performance.
Examples include PFI reaffirming its position as a source of stable returns, Argosy highlighting the quality of its properties and tenants, and NZ Post sharpening its commercial focus alongside its broader social role. Each is signalling a platform for the future, while acknowledging the challenges of the present.
Compliance: still consuming attention
The second year of mandatory climate-related disclosures has been markedly smoother. The learning curve of 2024 has flattened. Most teams are starting earlier, are better organised, and have clearer views on their key messages.
Yet compliance still consumes disproportionate time and energy. The key challenge is ensuring compliance does not overshadow the broader narrative. The best reports are those that balance regulatory disclosure with a coherent account of strategy, performance and outlook — ensuring stakeholders receive both the confidence they are seeking and the supporting detail they require.
How naturally sustainability now sits within the wider reporting story
Sustainability is increasingly blended into the overall story rather than treated as a bolt-on. Integrated reporting principles are firmly established, and transparency is accepted as the only viable stance.
That said, many companies are recalibrating. We are seeing pullbacks from earlier sustainability targets — often because they were unrealistic, or the cost of achieving them is too high in the current economic climate. Replacement strategies are still aligned with long-term ambition but framed in more generic or achievable terms.
Ravensdown provides a good example, embedding climate disclosures within a broader narrative of supporting farmers through transition. It’s pragmatic but still directional, reflecting the balance many companies are striking.
The enduring importance of storytelling
Perhaps the clearest lesson of 2025 is that storytelling matters more than ever. Those that weave facts into a coherent and compelling story stand out. In times of uncertainty, stakeholders — investors, regulators, partners, and staff — want clarity about strategy, confidence in leadership, and a sense of direction.
Examples this year included:
- Genesis, maintaining long-term narrative consistency while showing its move from “Future Fit” to “Accelerated Transition.”
- T&G Global, sharpening its story to emphasise adaptability.
- Fonterra, communicating a major strategic pivot in how it organises its global business.
- Spark, fronting into a reversal of fortunes and outlining corrective steps.
These reports illustrate the power of clear, honest storytelling to reassure, reframe, and build trust.
Digital delivery: shifting from “delivery” to engagement
Print, for most companies, has become more anachronism than asset. The focus has shifter to digital-first formats - not simply as a distribution channel, but as a platform for richer engagement.
This year we've seen even more interactive features. Some reports are embedding engaging video and animated diagrams - these included graphs that expand from one-year to five-year views, maps with hover states that reveal regional context, and symbols or acronyms with hover explanations. Ravensdown trialled these approaches while Genesis are in their third year, showing how videos can add interest and deepen understanding.
It is still early days but the direction of travel is clear. The real opportunity lies in maximising digital’s potential to engage and clarify. The shift is from digital delivery to digital engagement.
Value creation models: a subtle evolution
The Value Creation Model (VCM), a cornerstone of integrated reporting, is also evolving — but the changes are incremental rather than radical. Companies remain faithful to the principle of illustrating the interconnections within their ecosystem: how different parts of the business affect each other, the trade-offs required between resources, and the impact on stakeholders.
At the same time, we are seeing the current external environment shape the way these models are presented. This can be reflected in how companies frame their business model (“what we do”), or in how they describe outputs and outcomes. Sustainability drivers, economic headwinds, or shifts in global markets are increasingly visible within the VCM, showing how external forces flow through to decisions, results and impacts.
Incremental shifts in process
The process of producing annual reports is itself undergoing subtle shifts. It is not a wholesale change, but we are seeing incremental responses to the environment. New team members bring new approaches. Boards are more involved later in the process, leading to more last-minute adjustments as conditions change between first drafts and final sign-off.
The lesson for preparers is to engage stakeholders early to establish the core story, while building flexibility into the process so that late changes can be absorbed without undermining the overall narrative.
Final thought
Annual reporting continues to evolve. Compliance, particularly climate disclosure, remains a dominant driver, but it does not have to define the report. The most effective reports of 2025 are those that combine disclosure with narrative, detail with perspective, regulation with strategy, obligation with opportunity.
They also remind us that the audience is broader than investors. Annual reports reset perceptions and sustain trust externally, but they also help steer employees — reinforcing strategy, clarifying behaviours, and signalling areas of focus required to respond to changing conditions.
In short, the annual report remains one of the most powerful storytelling tools available to a company. When done well, it informs, reassures, and connects — building confidence across audiences in times of uncertainty and change.
