Skip to content
GT
📋 Sustainability / ESG Reporting in Practice
Back to course
Writing the ReportLesson 1 of 77 min read

The Writing Method: Questions First, Answers Second

The Writing Method: Questions First, Answers Second

Most people sit down to write an ESG report chapter and immediately freeze. They stare at a blank document, waiting for inspiration or, more commonly, waiting for the client to hand them a narrative. Neither is coming anytime soon.

There is a writing method that works every single time, regardless of the section you are tackling. It is deceptively simple: write questions first, then write answers, then delete the questions.

The Technique, Step by Step

Here is how it works in practice. Say you are writing the Environmental section for a manufacturing company. Instead of trying to compose polished prose from scratch, you open a blank document and write every question you want that section to answer:

  • What are the company's most significant environmental impacts?
  • How much energy did they consume this year, and from what sources?
  • What targets have they set for emissions reduction?
  • How does their water consumption compare to last year?
  • What waste management practices are in place?
  • Have they invested in renewable energy? If so, how much and what type?

You are not writing for anyone yet. You are mapping the terrain. These questions become your invisible outline: they tell you what data you need, what narrative threads to pull, and where the gaps are.

From Questions to Answers

Next, you answer each question based on what you know. Pull from the data requirement sheet, the client's past reports, their annual report, their policies, publicly available information. Write the answers in plain language. Do not worry about elegance or flow yet; just get the substance down.

For example, under "What are the company's most significant environmental impacts?" you might write: "The company operates 14 manufacturing facilities across three states. Its primary environmental footprint comes from energy consumption in production processes, water usage in cooling systems, and hazardous waste generated from chemical treatments."

That is a rough answer. It is factual. It addresses the question directly.

Remove the Questions, Connect the Paragraphs

Now comes the transformation. Delete every question. You are left with a series of answer paragraphs (each one substantive, each one addressing a specific point). Your job now is to edit these paragraphs so they flow into each other. Add transitions. Smooth the language. Make sure one paragraph ends where the next one naturally begins.

What you end up with is a well-structured section that reads like coherent prose but was built on a foundation of clear, specific questions. The reader never sees the scaffolding; they just experience the finished structure.

This method works especially well for sections where you feel stuck or unclear on what to write. The questions externalize your thinking. Instead of trying to hold the entire chapter in your head, you break it into answerable pieces. It is the difference between building a house from a blueprint versus trying to imagine the whole thing at once.

Why This Works Better Than "Just Start Writing"

The questions-first approach solves three problems simultaneously. First, it forces you to think about what the reader actually needs to know before you start composing sentences. Second, it reveals data gaps early: if you cannot answer a question, you know exactly what to go back to the client for. Third, it prevents the most common writing problem in ESG reports: rambling paragraphs that circle around a point without ever making it.

Every question demands a direct answer. That discipline carries through even after you remove the questions.

Think of the questions as the skeleton of a building. Nobody sees the steel beams once the walls go up, but without them, the structure collapses. Your questions give the chapter its internal logic. The prose you write around them is the exterior: it is what people see and experience, but it holds up because of the framework underneath.

The Most Important Advice: Just Go Ahead and Write It

Here is something that takes most new consultants too long to learn: do not wait for the client to give you narratives. You will not get them. You will send requests, schedule calls, follow up politely, follow up firmly, and the narratives will still not come.

This is not because clients are difficult (though some are). It is because they do not think in terms of report narratives. They think in terms of their daily operations. They can tell you about their water recycling plant in a conversation, but they will never sit down and write three paragraphs about it for your report.

"Just go ahead and write it. Don't wait for the client." This is the single most important piece of advice for anyone writing an ESG report. Dig through their past reports. Read their annual report. Read their policies. Read everything that is publicly available. Then write it yourself, share it with them, and let them correct it. That is how it works: you write, they refine.

The workflow is not: client provides narrative, you polish it. The workflow is: you write the narrative from available sources, client reacts and fine-tunes. Once you internalize this, your productivity doubles and your frustration drops dramatically.

Where to Find Material When the Client Is Silent

When you accept that you are the one doing the writing, the next question is: where do you get the material? Here is your research checklist:

  • Past sustainability reports: If the company has published before, these are your richest source. Look at what they said, how they said it, what data they reported.
  • Annual report: The Chairman's message, business overview, risk section, and governance section all contain material you can reframe with a sustainability lens.
  • Company website: Sustainability pages, CSR sections, press releases about environmental or social initiatives.
  • Policies: Environmental policy, human rights policy, health and safety policy, code of conduct. These often contain language you can directly reference or paraphrase.
  • Peer reports: How do similar companies describe the same topics? This gives you structural inspiration and helps you identify what the market expects.

Say you are writing the water management section for a beverage company, but the client has not sent you any narrative. You check their annual report and find a paragraph about a new water treatment facility. You check their website and find a press release about a zero liquid discharge commitment. You check their past sustainability report and find water consumption data with a brief description of their rainwater harvesting program.

Now you have enough material to write the section. You draft it, weaving together the treatment facility, the ZLD commitment, the harvesting program, and the data. You share it with the client. They come back with: "This is mostly right, but the ZLD target is 2027 not 2026, and we should also mention the partnership with the local municipality." Two corrections. That is how it goes.

Applying the Method Across Different Sections

The questions-first technique adapts to every chapter. For the Governance section, your questions might be: "What does the board structure look like? How often do they meet? What committees exist? What is the company's approach to anti-corruption?" For the Social section: "What is the workforce composition? How does the company approach diversity? What training programs exist? What is the health and safety record?"

Each section has its own set of natural questions. Once you get comfortable with this method, you will find that you can map out an entire report's content in an afternoon (just by writing questions for every chapter). The writing itself then becomes a matter of research and answering. This is far less intimidating than staring at a blank page.

Try this with any company you know. Pick a company whose annual report is publicly available. Write 5-8 questions for each of the following sections: About the Report, Environmental, Social, Governance, and Chairman's Message. Then try to answer as many as you can using only publicly available information. You will be surprised how much of a sustainability report you can draft without any internal data at all. The internal data fills in the numbers, but the narrative structure and framing can often be built from what is already public.

The bottom line: writing an ESG report is not about waiting for perfect inputs. It is about being resourceful, structured, and willing to write the first draft yourself. The questions-first method gives you structure. The "just write it" mindset gives you momentum. Together, they are the most effective writing approach in this field.

Key Takeaways

  • 1Use the questions-first method: write every question a section should answer, answer them from available sources, then delete the questions and connect the paragraphs
  • 2Do not wait for the client to provide narratives - write the first draft yourself from past reports, annual reports, policies, and public information, then let the client refine
  • 3The questions-first approach reveals data gaps early, so you know exactly what to request from the client before writing gets too far along
  • 4Source material from past sustainability reports, the annual report, the company website, internal policies, and peer reports - most sections can be drafted from public information alone
  • 5This method scales to every chapter: map out 5-8 questions per section and you can outline an entire report in an afternoon

Knowledge Check

1.In the questions-first writing method, what do you do after answering all the questions you wrote for a section?

2.A consultant is waiting for the client to provide narratives for the Environmental section. After two follow-ups, nothing has arrived. What should they do?

3.What is the primary benefit of the questions-first writing method over 'just start writing'?

1 of 7