Accessible annual reports — Creating real value for your stakeholders

Digital accessibility is more than a technical detail. It changes how people interact with information and shows how committed a company is to serving all stakeholder groups. More and more organizations recognize that an accessible annual report is a clear marker of quality. It demonstrates inclusion, increases trust, and proves that transparency is not just claimed but actively practiced.

An annual report reaches a wide range of stakeholders. Many of them consume content digitally and expect a smooth, intuitive user experience. Accessible PDFs meet these expectations. They make content easier to read, navigate, and understand, enabling people with visual impairments or cognitive challenges to fully access corporate information.

The number of people who can only read digital content with limitations is growing. Reasons include increased screen time, age-related vision decline, and situational constraints such as small displays or mobile usage. Accessibility therefore becomes a factor that goes far beyond regulatory compliance.

Companies that actively implement accessibility strengthen the “Social” dimension of their ESG positioning. Making an annual report accessible shows that inclusion is not a marketing promise but a concrete action. This builds trust among stakeholders who increasingly pay attention to how companies address usability, diversity, and fairness.

Even as digital reports become more multimedia-oriented, the PDF remains the preferred format for many stakeholders. It is reliable, archive-ready, and universally usable. However, only a correctly structured PDF can be meaningfully interpreted by screen readers. This requires clean tagging, logical heading hierarchies, alternative text for images, clear table structures, and a consistent reading order.

We support organizations throughout the analysis, concept development, creation, and technical validation of accessible PDF reports. Our expertise covers both classic layouts created in Adobe InDesign and automated production processes using ns.publish, PDFreactor, and third-party systems.

We have project experience in the financial sector, industrial environments, and international organizations. This includes, among others, the accessible disclosure and summary reports of Berner Kantonalbank, as well as the accessible implementation of individual report components for Givaudan. These examples represent many companies that have already recognized accessibility as a true value driver.

Requirements vary depending on layout complexity, data quality, and the number of tables and charts involved. Our processes are designed to handle even complex publications efficiently and reliably. This includes technical validation against the PDF/UA standard using the PAC Accessibility Checker, as well as robust tagging structures optimized for screen readers.

Accessibility in reporting reflects how a company thinks, acts, and communicates. We help you design your reports so they are accessible to everyone—while delivering a clear strategic advantage.