Plain Language Awards

Celebrate the stories of our clearest business communicators

Winner: Best Plain English Annual Report 2017

Z Energy

Document name

Solving what matters for a moving world. 2017 Annual Report


Judges’ comments

This report’s strengths are many, including its structure and navigation aids. It integrates headings, main text, infographics, photos, and pull-quotes to highlight the main messages, explain concepts, and integrate everything into a cohesive whole. This is impressive given the size of the report and the amount of information conveyed.

Overall, this is a great example of how you can appease regulatory requirements and appeal to a general reader — a true plain English experience with the audience in mind. Well done!


Media statement

We reckon our annual report is an excellent chance to engage with our stakeholders by sharing a clear, concise, and compelling story about what matters to us and to them. This story is layered over mandatory requirements such as listing rules and legislation, as well as voluntary sustainability frameworks.

Our report writing reflects our company values of being straight up, sharing everything, having the passion, and being bold. We know annual reports can be cumbersome; we wanted Z’s to be engaging, and one way of achieving this is by cutting jargon and using plain language. So this year we set out to deliver a focused, integrated, and simple report. We knew making the report highly readable would help readers connect with what Z has achieved and its vision for the future.

This was the first time we’d reported using the Integrated Reporting framework, which requires companies to explain how they create value and the impact this has on our people and culture, our capability, our environment, our assets, our place in New Zealand, and our finances.

Our efforts to explain who we are, how we create value, and our vision for the future will continue in future reports.

Debra Blackett
Z Chief Governance Officer