Sustainability @ Credit Suisse

Beginnings

Work began as a executive board request to create a sustainability presence on credit-suisse.com. Reframed based on why the executive board is focused on this and how UX research can ‘ladder up’ to the business priorities.

Reframe: What does 'sustainability’ mean at Credit Suisse, and how can we better show our work through our digital channels, leading to a 20% uptick in Sustainability report downloads?

Methods

• Conducted twenty-five deep-dive stakeholder interviews, with employee networks, HR campus recruitment, D&I leadership, ratings agencies, investment consultants, and twelve clients.

• Benchmarked our sustainability online presence with other financial institutions, to see how we compared. Also conducted a best practice review, looking at non-financial institutions to see how we can better show our mission and goals.

• User tested the prototype and website before, during, and after development, coupling research data with analytics we gathered during the post-development phase.

After research was completed, the company agreed to invest 400K CHF on development and design for a new Sustainability Hub, which centralized all of Credit Suisse’s sustainability efforts in one place on credit-suisse.com.

Implementation and activities

• Kicked off the project with thirty stakeholders throughout the company, consisting of product, design, development, marketing, and HR, aligning the different work streams and setting a vision for how to move forward quickly. (My manager was on paternity leave and the product manager was initially an external contractor)

• Introduced and co-led a set of two design sprints with a designer. Shortly after that, we went into development, which took about twelve weeks. (New technology platform, new way of working)

• Lead participant in monthly Sustainability calls, updating company-wide leadership and stakeholders on the status of the Sustainability Hub and setting expectations, as well as asking for help. Worked closely with content team on content strategy and output, based on research insights.

• Became the central Sustainability Hub contact for senior stakeholders, as well as active in the sustainability marketing alignment calls, ensuring communication between marketing and digital was in sync.

• Dived into the analytics post-launch, specifically observing what visitors were doing, which reports people were downloading and how much, and creating a plan with the communications director, since the research with clients and stakeholders found that there needed to be a communication strategy around what Credit Suisse was doing in sustainability.

Post-launch

Worked closely with the data analytics team to monitor the sustainability website analytics and contribute to the future roadmap, focusing on improving the Sustainability Week sign-up flow. Post-launch, we found a 40% increase in sustainability report downloads during the first four weeks. In addition, a new way of presenting company research reports increased the number of people downloading them.

I then started a project focused on Diversity & Inclusion, which built on the sustainability work. Shortly after presenting the D&I research findings to the HR Executive Board, the company agreed to invest 200K CHF on development and design work for a Diversity & Inclusion digital presence.