Environmentally minded, publicly traded companies have a new option for distributing their annual reports to shareholders, as required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A new Oklahoma-based company, Green Wise Report, has developed a technology for corporate reporting that it claims cuts distribution costs by up to 75 percent compared with the typical printed report. The green report uses no harvested paper and is distributed on recyclable compact discs.

It offers readers a new level of interactivity, the company asserts, while cutting production and mailing costs significantly.

Green Wise Report developed the product "to answer the need for a more interactive and innovative alternative to the stale corporate report that has been an SEC requirement since 1933," says CEO Eric Smith. "Advancements in digital technology and recent SEC guideline changes have paved the way to a friendlier, greener and less expensive corporate report that is also more engaging for the reader."

Smith notes that the annual report is one of the most important pieces of communication a shareholder receives, and the new SEC-approved digital medium means environmentally friendly companies can utilize a report that emphasizes their focus on being green.

Green Wise Report, a new division of Oklahoma-based Forge Multimedia, uses video, audio, animated graphics, and code technology to offer a report that it contends is superior to print. The Green Wise Report contains an actual video introduction from the CEO rather than the standard written message and includes motion-based interactive graphs and charts.

The Green Wise Report can be narrated by a host of professional voice artists, even famous actors such as George Clooney, Morgan Freeman, Richard Dreyfus, or Powers Booth, the company says.

The compact disc can be viewed without the need for an Internet connection or special players, and the CD content looks just like a book on the computer screen, complete with turning pages, Smith says.