Sustainability in business means considering environmental, social and economic impacts of business decisions. Many organizations are mindful of shifting customer preferences, evolving laws and regulations and conscious investors. Some of these companies are creating sustainability strategies and integrating it with their core values and business mission. Doing so enables companies not only to minimise social and environmental risk but also create shared value with their stakeholders. For a business to be perceived as sustainable, it is important to communicate to stakeholders like customers, investors, employees and governments etc. the efforts towards betterment of society and environment. This can be done by integrating sustainability communication with business strategy to reach a wider audience in an effective manner.
Sustainability communication is creating awareness about your work, activities, actions and products that have positive impact on environment and society. It may also include avoided harm to the society and planet. Sustainability communication enables you to share your sustainability efforts and outcomes with your stakeholders. It helps to showcase how your product or services are in line with your company’s values. Undertaking sustainability communication is a courageous step and demands utmost transparency in your business strategies and operations, but doing that can have many material and non-material benefits for the organization. Sustainability is a complex matter and openly addressing your efforts and setbacks builds trust and credibility among stakeholders. Also, it’s not about just writing but acting and producing tangible results of what you communicate adds authenticity. Effective communication of your sustainability strategies can help in building brand value, improving public relations, managing with changing regulations, appealing investors, meeting stakeholder expectations, attracting and retaining talent, and becoming a change maker.
Sustainability communication initiatives should be closely linked to the companies’ purpose as defined in its sustainability and business strategy. Amfori the leading global business association for open and sustainable trade suggests that for effective communication to take place it is important to first define the objective of communication, second step is to identify target audience, third to develop a powerful story of your sustainability journey and last carefully choosing communication channels and delivering your message.
A well-crafted authentic story curated by an expert in sustainability can create huge value for your company. There are immense benefits of communicating your sustainability strategy. It can establish credibility and help you gain trust and recognition among stakeholders. No matter whether you are just beginning your sustainability journey or you have well established sustainability strategy, if you are not able to communicate it to the right audience in right way through right channels you will be losing on the value it can bring to your organization. Say, you are a start-up launching an eco-friendly product, now to reach the right audience is key for your product’s success. To create awareness about your product sustainability communication is the way. It can help you showcase how your values are ingrained with your product.
At SAGE Sustainability, we enjoy curating stories for our clients. However, it always start with deep understanding of the client’s services and products, their strengths and their weaknesses. We do not start communications, until we have understood the value proposition from various stakeholders of the company. While data is easy to project and share, the context, background, and the ecosystem understanding adds value. Deep diving with the clients enables us to understand the tone and pitch of the communication.
We believe that for effective communication to happen, it should not just start or end with the key message but also be meaningful and resonate with the stakeholders to help the company in achieving their business mission. Communicating the efforts being put across the company, to the broader audience is vital for the success of the company. Pretty often, in this fast-paced environment, organizations are involved in multiple projects and in process of completing them for shorter goals, the long-term goal takes a backseat. Having a holistic integrated approach can pave a stronger foundation for the path ahead. We get the audience to know about the company- both the business practices and core values. We engage in thorough strategic development and planning, to ensure that sustainability communication has a foundation in commitments and actions.
Sources –
Genc, Ruhet. (2017). The Importance of Communication in Sustainability & Sustainable Strategies. Procedia Manufacturing. 8. 511-516. 10.1016/j.promfg.2017.02.065.
https://www.amfori.org/sites/default/files/amfori_effective_sustainability_communication_guide_2019_0_1.pdf
https://www.thesustainability.io/importance-of-sustainability-communication-and-sustainability-strategies
https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-sustainability-in-business