Sustainability has come of age and apparently the buzzword of yesteryears has now translated into a few positions here and there as Sustainability heads, sustainability officers etc in many corporates. Many times, the roles of someone managing Corporate Social responsibility and Sustainability sort of merge into one position. For many organizations, this position overlaps with communications or human resource department as well. Sometimes, there is enough recognition that this is a specialized function, however, mostly the function is quite peripheral to the overall organizational goal.
For any business that is progressing well on economic progress, this may appear to be a peripheral objective, however, contrary to the popular perception, when organizations tend to ignore the writing on the wall, it usually comes up as an obstacle that needs to be addressed using lot of reactive force. Gender pay gap is a point in question. There was a lot of surprise that came about when Theresa May Government forced British companies for disclosures on gender wage gap. Lot of well-known companies created news in not so right way.
There are other companies where sustainability is quite central, if not the core. Marks and Spencer’s Plan A is a testimony of company’s commitment to disclosures and progress on Economic, Social and Environmental Indicators. Similarly, Unilever made it clear in no uncertain terms that sustainability is a serious business objective for them. The entire objective of Elon Musk’s Boring Company or Tesla Car is about Sustainable transport.
Communication of company’s sustainability therefore cannot be more than its commitment. When I say communication, it means both internal and external communication. Only when sustainability is at core, or central, can it reflect in all business environments, involving interactions between individual business entities, within markets, groups of employees, service providers and clients, sales person and prospective buyers, and mass communication within the organization or with the press.
How Sustainability has different meaning for different people?
Sustainability is a broad concept and most often is confused with corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship or corporate philanthropy, social marketing and social activism. It is basically coming together of the three aspects, such as, environmental protection, economic growth and social equity, in the everyday operations of the company. Even when we see it in a narrow context, one person’s definition of sustainability differs from others. It is intriguing how in rural Kerala, some local plantation managers would call Teak as ‘not an eco-friendly plant’ as they could not grow anything underneath it. In this case, the sustainability was about maximizing the agro-forestry yields and if you cannot grow Yam underneath, then that’s not sustainable for them. Many other urbanites will in-fact like to grow teak as a long-term afforestation effort. For some, wind farms are one of the most sustainable option whereas for others wind farms butcher migratory birds. It is often amusing to see every environmental or social group protecting the agenda that is dear to them. Sounds fair, however, we forget that when it comes to the bigger picture, Earth will survive, species may not.
Sustainability communications
Aligning to sustainable development in the everyday work of the organization and committing to act on it, is a strategic component to the success of any organization. The interest and awareness of the consumer segment to actively look for information on the sustainability credentials of products & services of companies before making their choices has increased rapidly in recent years and has encouraged organizations to adopt appropriate communication strategies to bring out their sustainability values. Sometimes these values may be aspirations but most of the sustainability experts do not get offended by that, in fact it is encouraging to see that companies are making efforts to look and appear sustainable.
However, for the organizations communicating sustainability through sustainability and reports should not take it merely as an image makeover exercise. If the data isn’t clear, or reliable, or the strategy is not clear, it easily reflects in such communications. Moreover, publishing unreliable information, when employees are not consulted would create trust deficit rather than image enhancement for the organization. Clear, authentic and meaningful sustainability communications strategy that involves all the stakeholders, internal or external communications, can go a long way in enhancing corporate reputation.
Internal Communications
Organizations need to understand how to communicate sustainability issues and performance in a clear, truthful and trustworthy way using several tools and frameworks. Internal communication is one such tool for a sustainability program to be successful, as employees are the most dedicated brand champions.
Employees, the internal stakeholders must be engaged in the design, adoption and promotion of a sustainability program before communicating the commitment to the outside world. They must understand how the program affects their organizational functions so that they completely believe in the idea and a lack of understanding can result in resistance. Thus, effective communication and effective employee engagement is very essential, as it is the employees who directly interact with the external stakeholders. Greater internal understanding and commitment leverages the entire workforce in search of strategic value creation.
For example, At Unilever, sustainability is integrated into their existing training and bespoke courses created to develop employees’ capabilities and understanding of how sustainability applies to their role. “BrightFuture” is an employee engagement program, at Unilever, through which they create an employee movement for sustainable growth. During this employee engagement programmes are conducted across all the markets that brings their purpose to life for employees. It’s about demonstrating how everything Unilever does as a business and employees as individuals can contribute to sustainable growth.
Opportunities are created for employees to experience what sustainable growth looks like in practice through their brands. As a result, the employees become their story tellers; talking to friends and family about how they are creating a brighter future and building advocates inside and outside the organisation.
Examples of how Unilever employees contributed in 2016:
Dove Day – Over 3,000 employees ran Dove self-esteem workshops in schools in 37 countries, helping more than 30,000 young people worldwide.
Global Handwashing Day – Over 5,000 employees visited schools to teach children the healthy habit of washing their hands with soap. It is with opportunities like these that makes the employees feel they play a part and contribute to the purpose of fulfilling sustainability goals as an organization.
External communications
External communication flows outward of the organization and it addresses people outside like prospective customers, competitors, general public, press, media and the government. External communication can take place in various ways and through different channels. It is through this communication, the external agency or persons targeted, often forms an image or impressions about the organization and hence it is important to take adequate care in making the communication clear and appealing.
Transparency and accurate disclosure practices are crucial for any organization looking to build trust with stakeholders, attract investors and ensure accurate media reporting. Greater transparency will reinforce investor confidence and improve the companies access to capital.
Governments across nations are setting mandatory requirements directing organisations on what sustainability information they need to communicate. Stock exchanges and indices are also increasing the level of sustainability disclosure requirements. The generally accepted external communication guidelines and frameworks include the Global Reporting Initiative, Integrated Reporting, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and the CDP.
The GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines have taken the lead in enabling organizations worldwide to assess their sustainability performance and disclose the results in a similar way to financial reporting.
Conclusion:
If companies try to get away with poor communication, or communication that does not reflect the commitment of a company, it will undoubtedly draw the fury of NGOs and civil society and other involved stakeholders. A lack of communication is often perceived to indicate a lack of commitment on the organizations part or it could even suggest that the company has something to hide. It is therefore the responsibility of the management to create an effective sustainability communication strategy, involving all their stakeholders. For any sustainability initiative to succeed in an organization, both internal and external communication shall be aligned and bring cohesiveness to the organization by promoting greater employee engagement through common interests across the company.
– Team SAGE Sustainability
Ref:
https://online.grace.edu/news/business/types-of-organizational-communication
https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/12-effective-communication-strategies-work
https://taigacompany.com/creating-value-alignment-with-stakeholders-around-sustainability