What are the most effective ways to create an authentic sustainability narrative?
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— The LinkedIn Team
Creating an authentic sustainability narrative is not only a way to communicate your values and impact, but also a way to engage and inspire your audience. However, crafting a compelling and credible story that resonates with your stakeholders can be challenging. In this article, you will learn some of the most effective ways to create an authentic sustainability narrative that reflects your purpose, actions, and outcomes.
Your sustainability narrative should start with a clear and inspiring vision of what you want to achieve and why. This vision should align with your core values, mission, and goals, and show how you contribute to solving the global challenges that matter to you and your audience. Your vision should also be realistic, achievable, and measurable, and demonstrate how you are making progress towards it.
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Valerie Ballard
Be transparent: Share information openly about your sustainability practices, goals, and progress. This builds trust and credibility with your audience, demonstrating your commitment to accountability.
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Alexandra Davidsson
Co-founder at ClimateHero & #circularmonday
This is a key part for all businesses who want to keep being relevant in the short, and long term. Don't forget to measure your climate impact; having a transparent third party helping out with e.g. Climate accounting is a good way. Also set clear dates on when you would half your emissions and in which sector, no later than 2030 according to carbon law.
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Your sustainability pillars are the key themes or areas that support your vision and guide your actions. They should reflect the most relevant and material aspects of your sustainability performance, such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Your pillars should also be specific, relevant, and consistent with your industry and context. For example, if you are a fashion brand, your pillars could include circularity, fair trade, and diversity.
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Alexandra Davidsson
Co-founder at ClimateHero & #circularmonday
Agreed. I believe consumers (or circulents - a true sustainable consumer) will ask for this more and more in the coming years. Don't forget to transition to circularity to reduce emissions and waste. It could be rental, mending, upcycling, design for re-use etc. It has to be honest, transparent and relevant for your business.
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Bruna Ferreira Freire
Climate Activism | Sustainability | ESG | Circular Economy
I believe the company's pillars, in this case, should follow its biggests impacts, in order to find material aspects related to ESG. Two good ways to do this are following the steps from TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) and TNFD (Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures). On the TNFD framework, to find its pillars, the company should focus on "Locate", "Evaluate" and "Assess" from the LEAP Risk and Opportunity Assessment Guidance. Considering this, LCA following the ISO 14001 also stands out as a good tool, If the company wants to assess product's impacts, so they chose one pillar to target as a sustainability metric.
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Your sustainability stories are the examples and evidence that illustrate how you are implementing your pillars and achieving your vision. They should be engaging, informative, and emotive, and show the impact and value of your sustainability efforts. Your stories should also be authentic, transparent, and honest, and acknowledge the challenges and opportunities you face. For example, you could share how you are reducing your carbon footprint, supporting your local communities, or innovating your products or services.
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Alexandra Davidsson
Co-founder at ClimateHero & #circularmonday
A great way to engage employees is having them calculate their carbon footprint as well, and then sum up how much you as a company and your employees pledged to reduce, and communicate that into something tractable, like "we pledged to reduce our emissions with XX Co2, which is equal to taking away XX amount of dieselcars" for instance.
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Mary Salvaggio
Senior comms pro at the intersection of sustainability, corp rep and tech
I'd add: don't wait for perfect. It's easy to get caught up in wanting to "get everything right" before sharing anything externally - but all organizations need to start somewhere. Thoughtfully IDing and communicating goals, benchmarking and reporting progress with strong data points is the way to go. Acknowledging both what you've already done as well as the work ahead of you will build trust.
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Your sustainability narrative should be tailored to your different audiences and channels, depending on their needs, interests, and expectations. You should use the appropriate language, tone, and format to communicate your narrative effectively and consistently. You should also consider the best ways to reach and connect with your audience, such as through your website, social media, reports, or events.
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Alexandra Davidsson
Co-founder at ClimateHero & #circularmonday
One thing adding to this is the word "sustainable" is so "washed out" in a sense. Can you find other stories to communicate your narrative without using this word over and over again? E.g. think in the sense where stand-up/comic can communicate a moral insight, without using the word. Just a thought!
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Cristina Fontgivell
Partner, Head of Office Barcelona at Kreab
In my experience, what is critical before starting to build a narrative around sustainability is that there is a strong sustainability strategy in place. If fundamentals aren't strong and professional, there is a high risk of building a narrative that is percieved as 'greenwashing'. If this happens, rather that contributing to corporate reputation, our efforts will molt likely be detrimental. It is therefore key that we build a narrative based on facts and figures that are real, and avoid overpromising on goails that still seem far away. An honest communication goes a long way.
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Your stakeholders are the people who are affected by or interested in your sustainability performance, such as your customers, employees, suppliers, investors, or regulators. They can also be your allies and advocates in creating and sharing your sustainability narrative. You should involve them in your sustainability journey, by listening to their feedback, addressing their concerns, and celebrating their achievements. You should also invite them to join your vision, by offering them opportunities to participate, collaborate, or co-create with you.
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Milana Vračar
Self-Published Author | Communications and Social Media Community Specialist |
I think faster than AI :) Involving your stakeholders is key if you're looking to reach more people, make a bigger impact, and a significant change. But, first, make sure you're all on the same page - educate, train, and equip everyone with the resources they might need to take part.
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Antoine GRONDIN
Kelvion's Corporate Sustainability Manager | ESG ExCom member, Harvard Executive Education
Involving stakeholders in sustainability is vital. Identify key stakeholders, tailor engagement strategies, and use diverse communication channels. Establish partnerships for broader impact. Implement feedback mechanisms, ensuring transparency through regular updates. Include stakeholders in decision-making and offer training programs for awareness. Recognize and celebrate contributions to encourage continued engagement. Demonstrate commitment to continuous improvement by incorporating feedback into sustainability strategies.
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Your sustainability narrative should be evaluated regularly, to ensure that it is accurate, relevant, and impactful. You should monitor and measure your sustainability performance, using indicators and metrics that reflect your vision and pillars. You should also collect and analyze the feedback and reactions of your audience, using tools and methods such as surveys, interviews, or social media analytics. You should use the results to improve and update your narrative, and to communicate your progress and challenges.
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Mike Hower
Sustainability Communicator, Coach and Connector | Writer | Adventurer | Board Member | Global Citizen
Make sure that your sustainability narrative tells an authentic story - meaning you are talking about the successes as well as the failures. Traditional corporate communicators are trained to present a perfectly polish brand narrative - but this doesn't work with sustainability. No company is perfect, nor will one ever be. And the most compelling stories are those of overcoming challenges, not just being awesome all the time. Continuously measuring progress, reporting on this, and communicating to put it into the context of your journey is critical.
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Suzanne Massey
Head of Santander Consumer USA Foundation, Community Partnerships, CSR, and ESG.
Aunthenticity is created and supported by consistency. Consistency in the message, focus and actions makes it easier for clients and customers to connect with the work and demonstrates that the organization is really walking the walk when it comes to sustainability.
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Ahmad Alkishi, ESG-SDGs
Certified Corporate Sustainability Professional | ESG Strategy & Planning | SDGs Expert
To create an authentiic sustainability narrative, simply, Two things need to be done: 1- Understand your buiness model, core strengths, weaknesses, negative impact and oppurtunities. 2- Capitalize on all of the above and integrate them into sustainability strategy. Utilize what you do best, take advantage of the oppurtunities, and create a sustainability narrative (through strategy) that addresses negative impact while creating long-term value. Two birds with one stone.
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