Communicating Social and Environmental Issues Effectively

Betsy Reed

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781838674694
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Communication d'entreprise

As awareness of social and environmental issues becomes more central to business and reputational success, communications and marketing professionals need to be able to make the most of opportunities to communicate effectively about these issues. This is the definitive guide to planning and delivering great communications on complex social and environmental issues. Outlining the steps needed to plan, risk-proof and execute effective communications strategies, the book provides a clear framework to help leaders, communications managers and marketing practitioners build the knowledge and skills needed to spot risks and opportunities around complex issues, such as climate change and ethical supply chains. Including real-world case studies, practical exercises and further reading, each chapter offers a beginning-to-end framework: from making the business case and mapping stakeholders, to messaging, framing relevant tactics, and then risk-assessing the plan. Whether a local authority, brand, educational institution or senior leader, this guide will equip you with all the necessary skills to make your communications effective.

1

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

WELCOME TO THE BRAVE NEW PARADIGM

It is now more widely understood by leaders and communications professionals that the ability to both address and then communicate skillfully around social and environmental issues is no longer fringe. Whether it’s climate change, ocean plastics, worker exploitation, migration, transgender issues or sexual harassment, a range of social and environmental issues have exploded into the forefront of organizational and, therefore, communications priorities.

The ability to understand and communicate about them effectively is now core to the skillset expected of business leaders, communicators, marketeers, political figures and, well, anyone who is required to communicate with others. Whether or not leaders and communications people realize this and have the skills to keep up with trends is another matter – and why I’ve created the Framework contained in this book.

I have spent my whole career focused exclusively on sustainability and have watched the world shift. I’ve surfed through most sectors by now, via an international career spent mostly in the UK. I’ve worked in the public sector, have run a non-governmental organization (NGO), developed and led multiple national behavior change and advocacy campaigns, become a behavior change specialist, worked for the world’s biggest food company and trained communications professionals in social and environmental issues. I’ve seen social and environmental activity and communications through the lens of most sectors and have watched the world change. Public expectations have shifted. Both political and corporate focus have incorporated social and environmental issues as a matter of priority. But I’ve seen the communications sector struggle to keep up. The skills needed to effectively and authentically communicate social and environmental issues haven’t been updated quickly enough to keep pace.

What was once considered the preserve of specialists and “eco types” is now understood by many (or even most) leaders and communications professionals to be essential to core business and the future sustainability of an organization itself. Whether or not your organization or client acts as if this is the case is another matter.

Fortunately, the communications sector has finally woken up to the need to “up its game”. The ability to understand and effectively communicate social and environmental issues has never been more crucial. The potential for getting it terribly wrong is more potentially risky than ever as well.

This is a time of great opportunity for leaders and communications people to upskill in order to communicate issues that are incredibly complex and often quite varied. Consider climate change and gender equality as two examples. Both are important issues but are likely of different levels of importance to different stakeholders and might require entirely different approaches to communicate about effectively. Both types of issues could fall under the heading of “sustainability communications,” are important now, and will continue to be.

Unfortunately, and all too often, it’s been communications people who are guilty of creating messages or marketing campaigns that are misinformed at best, misleading at worst around their brand, organization or client’s actual social and environmental credentials. It’s time for the communications sector to catch up with trends, and the good news is that, if you’re reading this book, you already recognize this. You know that these issues are complex and risky to get wrong.

This book, therefore, is needed now more than ever. There are already many great books on PR theory and practice, as well as stacks of books on sustainability communications for brands and business, in particular. Because there are already lots of great resources, what the communications sector needs is principles and real-world practice to first understand, then communicate social and environmental issues effectively.

This book is, therefore, intentionally light on theory and heavy on practical application, providing a Framework that can be taken in pieces or as a whole. The information and guidance in this book aims to equip anyone who needs to craft and deliver a message or communications approach on social and environmental issues with what they need.

I have aimed to make this Framework relevant to all sectors, from government to business, charitable sector to academic institutions. Guidance and books for those working for brands, in particular, abound. So this book is for brands … and everyone else. It is an homage-of-sorts to the hard-working, lone Sustainability Officer at a university, to those tasked with creating effective climate change communications for a local authority, as well as to those working in small businesses and those working for brands and communications agencies.

May this Framework be of use to all of you. I welcome future contact and feedback on how it’s been of use and how it might be improved for future editions. My contact information can be found in the Appendix.

Let’s move on to making the business case for effective social and environmental communications and outlining the content you’ll find in in this book.

AN OVERVIEW OF RELEVANT TRENDS

Below are several proof points that illustrate why it’s crucial to not just communicate about social and environmental issues, but to communicate them effectively.

In October 2018, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report that created a seismic shift in public discourse and action on climate change. The report warned that humankind has until 2030 to address and curb climate change in order to avoid a 1.5 °C rise in temperature that will dramatically raise the risk of floods, drought, extreme heat and food security for millions of people (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2018).

Mintel, a reputable global market research provider, publishes an annual report on consumer food and drink trends, as well as general consumer trends. Their food and drink report for 2018 said that:

In a world of post-truth politics and unsubstantiated media, consumers are looking for brands to court them with transparency, simplicity and evidence. Consumer distrust in governments and media is spreading to companies, and so is the clamour for truth and transparency in ingredients and behind-the-scenes processes. We’ll see greater accountability in politics, media and employment. (Cope & Cottney, 2017)

The top trends in Mintel’s global consumer trends report for 2030, published in 2019, includes predictions that consumers will have a greater focus on human rights, especially in developing markets; consumption of red meat will move “from mainstream to taboo”; consumers will be “looking for wellbeing across everything they do”; and there will be “government-led changes to water consumption” (Crabbe, Lieberman, & Moriarty, 2019).

Mintel’s prediction of 2030 trends around food and drink is useful as a lens to consider wider trends that are useful for communicators to understand. They predict that businesses who are “forces for change on important societal issues” will be those who succeed in the next decade. More people will consider and take pride in their efforts to ensure the ethical and environmental impacts of how they consume and behave are positive ones. As a result, consumers will support companies (and probably other types of organizations), who help them to be more conscious and low-impact in their use of resources (Zegler, Moore, Beckett, Maiseviciute Haydon, & Faulkner, 2018).

The 2017 edition of Edelman’s well-regarded Trust Barometer showed a global implosion of public trust in the world in institutions of government, business, media and NGOs (Harary et al., 2017). Their 2018 report showed no change and stated the importance of communications, saying “silence is now deeply dangerous.” One area they highlighted was that CEOs who speak out on trust issues, like social and environmental ones, regained some public trust (up from 33% to 45%) (Ries, Bersoff, Armstrong, Adkins, & Bruening, 2018). The 2019 report revealed an 11% increase in people who want CEOs to take the lead on change over issues like equal pay, sexual harassment and the environment rather than waiting for change to be regulated by government (Ries et al., 2019). Tracked over three years, it is safe to say that trust is built on what actions organizations take and how they communicate around social and environmental issues, and this is a trend that isn’t likely to go away.

The UK’s PR and Communications Association (the PRCA) is the largest PR association in Europe and has an incredible amount of perspective on trends, skills and ethics in the PR industry, all of which is relevant to what we’re discussing here. Its UK PR Council, of which I was previously a member, finally announced in early 2018 that its core focus for the year would be on establishing the social value and purpose of PR. At the time of writing, they are still possibly the only PR body in the world who have created such a formal focus on these issues. PR Council Chair Jon Chandler, previously of Coca Cola and now the CEO of a UK-based communications agency, said,

Moving forward, successful organisations won’t only succeed based on their innovations, or even by being seen to do the right thing; reputation management is no longer enough. Everything from their internal culture through to the way they conduct their business around the world, will have equal impact on a brand’s bottom line. As communicators, it will be our job to help the C-suite and Board level identify the business imperative of the ethical imperative. We need to be better in order to do better. (Gardiner, 2018)

The PRCA has continued its commitment to helping communications professionals get to grips with crucial social and environmental issues by establishing a group in 2020 focused on B Corps, a certification system whereby businesses can demonstrate through a rigorous assessment process that they have embedded social and environmental good at their heart, and in everything else they do. The group is focused on “improving the PR industry for profit, planet, and people by helping agencies navigate, understand, and implement B Corp principles. Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose. B Corps are accelerating a global culture shift to redefine success in business and build a more inclusive and sustainable economy.” (PRCA, 2020)

FOUR KEY POINTS

I want to highlight four key points at the start of this book, as elements I have observed as lacking in a fair share of communicators’ mindsets and skillsets, though this is changing. May this book help to accelerate this change!

Sustainability is about Both Society and the Environment

Using “sustainability” to refer solely to environmental issues is unhelpful and inaccurate. It also serves to limit an understanding of wider related issues and, therefore, the ability to communicate them effectively. Throughout this book, I’ll refer to “social and environmental issues” rather than “sustainability.” This should hopefully reiterate the accurate definition, firmly implant itself as a lens for readers and shape the communications sector’s concept of sustainability.

The standard definition of sustainability, and the one that I’ll use as the basis of a shared understanding throughout this book, is the one published in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), in a report now referred to as the “Brundtland Report.”

Sustainability is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of fu...