How to Make Your Company a Recognized Sustainability Champion

Brendan May

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351275866
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Is it really worth the time and resources to make your company a recognized sustainability champion? And how on earth should you go about it? In this concise and practical book, Brendan May demonstrates why the companies that will be fit for purpose in 2020 are addressing sustainability now, and then outlines a strategy for how to do that.May draws on 15 years' experience on the front line of sustainable business – as Chief Executive of a business–NGO partnership, as an environmental campaigner and as advisor to multinational corporations on sustainability strategy and communications – and outlines the emerging trends that will change the rules of the game forever.By the time you've finished this book you'll know who you need to know, what you need to know, and the dos and don'ts in the quest to make your business a true champion of sustainability.

Part 1
Who You Need to Know

Understanding the landscape

MANY COMPANIES START OUT in sustainability with entirely the wrong motivation. It often takes years of false starts until eventually the penny drops. This is often down to giving a senior employee the ‘CSR’ remit, usually after some issue, crisis or other that has concerned the Chief Executive (if you’re lucky) or, more typically, a communications or public affairs director.

On the face of it, why or how a company starts to see sustainability on its issues horizon doesn’t matter per se. As long as it is on the radar, that’s surely the key thing. But actually, the motivation for aspiring to sustainability matters enormously. As does the choice of internal resource to get things moving. This is because without the deep understanding that sustainability is not a compliance necessity, an optional marketing tool or a niche effort that can apply to a couple of products, it will never work for a business. Sustainability is in fact the entire basis of all future commerce, whatever it’s called. It’s about being resilient in a world whose supply chains are going to creak and in some cases crack under the pressure of climate change, biodiversity loss, water stress and growing consumption. It’s about reducing volatility, risk and litigation. It’s about connecting with consumers who are already struggling to make the most of limited resources (ecologically and financially). It’s about competitive edge, the best suppliers, the most loyal customers and attracting the best talent into the workforce. And yes, in the long run, there are hundreds of marketing and communications benefits too.

Importantly, sustainability is not just a luxury that is all very well for cash-rich Western businesses (if such companies still exist), but of limited relevance to emerging giants in the new economic hothouses of Brazil, China and India. In fact, as countries on the front line of imminent planetary meltdown, the sustainable business agenda may well expand faster there than in the regions where it has been talked about, if not implemented, for far longer. I often hear people complain that we green types in Europe don’t understand the economic needs of other parts of the world. Increasingly, it’s in the other parts of the world that they are most desperate to find political, economic and environmental solutions to a crisis only dismissed in the lunatic fringes of some political movements here and there. Whilst the Tea Party tendency brews away, the real world is talking about where the next cups of tea will actually come from, and at what price. So motivation matters. A lot.

Most corporate communications executives have spent their careers talking to three key audiences: regulators, media and investors. They are seasoned in their lobbying of government, their cultivation of journalists and, in the case of publicly owned companies, their schmoozing with shareholders and analysts. In large global companies these three activities occupy virtually all communications resources. Indeed the task is so great that additional resources are often assigned to an army of public relations firms across multiple markets to help execute the company’s external relations programme.

The problem is that the audiences in which most corporate communications executives are so well versed are precisely those with the least knowledge of and engagement with progressive sustainability. You will find more sophisticated environmental knowledge in a company that ‘gets it’ than in the whole of the EU’s environmental QANGOs combined. Only very niche journalists pay much attention to the topic, and are mostly interested in companies doing things badly rather than well. And everybody knows (although few environmentalists admit it) that most investors couldn’t care less about planetary survival as long as the quarterly results are up to scratch and they can make a good living out of corporate growth.

It is staggering how little companies, new to this agenda, understand the landscape in which they must operate (and of course I am not talking about the growing ranks of sustainability leaders who have highly sophisticated channels of communication with all stakeholders). At best, they might be aware of the pesky ‘NGO movement’ (more on which in the next chapter). But the lens through which they believe their company is viewed is essentially a cosy and containable trio in which investors, media and regulators rule supreme, and should be the primary focus of attention. They could not be more wrong.

Sometimes a company will wisely not consign the sustainability effort simply to the communications department. They will require technical or operational people to play their part, or even lead the mission. Here again, there is often vast ignorance of the landscape. For whilst operational people make up for the technical shortfalls in PR departments, they seldom possess basic communications skills. Often, companies are doing quite good work, but it is viewed as so dry and boring by communicators that no one outside ever hears about it. And when a crisis strikes, it is not unusual for the PR people in charge of the defensive war room not even to know which expert within their own company to contact for the ‘line to take’. The chances are they’ve never even met them.

Understanding the real landscape a company must navigate is the first step to avoiding this farce. The theatre of sustainable business is crowded, with a few leading actors and a vast cast of extras, some of whom matter to the overall plot much more than others. Broadly, the sustainable business landscape could be defined, in no particular order, as follows:

• Government and associated regulatory authorities
• Institutional investors and shareholders
• Campaigning NGOs
• Solutions-driven NGOs such as certification, auditing and labelling bodies
• Public/private partnerships
• Academia
• Employees
• Trade associations/business coalitions
• Media (print/broadcast and social)
• Miscellaneous key opinion-formers (e.g. former NGO leaders)
• Peer companies and competitors
• Business to business customers
• Consumers/general public
• Suppliers
• Rankings and awards systems
• Specialist advisors and consultancies

Collectively, these categories form the fabric of the canvas on which corporations must paint their version of environmentalism and ethics. They represent thousands of individuals, if not hundreds of thousands. Some matter more than others, and this varies considerably from one country to the next. It is true that the main hubs of opinion forming thought still lie in the UK, Brussels and North America, and this is why leading companies focus much of their efforts in promoting their credentials in these territories. New York, Washington, DC, London and Brussels are major hubs for many key NGOs, not least because they are also important media centres. But France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries also enjoy a vibrant and active campaigning scene, even if it is more localised and concentrated than in the more international hotspots. Increasingly, emerging giants such as India are developing their own frameworks for responsible business. There are ‘CSR’ or green business associations across Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. They will only grow as global challenges intensify. Moreover, companies that embrace sustainability must do so in every nook and cranny of the world in which they operate. For one acid river in a remote part of Africa can be all over Twitter and on the front pages of traditional media within 24 hours.

The key point to remember is that the sustainable business community (and it really is a community) is constantly talking to itself, forming judgments about your business or sector. Retailers hate nothing more than a surprise attack from a campaigning NGO alleging their supply chains are responsible for dead orang-utans, the slaughter of turtles or the destruction of the Amazon. The retail sector is therefore in constant dialogue with campaigning groups. Media depend on campaigners to give them good stories. Campaigners depend on good policy thinking to make their case, from think-tanks and academic institutions. Increasingly the scientific community is finding its proper voice in these debates. Twitter is awash with CSR and green advocates, providing the perfect channel for widespread dissemination of good or bad news. Regulators, as ever caught in the headlights, try to keep up and frame policy around what others have already achieved as they sat and watched. Sometimes they become pivotal, but far too rarely. All these audiences are influencing each other, and building up a collective view about priority issues, who is leading, who is following the pack, and who is lagging far behind.

You may think that your sector or company or brand is immune from this ‘chatter’. But someone, somewhere, is watching you. They may be developing a new ranking of ethics or sustainability for your sector. You may find yourself near the top. If you’ve never engaged on these issues, more likely you’re at the bottom. If your custom...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Abstract
• About The Author
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Who You Need to Know
• 2 What You Need to Know
• Notes