How to avoid backlash for telling your sustainability story

As I write this, I’m recent off this 12 months’s GreenBiz convention the place I participated in two panel discussions on sustainability communications. Amid all of the backlash we’ve seen geared toward corporations for his or her social impression applications, and the class-action lawsuits we’ve seen filed over environmental claims, it’s comprehensible that some corporations’ knee-jerk response is: “We don’t speak about sustainability!” (Insert the tune to the Disney music “We Don’t Speak About Bruno” right here).

However as you’ve heard me point out a number of occasions right here: Individuals WANT to listen to from corporations about what they’re doing to resolve the world’s greatest issues. And in the event that they don’t hear your story about that, they’ll assume you don’t have one, and shortly, they received’t need to be just right for you or purchase from you.

So how do you talk your planet and/or folks story with out working afoul of the tradition police (or precise police)? There’s a two-part precept to comply with:

1. In case your sustainability story is tied to your corporation and advertising and marketing technique, there isn’t a backlash.

Now, that doesn’t imply there may not be upset or disagreement with what you’re doing and saying. But when your advertising and marketing efforts and communications are tightly aligned with what your organization has decided is required for future development, then if individuals are upset, your CEO has a rationale to stay to. The examine and distinction examples listed below are Nike and Bud Gentle (and, full disclosure, Shelton Group was not concerned with both shopper; that is my evaluation as a sustainability marcomm outsider trying in). Nike clearly made a strategic enterprise determination to breathe new life into its model by supporting Colin Kaepernick just a few years again. Did folks get upset, burn their Nikes and vow by no means to purchase from Nike once more? Sure. Did the corporate’s model worth and gross sales go up? Sure. When the backlash got here, Nike execs caught agency to the choice and didn’t again down. They knew that the core Nike client can be aligned with supporting somebody unafraid to face for one thing.

Individuals WANT to listen to from corporations about what they’re doing to resolve the world’s greatest issues. And in the event that they don’t hear your story about that, they’ll assume you don’t have one, and shortly, they received’t need to be just right for you or purchase from you.

Bud Gentle’s advertising and marketing workforce, however, clearly didn’t make a strategic determination to stroll away from conservative younger males who need their beer to assist them appear macho in favor of focusing completely on the LGBTQ neighborhood. We all know it didn’t make this determination by the way in which it instantly waffled as soon as they obtained hit with backlash for supporting a trans influencer. Sadly, its guardian firm, Anheueser-Busch, has lengthy had a excessive score with the Human Rights Marketing campaign’s Company Equality Index, the biggest LGBTQ advocacy/lobbying group within the U.S. With Bud Gentle’s “we didn’t imply to upset anyone” response to the backlash, it ended up alienating each its younger male macho target market AND the LGBTQ target market. The ethical of the story: Spend the time to floor your sustainability communications efforts in your corporation and advertising and marketing technique.

2. The connective tissue between your corporation technique and your sustainability comms technique is materiality.

When you conduct a considerate, sturdy materiality evaluation, you’ll know precisely what folks, planet and governance points are seen as materials to your stakeholders. Then you may set targets and an motion plan for addressing these points. These targets and plan ought to and might join proper to your corporation technique/plan for development. KIND Snacks gives an incredible instance of how this has been carried out effectively (and, full disclosure, KIND is a Shelton Group shopper). Its materiality evaluation revealed that almond rising was a fabric difficulty for it — as a result of almonds are a key ingredient in KIND bars AND they require lots of water to develop. As soon as KIND understood this problem, it set a objective to have one hundred pc of its almonds grown through regenerative agriculture practices on a mass stability foundation by 2030. Then it launched a program known as the KIND Almond Acres Initiative to start testing/studying/bringing that objective to life AND deliver its stakeholders alongside on the journey. Right here’s an incredible, on-brand video that tells the story in a manner all its audiences can perceive:

Did KIND expertise some damaging feedback on social media? Sure. Did it again down or apologize for its efforts to make rising almonds extra sustainable? No. It didn’t have to — as a result of, to level No. 1, this program is tied to a objective, which is tied to a fabric difficulty, which is tied to its enterprise technique for development.

So, as in so many issues in life, the reply to the right way to keep away from backlash for telling your sustainability story is NOT to cover your mild underneath a bushel. The reply is to be true to who you actually are.