November 22, 2024//LEFF Sustainability Group//Katie Parry

More insights from our virtual event: How to seize the CSRD communications opportunity

The deadline for submission of the first set of reports that must comply with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is less than six months away. This directive will profoundly change how tens of thousands of companies think about, report on, and talk about ESG issues.  

To help companies get ahead of these changes, we’ve put together a second (and final) blog post covering some of the highlights of the LEFF Sustainability Group’s recent virtual event on how CSRD and other reporting mandates can supercharge companies’ sustainability communications strategies. Our expert panel for the event consisted of Ed Packshaw, head of ESG risk, reporting, and communications at Simply Sustainable; Lane Jost, managing director and head of ESG advisory at Edelman Smithfield; and . . . me (Katie Parry), director of LEFF’s Sustainability Group.

The first recap blog covered insights into how regulatory developments will affect how companies think and talk about ESG, and into the communications opportunities these shifts will bring. This blog post covers concrete tips from our experts on how companies can develop the narratives, mindset, and impact evaluation metrics they will need to put together an industry-leading sustainability communications strategy.

1. Companies will likely need to dig deep—with help from communications experts—to find the narrative that will resonate with their stakeholders

To find the stories that will connect—while avoiding greenwashing—marketing and communications experts should be involved in ESG reporting efforts from the very beginning, Ed argued. He said these experts need to “connect with the sustainability leaders who can describe the actions that a company is taking transparently and honestly, and then find the human interest angle to create something that people can get behind—and don’t need a degree in natural sciences to understand.” He recalled a conversation with a client who thought that the headline from the company’s latest annual report should be that it had reduced its carbon footprint by 13 percent. In fact, the narrative that everyone was finally able to get behind was buried deep in the draft report: the company’s ambition to deliver clean water to many millions of people.

Not all companies have a mission that lends itself quite so obviously to charismatic storytelling, as Lane pointed out. Many companies will have to dig deeper, and get creative, to find the narratives that connect. The double-materiality assessment at the core of CSRD will generally be the right place to start. Imagine a company whose most pressing issues are data security and responsible supply chain management. The right story will vary by company and context, but it may be possible to build stakeholder support for change by telling a story about the potential financial impact of data security breaches or about the communities whose lives would be improved by the implementation of upstream environmental protection measures.

2. Getting ESG-related communications right will require patience and humility

As Lane pointed out, learning how to talk effectively about sustainability in today’s corporate landscape is a huge learning curve for everyone, including those who have worked in this space for more than 20 years. Regulations and stakeholder demands are changing quickly, which means all companies need to be in learning mode. Lane argued that the required transformation of ESG communications will take companies three to five years: “Companies need to take a 360-degree view that builds on their materiality assessment and then goes deeper on executive communications, product communications, and finding the key narratives that resonate in the marketplace.”

To date, a number of companies have avoided communicating altogether for fear of getting it wrong, a phenomenon that is often referred to as greenhushing. Doing so, however, leaves a lot of potential value on the table. CSRD will mean companies have a lot of audited data, which should increase their confidence in communicating their target and achievements. Those that think carefully about their communications strategy and content—and communicate transparently and authentically when things don’t go according to plan—have a real opportunity to build trust.

3. Metrics for measuring return on investment in ESG issues and related communications may be imperfect, but they do exist

Demonstrating the value of sustainability-related initiatives, and of the investments required to talk effectively about them, is important in building momentum. As Ed pointed out, sometimes this can be straightforward—reducing energy usage will reduce energy bills, for example—but often it isn’t. CSRD can help companies start to understand the value at stake. While it’s not a traditional ROI exercise, preparing for CSRD submissions will force companies to understand the possible financial impact of issues as diverse as natural disasters, data privacy failures, and human rights violations within their supply chain. The results of this analysis should make it much easier for companies to justify investment in mitigation measures.

And of course, investing in ESG isn’t just about mitigating risk. Ed challenged participants in our virtual event to think, for example, about how they could place a value on employees feeling purposeful, positive, and engaged at work. These employees will be more likely to invest time in innovation and to work efficiently. In fact, a recent McKinsey study estimated that the cost of disengagement could be about 4 percent of the total wage bill for an average large corporation—and sometimes much higher. Smart investments in ESG issues and in effectively communicating key targets and achievements can go a long way toward making sure employees are excited to come to work in the morning.

Our panelists were clear—and we’ve written in the past—about the considerable added value that good sustainability communications can bring. One of the questions that came up during the virtual event was “What’s the secret sauce for getting sustainability communications right?” While we’d love to share one with you, the only truthful answer is that there’s no one right answer. There’s simply no substitute for doing the hard work required to both find your company’s unique sustainability narrative and tell it in the way (and in the places) that will best resonate with your key audiences.

Want to find out more? Get in touch with LEFF sustainability director Katie Parry.

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