Communications that prevents greenwashing and green hushing.
Be on the front-foot with your ESG communications
Every organisation must find its voice when it comes to communicating ESG. It’s our job, as practitioners, to clearly communicate to avoid greenwashing and greenhushing.
We’re here to help. Our sustainability messaging model will get you front-foot, confidently communicating based on our ten principles.
Herdwick’s 10 Principles of ESG Communications
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Be committed to the endpoint but don’t let the sheer scale overwhelm you – and don’t use this as an excuse not to start. Break it down into phases and different components and focus on delivering each. Let measurement define the path and use results to communicate the journey transparently.
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Do more than just focus on your core operations; look at the whole business from sales to distribution to production to decommissioning. Work closely with your colleagues from across your organisation to understand the full extent of your business operations.
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Discussing what you have not done is just as important as what you are doing. This will also steer you away from ‘greenwashing’.
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Acknowledge your current position using measurement and to illustrate your trajectory together with the milestones you reach along the way.
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Your communications plan must include sustainability. If it is absent, your reputation is exposed and your organisation is vulnerable.
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You must communicate and have a point of view regardless of the stage of your journey to net zero. If you don’t have an opinion, you risk ‘greenhushing’.
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Sustainability communications are no different to any other type of communication, which means they must be honest, open and transparent. As practitioners, it is our role to translate jargon and technical terms to aid stakeholder comprehension of our organisation's position.
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We will learn more as the journey progresses, technology advances and measurement criteria evolve. You may have to change direction entirely and you will need to communicate the steps you are taking and the reasons why.
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This is not a journey you are taking alone. Your products and service will engender behaviours in others. Use communications to help your consumers make informed decisions that support their steps to net zero. Our impact on the environment is much broader than our core business functions.
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As communications practitioners, your knowledge of stakeholders and their behaviour is invaluable to the strategy-setting process. Take your seat at the table and make sure you represent those stakeholders.
Corporate sustainability strategy that is technical, achievable and well communicated
We have partnered with sustain:able to offer a seamless approach to sustainability.
sustain:able develop technically-supported ESG and emissions risk strategies. Herdwick brings best practice, tried and tested communications strategies. Together, we provide a comprehensive, industry-leading ESG solution that allows businesses to accurately and confidently communicate to all stakeholders, including employees, investors and regulators.
sustain:able approaches all sustainability, emissions and nature-related strategies with data and risk at the centre of all they do. Working with critical industries, the environmental aspect focuses on emissions accounting, forecasting and reduction planning. Wider environmental issues and a growing awareness of the social impact of companies requires careful stakeholder engagement and cross-functional working. The requirement for sustainability reporting has meant a wider range of companies and those within the supply chain need to meet the reporting requirements. sustain:able recognises that companies may not have the expertise, time or resource in house and by working together develop the strategy ‘making sustainability simple’.
Our approach is to take technical reporting and create fact-based consumer-focused communications that prevent greenwashing and hushing. Whether an organisation is just starting the journey or well along the way we provides sustainability communications kits that enable effective communications to be developed in just 30 days.
Herdwick and sustain:able provide a perfect end-to-end sustainability solution for your business.
Sustainability Communications Kits
Need to jump start your sustainability communications?
Every communications strategy and plan must include sustainability. We can help. Our sustainability kits get you up and running.
Herdwick’s Sustainability Communications Messaging Model
With our roots firmly steeped in one of Britain’s most beautiful national parks, we intend to change the communications landscape not the physical landscape.
As practitioners, we share a common view that sustainability communications, as for any communications, must be grounded in fact.
Our sustainability communications model identifies strategic opportunities and highlights where businesses have sustainable differentiators, where the company is on par with the industry and where risk exists.
“Change the communications landscape not the physical landscape.”
Our Sustainability Communications Messaging Model
Working together, our experience combined with your business insight allows us to build a matrix that examines your operations to create balanced communications messaging without the risk of greenwashing.
The model encourages dialogue and debate and through informed collaboration, together, we identify your sustainability differentiators, where you are on par with the industry and where risks exist.
From this analysis, we create messaging that accurately represents your business and a communications strategy that can track your progress to becoming carbon neutral.