Lucie Sinclair of communications consultancy CO3 sets the scene for a series of articles on corporate responsibility communications.
Corporate responsibility has gained some ground and credibility over recent years, and the leaders and laggards are often identified. Companies committed to being responsible entities commit time, funds and board interest to defining policies, designing systems and gathering information to identify their progression. Some keep this cycle behind closed doors, some craft detailed reports, some develop sophisticated websites. A few even dare to create some advertising around products which have benefited from sustainable development thinking. All this activity comes under the heading of corporate responsibility communications and it’s taken a while to get to where we are now.
The champions of corporate responsibility have long advocated that the secret of implementing corporate responsibility in order to reach its true potential is integration. CR issues are relevant across all business functions and business strategy: they should not exist in isolation. Exactly the same goes for corporate responsibility communications. It is relevant and furthermore, crucial, to all areas of a business’ communications from its investor relations to lobbying, from marketing to advertising and from employee communications to graduate recruitment. The messages and the delivery of those messages, via any sort of communication channel, must be coherent, consistent and complete for all stakeholders – and furthermore the business must communicate with and not to those stakeholders, incorporating all the requisite feedback systems, to truly create an effective corporate communications strategy.
Corporate responsibility communications is reaching an interesting stage in its development.There are businesses working hard and creating value by tackling and managing their CR issues – and often working hard to communicate via reporting. However even these committed organisations are missing an opportunity: this ‘one size fits all’ reporting does not have the capability of reaching the broad spectrum of its stakeholders, even more so if its customer base is the ‘man on the street’. The different stakeholders (or ‘target audiences’ in ‘communications speak’) need a multitude of methods to be reached, but the messages must remain consistent.
Businesses are also criticised for ‘greenwash’, ‘bluewash’ and ‘spin’, making them reticent to discuss their efforts. Not only do such accusations stifle corporate responsibility development, they also halt the progression of the sustainable development of society as a whole. What if the closest access a person has to sustainable development issues is via their employer’s efforts to tackle its environmental and social impacts? If that person’s interest is sparked by their employer’s behaviour, how can they become a more responsible consumer if they can’t see what their favourite brands are doing or what energy-use alternatives are on offer to them?
Corporate responsibility communications faces these and other challenges. State of play? The game is afoot.
Lucie Sinclair is Senior Communications Advisor at CO3. Lucie’s background includes SRI research at Henderson Global Investors and communications at Warner Bros Pictures. She holds an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London with a specialism in Business and Environment. CO3 is a specialised communications service based in central London that assists companies and organisations in maximising the opportunities that their corporate responsibility credentials present and minimising the related reputational risk.
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