Communicating Sustainability Leadership The Difficulty of Achieving Differentiation

Based on an analysis of two years of global research by Brandlogic and CRD Analytics focusing on the relationship between real environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and perceived ESG performance, there has been a decline in perceptions. For two-thirds of the companies studied, this may be the result of rising skepticism about the benefits of sustainability programs. Concerted, assertive communication of real sustainability performance is crucial to attaining recognition among key stakeholders, while leveraging the primary (i.e., brand) channels of communication and persuasion appears to be the most effective way to improve perception.