Effective Sustainability Messaging Should Tap Emotions
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Effective Sustainability Messaging Should Tap Emotions

/ Essay

Companies increasingly share sustainability data with business partners; regulatory agencies; and environmental, social & governance (ESG) rating firms. But they also need to communicate their sustainability initiatives to nonexpert audiences such as customers to boost sales and their workforce to improve employee engagement. Effectively reaching these groups requires a more captivating communication strategy, a central topic discussed at our recent roundtable Telling Your Sustainability Story 2.0.

Key Insights

For maximum impact, all sustainability messages need to be customized to different stakeholders—including customers, employees, owners, suppliers, and the community—explaining how each group benefits in an engaging and inspirational fashion.

Read on below for more insights.

Companies increasingly share sustainability data with business partners; regulatory agencies; and environmental, social & governance (ESG) rating firms. But they also need to communicate their sustainability initiatives to nonexpert audiences such as customers to boost sales and their workforce to improve employee engagement. Effectively reaching these groups requires a more captivating communication strategy, a central topic discussed at our recent roundtable Telling Your Sustainability Story 2.0.

Key Insights

For maximum impact, all sustainability messages need to be customized to different stakeholders—including customers, employees, owners, suppliers, and the community—explaining how each group benefits in an engaging and inspirational fashion.

  • Emotional appeal is essential. Effectively communicating corporate sustainability initiatives to customers and employees requires conveying stories that resonate emotionally and provoke engagement rather than just share numerical data.
    • For customers, be inspirational, clear, transparent, and fact based. While based on a small sample, the word cloud on the most effective tone of messages conveys the attitudes of roundtable participants in a qualitative way (Figure 1).
    • For employees, messages should mainly emphasize collaboration and inclusiveness (Figure 2). Honesty and ambitious goals for the future are also effective tones.
  • Two themes that emerged as an effective tone for customers and employees in sustainability communications are an invitation to engage around sustainability and sincerity. These positive communication strategies align with recommended assessment metrics such as reputation and trust.
  • Evaluate impact on reputation and brand trust. According to roundtable participants, the primary metrics for assessing the impact of sustainability communications should be reputation and brand trust, ahead of employee engagement around sustainability or revenue impact.

Read on below for more insights.
Figure 1

Inspiration is key for sustainability messages to customers

Thinking about how to make sustainability engaging and inspiring to customers and employees, here are some ideas:

Customers

  • Combine sustainability with customer benefits like better taste, healthier ingredients, durable materials, and lower (long-term) costs. Sustainability alone may not appeal to all target customers, especially business-to-consumer (B2C) entities that may prioritize personal benefits over environmental impact.
  • Explain how customers’ sustainability actions make a difference in easy-to-understand, tangible ways (e.g.,

Author

Denise Dahlhoff, PhD

Denise Dahlhoff, PhD Denise Dahlhoff, PhD

Director, Marketing & Communications Research
The Conference Board

Read Bio

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