How to Share Progress Without a Sustainability Report
How do you tell your sustainability story without releasing a sustainability report? Large companies use sustainability reports because they are required to publish annual reports. It can be hard to find the time or money for smaller companies to publish such grandiose reports. Reports can also seem outdated for smaller companies.
Instead of releasing an annual sustainability report, tell your sustainability story using your current content strategy. Keep in mind how you currently share content, what your audience responds to and what you want to share. Sustainability should be part of any content or marketing strategy.
If you’re not a large public company required to publish an annual report use your existing content tools, and some additional tips, to craft a sustainability story fit for your company.
Decide what you’re sharing
For this, list all activities, products, stories or goals related to sustainability. Then make two columns: important and less important. Put each into columns based on importance, materiality, interest level and audience interest. Is there an initiative your competitor is doing that you’re doing better? Share it. Take an outsider approach for a second, what would you be interested in learning about?
Choosing what to share needs input from multiple decision-makers. In a meeting, take turns being the outsider and give suggestions to yourself as a “client.” Try to categorize items. It’s more important to get focused on what you do want to share, you can always remove items later depending on your plan.
If you’re stuck, try different categories for sustainability activities. New products in one bucket, initiatives in another, how did you do on your goals for something? Consider goals and reporting structures. Is there a goal you’re supposed to hit this year? Make a plan to share it when it’s ready, whether you hit it or not.
Example:
Employee volunteer day at local animal shelter, energy reduction initiative and quarterly goal process, employee wellness series, new governance policies, charity water donations.
Review the list and decide to share the energy initiative and its’ goals, and the employee volunteer day.
Create Content Pieces
From each of those items you want to share, write up a general overview and main statistics, learnings, goals or other narratives around the item to share.
Modify information into content types. This gives you a content bank of sustainability for you to share throughout the year. Put it into a folder to reference.
“This gives you a content bank of sustainability for you to share throughout the year.”
Example:
For the employee volunteer day, gather quotes from employees, write up a narrative of what you did that day, how you chose the organization, if they provided feedback, and any photos of the event.
Energy initiative, have an outline of what actions you’re taking, how much you’ve saved already, what your goals are and what the days you’ll hit your goals. Write up any highs and lows of getting to the goal, how employees motivate each other. Craft a narrative.
Have a plan
Just because you’re not publishing a 256-page document doesn’t mean you should be sharing without a plan. Once you’ve figured out what you want to share, sketch a rough plan using the below guidelines on how you want to share.
Lean heavily on your marketing team during this. They should be able to create a plan for sharing the story. A marketing team should also determine the method and platforms for sharing.
Example:
Employee Volunteer Day: Create a blog post describing the day, 10 Instagrams with quotes or pictures of people at the event, add information to careers page to entice new hires, share the process to determine how you went about researching and locating the non-profit for a how-to blog, take photo or video footage and make a YouTube video.
Energy initiative: Put the goal dates into the calendar and plan to share updates on relevant platforms. Make a webpage to track goals and shares best practices for savings. Post monthly on Instagram to show progress toward the goals.
Sustainability Webpage
A web page is a comprehensive alternative to a full report. I know you’re probably thinking, duh! Making a conscious strategy for your sustainability webpage is an effective way to drive new customers or keep existing customers engaged.
You can update websites and webpages as you go through the year, hit goals or make other changes. Instead of publishing a report, have a specific part of your website dedicated to sustainability information and updates.
Best Practices For Sharing Sustainability
Bake into your content strategy
The easiest way to plan from a marketing perspective is to bake it into your existing content strategy. Are you active on YouTube and Instagram? Active website? Add sustainability information to those platforms on a scheduled basis.
Use the below guidelines to help craft an effective sustainability story, with your existing content strategy guiding the way.
Consider “quarterly updates”
The annual report seems daunting partly because it's just a one time, big explanation of all strategy. Consider spreading out sharing by quarter. Try a quarterly round-up, sharing only one initiative area per quarter, or sharing a quarterly update on goals.
“Try a quarterly round-up, sharing only one initiative area per quarter, or sharing a quarterly update on goals. ”
Use visuals
Share photos, diagrams and video interviews with employees sharing sustainability information. We are visual creatures and having visual prompts and information is a great way to share information, and make it shareable across platforms.
Spread it across channels
Find one or two valuable pieces of content and share it across platforms. Your Instagram users might be different from YouTube and vice versa. For the content pieces you have created, don’t be afraid to reshare, share on different channels and use the same piece of content, like a quote, across platforms. A quote can be used in a newsletter, on a careers page and Instagram.
Embrace the “story”
Focus on the why, the triumphs, the failures, the narrative of your sustainability. Is employee volunteer day at an animal shelter because you’re a pet food company? Why is reducing energy important to you? Weave in emotions and meanings to the narrative, it will help people connect.
Don’t be afraid to keep it simple
If you have one thing to share, that’s great! Share it. Create a webpage, remind users monthly on Instagram. Don’t feel like you have to have 10 different initiatives and stories to craft. If you do it right, one story told well can be incredibly powerful.
There is a way to share important sustainability information without having to release a sustainability report. I hope that creating a plan, using your marketing team and creating content pieces have gotten you started considering to best apply this to your own business.
What other questions do you have about sharing sustainability information? Share in the comments!
