"All Ouch and No Yay hard to make the reader stay"

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Happiest New Year to you and the team... here to a wonderful 2023

ESG E. Learning Design: We are in the process of designing the Chartered Institute’s of Public Relation (CIPR) first Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) Communication and Strategy development E. Learning offer. The course will provide learners with the basic information they need to know about the topic.?It’s not the first time we deliver this service?to a client. We have several clients who requested a bespoke ESG Mindset E.Learning Courses for their employees and suppliers to help them understand the role they play in embedding the company’s ESG within their departments.

?*** If you would like to know more about this service email us

How Start-Ups are embedding ESG initiatives within their core offering? A Report

The team worked tirelessly to analyse how start-ups are integrating ESG within their offerings and what initiatives are they integrating and reporting on? This report will provide you with how your competitors are doing in this space and what initiatives you can adopt based on your purpose and offer. Click here to download the report

*** We now have a full team of market researchers, email us for more info on how we can support you.

ESG Mena Article:

The MENA's largest ESG online magazine featured my thoughts on how " PR agencies chart path to ESG reporting".?I did not shy away from sharing my honest thoughts on how my birth region, the MENA region, is still on its ESG infancy phase and how communicators should upskill themselves as soon as possible to be able to spot any green washing claims suggested by their employers. Read full article here

Our Views

"All ouch and no yay, hard to make the listener stay": tips to write your ESG stories

We read an old joke: “how many phycologists does it take to change a lightbulb?” Answer: one, but the lightbulb must want to change. People change when they want no matter of what we want. This is particularly important in the context of ESG where judgment and blame are key part of the conversations.

Most of us would have encountered someone or an organisation trying to get us to act one way or another about ESG but the problem is that the majority of times their advice reverts us to our original thinking mainly because we haven’t really asked for the advice.

ESG, sustainability, or regenerative thinking is mainly focused on mindset change and behaviour change which could be achieved through story telling.

?Here are our tips on how to tell an effective ESG story:

1. Focus on a timeframe, whether it’s the time an initiative took to design or implement and tell us about it in detail. Identify the scenes and help us live it with you. Don’t overwhelm us with a story that encompasses three aspects of ESG for example.
2. Take your audience somewhere. You can’t keep driving around the block. Hence, you need to give them context. It needs to make sense. One of the ways you can structure an ESG initiative’s story is chronological. It's the most compelling structure is one that lets a story unfold for the audience in the order that it happened.
3. The rule of thumb is not to let a trauma, or a struggle be the story, but rather to make it the context of the story. Stories always need to go beyond a bad/shocking action that took place. We love the Moth Storytelling group and one of their famous rhyme is “all ouch and no yay. Hard to make the listener stay”. Which is not to say that all stories need to be happy outcome, but be careful not to make a laundry list of your initiatives.

The truth is our lives are made up of million stories. Trying to stuff your whole ESG story into one story will not work

Views from the top:

The increasing importance of institutionalising ESG in all companies

Most of us tend to reflect on a year just passed and to prepare ourselves for what lies ahead based on the prevailing trends and the outlook. In terms of ESG, 2022 was a year of very significant change and development. Whilst there has been significant progress, not least in the new EU regulations for company ESG disclosure and action, including deforestation, there has also been increasing and unnecessary politicisation of ESG, particularly in the United States.

In the asset management sector many firms have been much more careful about the labelling of their ESG funds as regulators tighten the parameters around what may be termed ESG compliant financial products. This will continue in 2023.

Throughout 2022, there was a noticeable increase in extreme weather events across the world, continuing the trend that we have seen over the last few decades – and only this week there is extreme rainfall in California which is causing severe flooding. Weather-related events are an increasing risk for many companies, which may lead to problems in the availability of supplies to possible costly physical damage to operations from excessive rainfall or heat or diminishing market demand as a result of these extreme weather events. The risk committees on boards will have to, in my opinion, research even more deeply into further potential weather-related effects upon the operations and sustainability of their companies and also on their stakeholders. From my own perspective in analysing companies, there is still more to be done to improve longer term strategy and to then improve corporate resilience to potential risks.

Rising global temperatures will continue and, as part of the wider ESG community and within my investment banking and asset management community, we all must do much more to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the use of plastic particularly and with greater speed. Currently, Danone is facing legal action from environmental groups over its use of plastic, for example, with the allegation that Danone used 750,000 metric tons of plastic in packaging its products in 2021. For changes to happen more efficiently there needs to be far better institutionalisation of ESG principles and methodology from the board to the workplace and across stakeholders. It is vital, therefore, that internal and external communications about ESG are placed as a core element of a company's mission statement and action. For this to happen, there has to be concurrent operational changes for a tangible change to reduce, as noted in the Danone example, the use of plastic.

As ESG is becoming more broadly accepted and as many more companies are working together on the methodology and implementation of cuts in greenhouse gases and plastic and other waste materials, it is likely that in 2023 we shall see further jurisdictions implementing stricter and clearer regulations governing companies, through government legislation and through stock exchanges as continuing listing requirements. Good communication is essential for all of this to work and to help encourage further boards, companies and stakeholders to act. ESG principles may be viewed as burdensome by companies, not surprisingly, but it is also necessary as customers press for real change in emissions and plastic and other packaging use. We are at your side to help you in these changes.?

Angus Blair, CommUnique Board Advisor and ESG Investment Strategist

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Until next week ??

The CommUnique Tribe