How do the worlds leading brands communicate about sustainability - and how is this evolving?

In this article you can learn:

·??????Which brands are most actively communicating about sustainability??

·??????How brand sustainability comms has evolved over time

·??????The environmental risks and solutions they talk about the most

·??????The role brand CEO’s play in their sustainability comms?

Over the past decade many of the world’s leading brands have finally begun to play an active role in sustainability and, given that it’s an increasingly popular topic for consumers and media, it is no surprise that they’ve used their communication channels to detail this.

In this article I’ll explore social media post data from 250 of the world’s leading brands to understand how they communicate around sustainability - and how this has changed over the past five years.?

Which leading brands are most actively communicating around sustainability?

As shown in the chart below, National Geographic was the most active brand when it came to communicating sustainability. This is not too much of a surprise given their history with covering both nature and science, and it is great to see a brand with both authority and a strong legacy in these areas actively communicating here.?

French multinational automation and energy management company Schneider Electric was also very active in communicating sustainability, with the topic regularly being featured in their day-to-day corporate comms.?

It is interesting to see finance companies such as Zurich Insurance, UBS and Morgan Stanley feature prominently here, however given the inevitable impact climate change will have on their investments and assets this feels like an intelligent move for them.?

What events are most prominent in brand sustainability comms over the past five years?

Inevitably, the pandemic had some visible impact in brand communications around sustainability and we see this in the visible fall off in its early stages as these large international organisations would have inevitably had to pause and assess how they express themselves to the wider world.

I also identified a noticeable fall off in brand comms around sustainability so far in 2023, however at this point it is too soon to identify whether this is an pertinent trend or what could be driving it.

Events such as COP26 and Earth Day 2021 provided these brands an opportunity to communicate actively around the topic, and in the case of the 2019 IPCC special reports I also identified some reactive brand communications - with National Geographic being especially active in response to this.

What are the most active sustainability topics - and how have communications around these changed?

As detailed in the chart below Emissions, Renewable Energy and Net Zero have been the most actively discussed topics over the past five years, with these three topics combined accounting for almost half of all communications tracked.

I mapped communications around these topics (and several other active ones) over time to understand how brand communications had changed. Here we can see Emissions was less actively discussed during the pandemic - which I wonder is at least in part down to the assumption that these were reduced during this period, and so less of a public and media concern.?

Renewable Energy saw a larger share of communication from these top 250 brands pre-pandemic but does seem to have regained some of the focus more recently. Net Zero, which saw very limited use in brand communications pre-pandemic, now accounts for a sizeable share and this is certainly a reflection of the commitments made to this at a national level over the past few years.?

Communicating Environmental Risks & Solutions

While understanding general themes around sustainability in brand comms is useful I wanted to make use of some of the Ecomatter environmental solution and risk categorisation tools I’ve been developing as of late, and applied here they can tell us much about these brands sustainability concerns and objectives.?

Studying how these brands communicate around environmental risks it is clear that Pollution (and to a lesser degree, Acid Rain) has been the main focus over the past five years - and a deep dive into this category confirmed that communications from technology companies such as Microsoft, Google and Huawei had the most impact here with global audiences.?

Climate Change & Extreme Weather and Plastics also saw noticeable shares while other issues such as Biodiversity & Habitat loss, Water Scarcity and Land Use saw much less focus - suggesting that leading brands have yet to address these less topics in depth due to the lesser cultural understanding and awareness of them.

Much as Pollution dominated brand communications about risks, Renewable Energy saw a large share of environmental solutions comms tracked. Many of these detailed brands own actions of putting renewables solutions in place - with comms from Technology and Finance brands seeing the most resonance with global audiences.

Waste Reduction, EV / Transportation, Alternative Fuels and Sustainable Materials also saw noticeable shares - while Soil Conservation, Land Use Solutions and Green Building saw less of focus from these leading brands.?

Putting Leadership Front & Centre?

By studying the public figures most mentioned I was able to identify a noticeable trend of brands utilising their CEOs as part of their sustainability comms - with examples including GSK’s Emma Walmsley, Larry Fink of BlackrRck and Mario Greco of Zurich Insurance. Given the increasing global focus on sustainability issues I’m certain this use of leadership is an effective means for corporates to provide reassurance of their commitment.

Interestingly, sustainability leadership saw less involvement in brand comms - with these featuring as less than one percent of all tracked. This is most likely due to the nascent nature of these roles, with many brands only hiring in senior sustainability leadership in the past few years.

My expectation is that, as these roles become more established and embedded in their organisations, we will see that share increase over time.

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