Why do the 17 UN SDGs matter so much to your reputation, and how can you demonstrate your sustainability credentials?
Today, I'm going to talk about sustainable development and how you can use sustainability in your business for your communications program. What is your company doing to help reach the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and how can you measure it? And once you're measuring it, how can you get noticed for doing so?
For those of you not familiar with the United Nations program that was written in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. These goals are no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, peace and justice and strong institutions, and partnership for all the goals. These 17 goals have underneath them 960 events, 1,205 publications, 5,132 partnerships, and 174 targets. Within these 17 goals, a question will be, what can your business do to participate in making the world a better place?
According to Keith Weed, the Chief Marketing Officer of Unilever, brands that have not yet caught up with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and are not thinking about how they will embed environmental and social sustainability within their business model will not be around in the next 50 years. I personally would say that it will be a lot quicker than that. If we look at, for example, the automotive industry, with the rapid decline of some big brands and the growth of Tesla, what we're seeing is that consumers are saying no to traditional internal combustion engine cars and saying yes to electric-powered cars.
We're going to see this shift in thinking across a number of different industries, if not all industries. And what's interesting is that it's quite possible for companies, big and small, to adopt one or any number of these 17 goals, and there are steps and guides that we can use in order to identify best practices, not only on a tactical level, but also to incorporate it into our businesses. I was having a chat with Catherine Griffin, the founder of a company called Impact.able Analytics, and she's working with business founders who are focusing on sustainability. When we look at how plants are now being grown in urban areas and in containers, sustainability is now a part of the business model. It's very attractive to consumers, and it should be, because it's going to preserve the well-being of our planet.
If we, as companies, are taking part in the achievement of these SDGs, there are a number of ways that we can track and measure our progress. One website we can use is SDGfunders, and it's funded by Candid, an organization that was originally called the Foundation Center. SDGfunders is also funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the MasterCard Foundation. It goes to show that at the heart of philanthropy and corporate governance is a drive to not only do good but to measure good as well. New companies and industries today are being built with sustainability not as a bolt on to the existing business, but as the business itself. This plays into the narrative that, of course, with COVID and global warming, companies and communities must play a role in the well-being of society and of the planet. This is important, because doing so is the right thing to do, and from a publicity point of view, this is really what readers and the media are interested in.
It's no coincidence that a company like Tesla gets the kind of media coverage it does even though it sells less than 10% of the number of cars as VW. It gets much more favorable press, because it's doing something with a purpose and a vision. As we know, in our SPEAK|pr methodology, we talk about Storify, Personalize, Engage, Amplify, and to Know. And in that Elon Musk story, there is an ambition to help people move to Mars and live a better life in a better world. So, sustainability at the very heart of a business isn't just part of the narrative within a business model. It becomes the heart of what people buy and what people are interested in covering.
When we look at SDGfunders, we can see an Indicator Wizard where you can put in your own information, then it will start to give you an indication of how well you're doing on the tracker. They also have a compass that can help you. Closer to home here in the UK, we have the Good Business Guide from NIBusinessInfo. There, you will see a list of ways that you can measure the effects of your corporate social responsibility. You can track your performance measurements and set targets. You can also use the BITC's Responsible Business Tracker found on their website, which has a Responsible Business Map that is actually a very attractive chart. It covers the SDGs, it's downloadable, and it has at its center purposeful leaders, future generations, purpose and values, governance and transparency, and policy engagement with leadership at every level, as well as stakeholder collaboration, supply chain and human rights, products and services. All of these are at the heart of the sustainability goals for a company, and then it has the other goals around it: education, good work, environment, diversity and inclusion, healthy ecosystems, net carbon zero, resource productivity, and health and well-being. And then it shows those as two halves of the same equation, which are the healthy communities and the healthy environment.
BITC's Responsible Business Map
Starting with those 17 UN SDGs, we are now moving into much more tactical plans and tools that companies at any level can use. If we don't start to get involved in developing these, our companies may perish just as the head of Unilever's Marketing has suggested. But what if you are doing these things? What if you're already running an eco-friendly business? There's a business here in Bath called Scoop where I took my daughters. We were all excited because you take your own containers in and you fill them up. They have liquid, shampoo, cereal, and so on. This allows us to reduce our carbon footprint by taking our own recycled containers. What about if companies like this are wanting to promote themselves?
Well, there are a number of different awards that people can enter. In the UK, there are the International CSR Excellence Awards, the Global Good Awards, the newspaper-led Guardian Sustainable Business Awards, and the Ethical Corporation's Responsibility Business Awards. The last one's a bit of a mouthful, but I think you get the idea. Increasingly, the community will want to celebrate those companies that are involved in helping to promote either a healthy community, a healthy environment, or both in all of those different dimensions.
I was talking with an entrepreneur who's involved in measuring the financial impact of sustainable activity. There's a new generation of analytics which will start to generate results that show the return on capital employed and the direct economic impact of that work. That's going to be very powerful, because it'll mean that, for instance, when people are raising money for a new venture that maybe takes carbon out of the air or reduces the amount of oil or plastics that we're using, they'll be able to demonstrate a metric or a return on investment.
Corporate social responsibility has always suffered in the past as being seen as a thing to do well and to look good, but it doesn't really have a measurable impact on a business' well-being. That is going to change, because audiences, consumers, and partners will start to judge a company based on not only what it makes, but how it makes it; not only who it employs, but how their employees are treated. It's been the case for a long time where we've been worried about issues such as child labor or leaving behind disused factories, and people have turned a blind eye to it. Now, consciousness and awareness are at the forefront of customers' minds, and companies like Tesla reflect that. In earlier days, companies like Body Shop already exemplified this new ethos.
As a company, playing a role as a corporate, socially responsible citizen is going to be essential for long-term growth. As we're seeing from green funds, companies will increasingly be asked about their ethical and sustainable impact as they raise money, and we're also going to see employees wanting to work for companies that are making a difference as well. It's possible then to take the CSR activity that you're involved in, however big or small, and translate that into public relations. In our SPEAK|pr program, this is really what Storification is about. It's about that narrative that we have around our business.
If we want to change something, if we want to create something good, there cannot be a negative impact as a result of creating something good. Having a low carbon footprint in what we make can't be at the expense of high and exploitative use of labor. Overall, in some cases, it's what's called a balanced scorecard where you have good profit and low impact. That is going to matter more and more, and it can be used by companies as part of their public relations stories. People will be interested in how we make things or what we're selling, but they'll also be interested in the byproduct of what we're making and how we're selling it. I've been interested and will follow with more interest my conversation with Catherine today and her program of measurement at Impact.able Analytics, and I'll be looking at how technology enables us to measure the impact of our footprint as companies, as well as looking at how those metrics can be translated into infographics, presentation slides, tweets, and more.
As we look at our businesses and we look for content about our businesses, the key message is that how we run our business is going to be in the spotlight, not just what we make as a result of our businesses. Sustainability, much like health care and the approach to health during COVID, is going to be a key part of anybody's public relations narrative from now on, so I encourage you to look for ways to get involved with and celebrate those through public relations activities.
This is a transcript from our podcast which you can find on EastWest PR. If you're interested in learning more about what we do, you can sign up for our newsletter here.
Cover Photo from United Nations