With sustainability quickly becoming mainstream, companies are rapidly understanding that a successful corporate social responsibility strategy must reach both customers and consumers through their brands.  Gibbs-rbb’s resident sustainability expert, Ron Loch, shares some key insights into developing a strategy that reaches targeted stakeholders with the right content.

Gibbs-rbb: Your division works with companies and brands to provide a strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR). What are the specific capabilities you offer? 

Ron: We help organizations develop a strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) that identifies relevant issues, improves stakeholder relationships and helps them realize greater business value from sustainability efforts. From a communications standpoint, we combine storytelling and data visualization to help get their message across to relevant stakeholders in a credible manner.  This includes producing compelling sustainability reports, building effective cause marketing campaigns and ensuring marketing communications efforts hit the right note and avoid “greenwashing.”

Gibbs-rbb: Bring a sustainability story to life for us.

Ron: For most food manufacturers, the vast majority of their products’ energy, carbon and water footprints occur on the farm where the food is grown.  To help align farmers’ practices with a food manufacturer’s sustainability goals to reduce energy, carbon and water use, we developed an education campaign that focused on the business benefits of more sustainable farm management. By appealing to their business sense, as well as their interest in passing their land on to the next generation, we were able to facilitate a conversation that was relevant to the audience and resulted in alignment of sustainability goals.

Gibbs-rbb: When creating a CSR strategy, what are some essential elements?

Ron: It’s critically important that we ensure the strategy is authentic to the organization.  Two elements that are essential to that are:

• Surveying stakeholders – employees, customers, consumers, community members and investors –to get a sense of what’s important to them; and
• Focusing on those issues that are of highest importance to the business and its stakeholders and where improvements will have the highest impact on critical environmental and social issues.

Gibbs-rbb: In a recent study conducted by our parent company, G&S Business Communications, the results showed that nearly 40 percent of Americans question their basic understanding of science.  How can companies and brands make their CSR practices more accessible to consumers?

Ron: Storytelling is a great way to demonstrate how CSR has value in a relatable way. Data is critically important to demonstrate how CSR efforts are improving and having an impact, but it is the stories of how real people and animals have benefited that make the deepest connections. Language matters as well. The G&S study found that in making decisions about which brands to support, at least one-third of Americans identify human rights and wildlife protection as “very influential” social and environmental issues, as compared to less emotional terms, such as deforestation, climate change, fair trade and carbon footprint.

Gibbs-rbb: What industries are embracing CSR the best – and why?

Ron: Agriculture, energy, and food and beverage industries have the best reputations for CSR, according to the G&S survey, and I believe that’s because those industries recognized the risk and opportunities associated with CSR earlier than most.  Each of these industries have large energy and carbon footprints and have a profound effect on the health and wellbeing of society.  With that came a higher level of scrutiny of their practices, and I think that drove an early appreciation for CSR as a key contributor to business success.

Gibbs-rbb: What role should employees play in telling their company’s CSR story?

Ron: Employees are the greatest ambassadors for CSR and can bring the value of activities to life by recounting personal stories that have emotional appeal.  It’s also critical to involve employees in CSR activities because studies show that it has a favorable impact on recruitment and retention.

Gibbs-rbb: What role do consumers play in driving CSR?

Ron: Consumers communicate their expectations of what they consider responsible behavior by the choices they make and the information they share socially.  We’ve seen incredible movement in the food industry around issues such as animal welfare, labeling, workers’ rights and responsible sourcing because of the success of brands like Whole Foods and Chipotle.  Consumers are voting with their dollars and the industry is taking notice.  Online campaigns have also increased and even value brands that you may not find in a Whole Foods are moving to sustainable palm oil and sustainably sourced fish to maintain their relationships with consumers.

Gibbs-rbb: What does the future look like for companies as they think about their sustainability efforts?

Ron: Expectations for transparency and improvement will only continue.  I think the issues being scrutinized will also expand.  We’ve already seen that when Chipotle came under fire (before the recent E. coli crisis) for the caloric content of their meals.  While their “Food with Integrity” approach was largely applauded by conscious consumers, those consumers looked beyond responsible food sourcing and began asking questions about impact on health.  Conscious consumers are not focused on a single issue, but rather the values they share with a brand.  This means wage issues, lobbying efforts and even a CEO’s political positions can bring scrutiny.

Ron Loch is a partner in Gibbs-rbb Strategic Communications and the managing director of the sustainability consulting practice of one of its parent companies, G &S Business Communications.