Too often, communications and sustainability professionals make sustainability jargon the centrepiece of their communications efforts. But in the end, who understands and relates to such language apart from communications and sustainability professionals themselves?

Take the ‘sustainability’ word alone: highly complex and generic buzzword that is seen everywhere but never understood.

We all need to be better at borrowing the language of our audiences themselves to skillfully articulate the “so-what” and “what’s in it for me” of our sustainability strategies and visions. For examples, when communicating with employees, we need to connect with their language, context, and priorities, often without ever using the S-word. If the job of our engineers and technicians is all about safety, frame ‘sustainability’ as greater safety. Greater safety for employees. But also for the environment and the communities.To get to that point, the key is to understand the audience: which values does employees relate to? what is expected from them in their day-to-day role? How is their behavior rewarded in return? How to they define the S-word? what does it mean to them?

I am so happy anytime I see a piece of communications collaterals that does not use the S-word. In the end, isn’t this the ultimate sign of a successful integration into the business? ….but then … how will I call my blog?

I have written about this topic some time ago already, but I found the diagram below very interesting as it shows the three core groups of knowledge areas that CSR pros need to nurture and expand today.

• Stakeholder Dialogue and Comns: Stakeholder engagement is the bedrock of CSR/Sustainability. Especially today as social media and digital platforms are pushing organizations to consider two-way dialogue and active relationships with their stakeholders (i.e. collaboration, co-creation) From internal comns and reporting to community engagement or consumer engagement…listening, conversation and influence skills are key! In the diagram below, they represent up to 47% of all knowledge/skills areas.

• Strategy and Business Management: ‘We can only manage what we can measure’ as the saying goes. I would also add that ‘we can only manage what we understand first’! CSR and Sustainability are first and foremost about business and strategy. It is about understanding/setting business goals and strategies, balancing risks and opportunities, measuring performance and progress, etc. It is also mostly about critical thinking and finding solutions to any types of issues any organization might face within the larger context of the ’stakeholder society’.
  

• CSR Trends and Core Issues: As I said earlier, CSR/Sustainability is an ever-changing field – in a perpetual state of beta. Keeping up with the core CSR and Sustainability issues (i.e. energy/climate, water, compliance/governance, labor relations/diversity, etc.), both in your market and globally is crucial. Staying up to date with regards to best practices, new standards and regulations, latest developments and trends is a must, not only for consultant jobs, but also for in-house positions.

This definitely reflects what I have seen lately in terms of jobs offers and requirements.

I don’t usually publish agency or client-related content on Sustainability Conversations, but I found that the video here (and published today) is particularly relevant and insightful.

Some key takeaways from the interview:

• Companies do not have “an appointment for life”

Private-sector diplomacy refers to a different role for business in society: it refers to a kind of diplomatic role in which companies (or other organizations) speak to multiple  stakeholders in (and this is very important) an ongoing manner. It’s not a transaction or a one-off only. Companies are also expected to be much more transparent about how they are doing and what they are doing. It is the same as running for office, in a certain way. Companies don’t have appointment for life.

• An increasing coalescence of brand and corporate reputation

Both are now interlinked.  Consumers are questioning existing brand behavior and asking whether they believe in companies’ overall practices themselves (which comes down to corporate DNA, values and strategic priorities). A coherent story must be told between that which is the umbrella image and the actions of the various operating companies and/or brands.

• Every company is a media company

Companies have the opportunity to become their own media company in a sense—creating their own content, pointing people to it, hosting conversations and, most importantly, be willing to put up the good, the bad, and the ugly – in a transparent and authentic way.

• Act in a democratic and decentralized way

In the world of social media, we have  moved from an authority-driven society (authority of the elites) to an experience-driven society, from peers-to peers. It is critical to give a voice to the people, and let them be part of the solution.

• Be present and consistent

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, the average person uses eight sources of media each day. That same person needs to hear or see something three-to-five times to believe it. So organizations need to involve audiences consistently across all media, adapting the discussion and style to the specific medium.

These two prizes are another proof that this campaign will remain as THE campaign, not only as a revolution into political communications but mostly as a groundbreaking, forward-looking push to challenge communications conventions.

A campaign that we need to learn from for any kind of communications in order to break through to target audiences in a powerful, authentic and engaging manner, especially in the fields of CSR & Sustainability communications that are still (sadly) associated with greenwashing, “looking good” PR or spin.

:: What CSR & Sustainability comms lessons can we learn from the Obama campaign?

It is something that I had in mind for few months now. I have finally found some time to put a presentation deck together, to share with you all some of the key takeaways from the presidential campaign that I find extremely relevant to CSR & Sustainability in today’s turbulent times.

Watch the official video of the Obama campaign presented at Cannes below:

What a very timely talk he has given there as the Twitterized protests were just starting up in Iran. (Actually, he later gave a short interview to the TED team about it, that is now posted on TED’s blog).

Beyond these political implications, I immediately thought about how social media has changed ‘CSR‘, and how it has changed it for the better (even if there is still a long way to go).

With the rise of new social media technologies, power has clearly passed to the people forcing the emergence of a new approach to CSR: CSR 2.0 (or now 4.0).  Especially with citizens-consumers that are now extremely informed and aware, talking to eachother on online communities almost instantaneously about what you do whenever you decide to talk about it or not, and with an audience of millions on the web.

The 2.0 has really put the ’social’ back into CSR, by this I mean the stakeholders. And this is a great thing. Now CSR is finally about stakeholder engagement and about meaningful conversations and change. Because if done otherwise, huge reputational risks are at stake.

Rather than being a big scary thing, CSR 2.0 has to be seen as a great opportunity to join forces with the new empowered stakeholders and rebuild the ’social contract’, especially now that the recession has resulted in a dramatic decline of trust in business worldwide.

A very good paper written by Mikkel H. Sørensen & Nicolai Peitersen from Antics.com lists the 10 changes to the CSR landscape that we are and that we will be seeing because of social media. Here are the eight ones I clearly agree with:

1. Inclusiveness – Involving stakeholders directly from beginning to end

2. Innovation – Winners turn market pressure into stakeholder led innovation

3. Sincerity – Be real

4. Co-ownership – A truly embedded value-based culture happens through involvement

5. Dynamics – Standards being replaced by 24/7 engagement

6. Quality – CSR as immersive business strategy

7. Trust your values – Move first, move alone

8. Proximity – Local impact is global

And to conclude on why Shirky and CSR 2.0, I would highly recommend this book: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky, which makes sense of the way people are using internet, how it creates new group dynamics, and how it puts the people back at the center stage.

It is basic, but so useful to understand why locally-relevant and stakeholder-inclusive CSR strategies are so important today.