A Journalist’s View on Sustainability Communications

What does an environment journalist expect from communications and PR people, whether in-house or agency?  How can we make a journalist’s life easier?  What do they need that they aren’t getting?  What frustrates them about dealing with PR people?

Tackling these questions, ENDS Editor Francois Le Goff was guest speaker at this month’s Sustainability Communications Lunch on 29 October 2012 in Brussels.  Francois has been with ENDS for seven years and Editor for the last two.  He joined us to talk about sustainability communications from the environment journalist’s point of view. 

Oceans, greening and carpets...

Source: www.futura-sciences.com

Iʼve been getting out and about to events over the last couple of weeks and itʼs always refreshing to hear new ideas and case studies of companies working to really embed sustainability into their business and their culture.

At the same time, itʼs still disappointing to hear in public events like this weekʼs Green Up Film Festival in Brussels that industry is to blame for all our troubles and will only move if confronted by regulation. That may be the case for some - perhaps even many - companies, yet at all these conferences, Iʼm impressed by the progressive companies who are presenting their approaches to sustainability.

The communications challenge for the more switched-on companies now is how to educate their consumers, suppliers and greater community. The level of cynicism seen from some participants at this Belgian conference is detrimental to those companies investing and working hard to embrace a more sustainable business model.

Greenwashing always backfires in the end

Credit: newclearvision.com

This blog often comments on developments in sustainability communications and there have been a number of interesting developments recently.

In principle, we all agree that Sustainability Reporting combines information about an organisation’s economic, environmental and social performance.  It gets more tricky when we try to agree on the definition of terms and come to a consensus on reporting standards.  GRI standards are treated as the norm in industry but until now, no governmental or EU standards are in place.

Working Towards Sustainable Development

This week Sustainability Consult participated in an event on Green Jobs within the context of Rio+20, hosted by MEP Elisabeth Schroedter.  The discussion was based on the recent report launched together by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): Working Towards Sustainable Development.