What do we mean by 'ESG comms'?
‘ESG comms’ is a term popularly used by PR agencies, yet evidence suggests that while most people have heard the term very few understand what it involves. Let’s take a minute to provide some clarity on this.
We refer a lot to ‘ESG comms/communications’ in our posts, blogs, and press statements. Each time I have done so, I have mentioned ‘ESG comms’ and simply left it hanging there in the air – void of explanation or context that makes it relatable to readers.
This matters. Although many or even most people will ‘get’ what ESG comms is, this is not my experience of speaking with more than 70 B Corp businesses and brands in the last six months as part of our Target 100 campaign in 2025.
Those PR (public relations) consultations have told me something else. What has become very clear is that a significant number or organisations with fewer than 100 employees don’t necessarily identify what they do from a sustainability and social impact perspective as being part of an ESG strategy. But it is.
With this all in mind, it is worth taking a moment to explain exactly what we mean by ESG comms or communications.
In short, it refers to the ways in which businesses, brands, organisations communicate their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives and performance to stakeholders.
This includes customers (present and future), current and potential investors, employees, and the wider interested public (via media coverage, for example).
Let’s break this down some more into each of the three (i.e. E, S, and G) components:
- Environmental: Communicating efforts related to sustainability, climate change and reduction initiatives, resource management, and environmental impact.
- Social: Addressing social issues such as equality, diversity and inclusion (which is particularly timely right now), community engagement, workplace and workforce practices, and human rights.
- Governance: Sharing information about corporate governance, ethical practices, transparency, and compliance.
From now on, whenever we refer to ESG comms we will do so in a way that doesn’t make assumptions of the reader.
More important, that the message we are communicating clearly clicks with that reader who will see that no matter the size of their organisation they can apply the tips and learn from the ESG-related insights that we are sharing.
Oh, and we just happen to have a dedicated ESG comms service… as luck would have it! Take a look.
