Environmental Communication

I was listening to the Reith Lectures of Sir Frank Fraser Darling from 1969 the other day and in it he talked about ecology being an overused word that people were already sick of without actually knowing what it meant, and I thought how true that it is of the word environment today.

Environmentally friendly, green, sustainable, and eco have been so abused in recent years that the general public is becoming weary of them.

So if you really do want to change the culture of your organisation where do you begin?

This is a summary of our 10 point plan:

1. Don't be afraid or deterred by preconceptions. Believe you can succeed
2. Have a clear understanding of what you mean by 'the environment' and what your objectives are
3. Start by having a conversation in your organisation about what other people think of such words as environment and sustainability
4. Share your objectives. Be clear of what the business and moral case is
5. Ask others to help create a theme for your objectives that may or may not include such words as environment, sustainability and eco
6. Identify quick-wins that will help start the process of change
7. Seek out those people who are most engaged and ask them to be ambassadors to help communicate, motivate and build momentum
8. Launch your objectives under your chosen theme. Have a communication plan that starts big but reinforces the message, objectives and achievements regularly
9. Surprise everyone by awarding an individual, team or department for their efforts and make a splash of the award
10. Continue to communicate, celebrate and create new goals

The objective is to quickly avoid talking about the environment or sustainability and instead talk about corporate values, efficiencies, challenging the way you work, competitive difference and making yourself relevant to your customers. 

Many businesses agree that communicating messages with an environmental theme is difficult but we think this is mainly a concern about knowledge and lack of confidence, both of which can be overcome.

You don't necessarily need consultants to help with this but it may help to get advice in the first instance. Ask us about our workshop.

Environmental Policy means nothing if the supply chain aren't playing

Environmental sustainability is not just about doing the right thing, it’s also about reputation. What some businesses need to realize is that it might not just be their reputation.

If you’re a supplier to a major brand, or you’re a supplier to a supplier of a major brand, then you need to think about your future and how you protect it.

Major brands around the world have been making commitments to the environment and developing corporate and social responsibility policies for a number of years. Many of these well-known brands now use their achievements in these areas to generate publicity, attract talent, and win more customers.

So what does all this mean for the supply chain?

What is certain is that at some point in the future you, as a supplier, are going to be a part of the policy and promise being made by the brand to its stakeholders, which means you too need to start thinking about the environment and your impact.

No brand, that is winning the trust of its customers, is going to want its reputation tarnished by a rogue supplier who isn’t doing their bit.

The smart suppliers will be the ones anticipating what their customers will require of them in the next 5-10 years and be willing to change. The suppliers that will develop lasting relationships will be those that make it their business to understand their customers environmental, sustainable and CSR commitments and be willing to stand alongside them and help them achieve their targets.

Big business is going to realize, or maybe even be told by government, that it has a responsibility to the environment.

Businesses are easy targets for governments. Reducing carbon emissions, halting biodiversity loss, and managing our natural resources sustainably can simply become taxes. But businesses are full of creative, intelligent and determined people who can find ways to achieve these things, and in doing so turn them into a competitive advantage.

If you’re a supplier you are part of the process, which means at some point in not too distant future you will either be part of the solution or a problem.

What's it to be?

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, must be reflecting on the endless plaudits and praise heaped upon the late Steve Jobs this past week and wonder what his own epitaph might be.

Having stood firmly into Jobs' shoes to launch the new iPhone 4S any focus on Cook soon faded as news of Steve Jobs' death was announced just a few days later.

So how do you follow someone described as a genius, visionary, a legend and a hero? You do the same thing but with a different focus. And I think Cook could create a legacy far greater than the one Jobs has left behind.

My first laptop was a Mac, which I still have, it's grey about 2 inches thick with a black and white screen, I think it is called a PowerBook 160. And now I have something lighter, smaller, thinner and much more powerful.

For me Apple is a guilty pleasure. Yes, Apple changed the way I buy and manage my music but what has been the environmental cost?

We've heard stories of Chinese workers suffering from the effects of chemicals used to create iPad screens, including people being hospitalised.

There were even reports that conditions were so bad at one factory producing Apple products that workers were committing suicide.

In the past few weeks the company has come under increasing pressure from Chinese environmental groups to address numerous cases of pollution and  emissions from 80 of 127 of Apple's suppliers in China.

It seems that Apple's desirable products have arrived on our shelves having left a trail of destruction behind in China.

This surely is what Tim Cook can do for Apple - clean it up. Make it the greenest technology company in the world. Leave behind a legacy that won't get replaced by the next version in 10 months, instead leave something that will be around for other generations to benefit from.

Can we see the potential?

When it comes to environmental or sustainable policy, it seems to me that businesses are making the same initial mistakes that they did when the internet first became available. At that time everyone rushed to create a website and packed it full of information, but failed to develop a strategy or to appreciate that the web could fundamentally change the way they worked.

Within just 10 years the internet became an integral and essential element in even the smallest business. Today we take it for granted and wonder how we ever managed without it.

Are businesses now doing the same when it comes to the environment? Do they simply send someone put together a document filled full of information, make a brief announcement and leave it on a server somewhere? ‘Job done’, boxes ticked. In many cases it appears so.

The environment or sustainability or whatever phrase you want to use, if assimilated properly, influences the strategy and business plan and in all probability requires shift in corporate culture if real and positive changes are to be achieved.

Like the web, the issue of the environment isn’t going away and anyone who thinks it is just a short-term fad is kidding themselves. It’s relevance to all organizations may not be clear today but, like the web, in just a few years time it will have become embedded in the way the most dynamic organizations operate.  

Communication and conversation around environmental and sustainable issues is almost non-existent in businesses and is often limited to the occasional poster, print-out or copy of the latest CSR document. Engagement with employees at all levels is going to be crucial if businesses are to remain sustainable in the future.

Fact: the cost of doing business will rise if you don’t change the way you work. Whether it is fuel, energy, carbon taxes or the price of resources, costs are only going one way, up.

It’s your employees that keep their computers on, run the taps, forget to switch off the lights, print out, bin it instead of recycling, drive to the business meeting and so on. It is your employees who can help you control costs, protect your business and ensure your sustainability. But they need to be in the right mindset and have permission to make decisions based on your environmental and sustainability objectives, as well as your financial targets.

Visit: crexgroup.com for ideas

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

As with many types of cancer the treatment now means that more people survive the disease than lose their lives. In the UK 70% of women (and men) survive beyond 10 years from diagnosis, which is how survival rates are measured in the UK.

Many cancer treatments, including Herceptin and some chemotherapy drugs, are derived from plants, in fact 74% of the top 150 prescription drugs in the USA are derived from plants.

These facts would suggest that we humans are very reliant on plants for our own survival and yet deforestation of the Amazon rainforest from July 2010 to July 2011 was more than 1600 square miles, up 15% on the previous year. That's more than 10 times the size of the Isle of Wight, and that's just one year!

Hundreds of new species of plant and animal are discovered every year but if we carry on destroying habitat, which makes it impossible for animals to survive then we risk sending unknown species extinct before we've discovered them.

Who knows what cures there might be?

Cancer treatment has made tremendous progress in recent years but there is still some way to go. It may do us some good to be as aware of how treatments are derived as well as the disease itself if we are to continue to see progress.