Communications has to become more central to the big decisions made by businesses in order to truly drive sustainability outcomes. That means understanding how the business makes money, how it values and prices risk and where it seeks to drive growth.
That’s the bold but pragmatic view of Natasha Plowman, who has held senior sustainability comms roles at two large companies and is now a strategic consultant to businesses and agencies.
Her point is loud and clear — but it’s not the age-old refrain about communications needing to have a seat at the boardroom table. Rather, she thinks that communications has to be capable of “unlocking” core strategic decisions — connecting the dots across the business and bringing an external lens to strategic decisions. That’s why sustainability must be seen through a risk lens, because climate change and biodiversity loss are not philosophical questions or moral dilemmas; they are physics, chemistry and biology imposing practical and non-negotiable limits on business as usual.
“Sustainability needs to sit in the strategy and risk area of most businesses, while communications should normally sit under corporate affairs. Too often in the past, sustainability has been part of communications. It can’t be, if it’s going to drive and respond to the real changes businesses are facing,” she said.
Plowman’s career has taken her from politics in Australia, to agency time in the UK and then nearly seven years at global drinks producer Diageo, where she was ultimately head of corporate affairs for marketing and CSR. She then spent several years as global head of communications strategy for HSBC, and now works with both agencies and companies on consultancy assignments and strategic advisory projects.
Accordingly, she has seen a few things when it comes to how communications does — or doesn’t manage to — influence the most important decisions made by the business.
“There has been such a lot of change over the past 10 to 15 years, but I think we’re now settling into a more practical and pragmatic era in which sustainable change has to be the right thing for the business and for all of its stakeholders, in a balanced way,” she said.
“Sustainability is growing up. It’s no longer about making big commitments and announcements of what will change decades into the future. It is becoming more wired into how the business makes money and the risks that it faces. That’s a good thing, because without that we’re realistically just left with making the change look good, rather than being able to help steer how it happens and how fast it happens.”
Her point about being wired in, and sustainable change needing to be embedded across business systems and supply chains, is one that she hit upon back in her time at Diageo; learning from then corporate relations director Ian Wright, as he led a team that embedded the concept of responsible drinking as a cornerstone of its license to operate in 150 countries.
“Looking back, so much of what I learned then is relevant today. Everything was focused around the customer, the campaigns were integrated and we aimed to drive outcomes with them, not just share commitments or achievements. But the important thing was that the transition to — and stance around — responsible drinking was iron-clad at the top of the business, a genuine commitment to how the business ran,” said Plowman.
Her time working for HSBC was a similar eye-opener, given the bank’s breadth and scale across the retail and corporate sectors. The company has been the subject of many headlines around sustainability commitments and its investment stance, as have many large financial institutions. There continues to be huge opportunities for financial institutions to truly drive change, but it requires a will both from a regulatory perspective and commercial customers demanding financing that has both a carrot as well as a stick to demonstrate they are responding and preparing for all future risks. That is why communications extended well beyond conventional earned media into all manner of newer channels and direct communication between staff and customers, with much emphasis on ensuring “facts were at the fingertips” of front line sales staff who needed to communicate on the bank’s behalf.
Sustainability superheroes come in many forms — whether leading communications for an ethical clothing company, running a charitable initiative or being the creative spark between major public campaigns. In Plowman’s case, the heroic moments have come when being challenged, and challenging those at the very top of the business to prove that a decision for sustainability reasons is also the right decision for the business and its commercial interests.
In other words, to be able to defend and recommend actions and behaviours that can make the largest companies more sustainable, through working at their core rather than being restricted to communicating at their periphery.
