As marketers / communicators, we thrive when leading and facilitating strategic and urgent business priorities. For public and private organizations across industries, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) has become an imperative—driven by demands from stakeholders like investors, customers, employees and governments. Businesses do not initiate ESG journeys because it feels good or it’s a nice thing to do; rather, they do it because of pressure points and market forces (and ideally turn it into something value accretive).

In this workshop, participants will take away strategies for framing and activating an ESG effort while remaining in "marketing and communication swim lanes."

Key learning points include:

• Framing the role of marketing and communications in the ESG process (based upon expectations of external ratings agencies and reporting bodies)
• Guiding ESG aspiration setting—including what it takes to be at peer group parity and what’s required to be an ESG leader
• Making choices about ESG issues to focus on in order to minimize business and brand risk, and create competitive advantage (including making sense of data)
• Defining similarities and distinct differences between marketing / communications and ESG strategy development
• Initiating internal discussions about ESG and making the case to get moving

Addressing ESG topics as a corporation can feel like navigating a minefield – but it’s one you must cross if you want to operate in the modern world. Whether your strategy defaults to avoidance or engagement, it’s important to align on a framework for action.

Welcome to the ESG economy! Companies might not realize they are in this new economy, but they are, because values are driving the markets.  Almost all markets and stakeholders are being driven by values today on some level.  Your challenge is to figure out what your stakeholders value and how you can reach them where they are. It’s also to identify the drivers of ESG initiatives and branding in your organization (Regulation? Customers? Peer pressure?, e.g.)

Key learning points include:

• What’s working for some companies and what’s not working.
• How you might tune into your customers and employees to find out their values.
• How to show you are environmentally- and socially- responsible with authenticity.
• How to decide where to invest and where not to invest
• How to sell your ideas internally.