Forfatter: Steinar Haugberg

In recent years, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors have gained significant importance across all industries. As the world grapples with the challenges posed by climate change, there is increasing demand from consumers, investors, and wider stakeholders for sustainable practices and transparency. The Energy Industry in particular faces scrutiny and often backlash in this area, which only makes the need to communicate positive change stronger.

In this blog post, we will explore the significance of ESG messaging in the energy sector and discuss strategies for crafting impactful messages that drive positive change and foster sustainable transformation.

What is ESG in simple terms?

ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. It is a framework to evaluate a company’s or investment’s sustainability and ethical impact.

• E: The «Environmental» aspect focuses on how a company’s activities impact the planet, such as carbon emissions, waste management, and resource usage.
• S: The «Social» aspect assesses the company’s impact on society, including its treatment of employees, community relations, and diversity policies.
• G: The «Governance» aspect evaluates the company’s leadership, transparency, and adherence to ethical practices.

ESG factors help investors and stakeholders understand a company’s overall impact beyond financial performance to promote sustainable and responsible business practices.

Understanding the power of ESG Messaging:

By effectively conveying their ESG initiatives, organizations can build trust, enhance their reputation, attract investors, and gain a competitive edge. But before you can begin to craft compelling messages, you must ensure that the organisation is doing ESG activity or has a strategy to address it. With ESG initiatives in place you can then communicate it in the best way. Here are some key aspects to consider:

Aligning with Stakeholder expectations:

Successful ESG messaging begins with understanding the expectations of various stakeholders. Conduct research to identify the specific ESG issues that matter most to your target audience. Engage with customers, investors, employees, and communities to understand their concerns and aspirations. You can create a stronger connection and foster a shared purpose by aligning your messaging with their values and ultimately use their insight to ensure the overall initiatives are inline.

Authenticity and transparency:

Authenticity is paramount when it comes to ESG messaging. Stakeholders are increasingly adept at spotting greenwashing or insincere efforts. Organizations must demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainability and transparency to build trust. Communicate your goals, progress, and challenges. Embrace transparency by disclosing relevant data, performance metrics, and third-party verifications. Engage in open dialogue with stakeholders to address concerns and showcase a willingness to improve. Everyone is on an improvement journey in relation to ESG and it’s best to communicate the journey, even if you haven’t reached the end goal.

Highlighting impactful initiatives:

Showcase your efforts in renewable energy generation, energy efficiency, emissions reduction, and resource conservation. Highlight social impact initiatives like community engagement, diversity and inclusion programs, and employee well-being. Illustrate how good governance practices, ethical behaviour, and responsible leadership are embedded in your organization’s DNA.

Tailoring the message:

Like all aspects of eeffective communication, ESG messaging needs to be adapted to suit different communication channels and target audiences. Utilize a multi-channel approach, leveraging social media, corporate websites, sustainability reports, and press releases. Tailor your messaging to resonate with diverse stakeholders, using language and narratives that align with their interests and values. Use compelling stories, visuals, and case studies to illustrate the tangible impact of your sustainability initiatives.

Collaborating for greater impact:

ESG challenges are complex and require collaboration between energy companies, and other industry stakeholders. Emphasize your partnerships and collaborations to showcase your commitment to driving collective action.

Overall

Crafting effective ESG messaging in the energy sector is not just about public relations; it is a vital pathway to drive sustainable transformation. By aligning with stakeholder expectations, embracing authenticity and transparency and tailoring messages, energy sector organisations can convey their commitment to sustainability and build a better future.

At Project Neon, we understand the importance of crafting effective ESG messaging that aligns with a company’s mission, values, and ESG goals. We specialize in helping companies develop and refine their sustainability narratives, ensuring they resonate with stakeholders and drive positive change.

If you want to grow your online audience, start by creating great content.

Straight forward enough? Not necessarily…

Creating great content can be both time and cost consuming – and that’s before you’ve even figured out what constitutes great content for your brand. A quick google will soon tell you there’s no shortage of answers.

Ultimately, ‘great’ content engages, entertains and/or educates your target audience (If you can do all three, you’re on to a winner).

For the purpose of this article, let’s fast forward a few steps: You’ve created your shiny new piece of content and it’s approved for publication. Let’s say you’ve produced a case study to highlight a particular product or area of expertise within your business. You post it on your website and share a link to it on your social media channels.

Job…done? Not so fast.

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into creating your case study. Now it’s time to make the content work for you. Here’s how to turn one case study into multiple shareable content pieces.

Infographics

Go through your case study and extract the most valuable insights. It can be key stats, numbers, facts – even half a dozen can make for an impactful infographic design. Use it to grab people’s attention on your social channels and direct them through to the full case study.

Social proof

If your case study contains a quote or input from a happy customer/client; shout about it! It could be as simple as a graphic featuring the quote and their name/title or, time permitting, arrange to film 30 second video clip of them talking about your product/service.

Pro tip: If using a static graphic; include a headshot of the person attributed to the quote. Tag the person and their company in your LinkedIn post and encourage them to both share, like and comment on the post (the algorithm favours these interactions).

Create a video

A case study that is technical in nature, or perhaps describes a specific process/service, can benefit from a video or animation asset. It doesn’t need to capture everything; focusing on one aspect can be an effective way of introducing the product/service to your audience.

Pro tip: Boost your LinkedIn marketing – keep your video/animation to 30-60 seconds and where possible, add subtitles for optimal performance. Oh, and a square video format works best!

Create a deck

Distill your case study into a few slides and use it for your next client pitch, in-house presentation or annual review. That way you’ll always have a concise and presentable summary to hand should you need it.

Pro tip: Save your PowerPoint file as a PDF and feature it on a LinkedIn post. Why, we hear you ask? Because the LinkedIn algorithm loves PDFs and will give your post a boost as a thank you.

Paid advertising

Your infographic, customer testimonial, video or animation can all be used to support audience growth through paid social media advertising. Take LinkedIn for example; there are options to suit all budgets. Select your target audience/region input the length of the campaign. You’ll be presented with a list of prices and the results they’ll deliver – then simply adjust your spend upwards and downwards until you find a budget vs reach that suits you.

Media publications

Could your case study lend itself to a feature in a trade publication? Utilize any media contacts you have in order to reach a wider audience. You’ll also boost your own SEO by having your content feature on the website of a reputable publication.

Send an email

Email marketing is an excellent content distribution tool – so don’t forget to hit send! Share your case study with your database in the first instance. You can also maintain a steady stream of clicks by updating your email signature to feature a well-designed banner that links to the case study. Every little helps!

Create once, distribute forever

By re-purposing and distributing your content across a variety of channels, you can maximize its reach, engage a wider audience and ultimately improve your content marketing output. By turning it into multiple assets you’ll also extend the lifespan of the content, enabling you to spread it out across monthly and annual content plans.