Earth Day is next week — April 22 — and that means it’s a great time to talk sustainability.
Most companies mark the day in some way, but make sure you’re celebrating in a way that rings true. If you aren’t authentic in your Earth Day communications, your stakeholders — and your internal teams — will pick up on it, and they’ll ignore your message, or worse.
So how do you make sure your green social media messages hit the mark?
- Work with what you’ve already got. At Spring Green, we are big fans of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reports, and we’ve written before about how to get year-round value out of them. But Earth Day is the perfect time to dust off those stories to celebrate your achievements. Leverage your 2022 ESG report content for a social media post in honor of the day.
- Walk the walk. Go beyond putting out social media messaging and really think about how you can make a difference. It can be as simple as encouraging employees to work from home the week of Earth Day (April 16-22) or organizing a community park trash pickup program. Push to get EV charging stations or solar panels installed at your workplace to help further reduce your office’s environmental impact. Ask employees for their input on actionable things your company can do to help close any aspirational gaps and become better environmental stewards, and then follow up by implementing some of those ideas.
- Share across platforms. Now that you’ve mined your ESG report for existing best practices and found some new ways to be environmental stewards, it’s time to share what you’re doing. Publish the highlights of your celebration in a blog post, on social media, on your Slack or Teams channels, or in a stakeholder newsletter or email. And, obviously, keep track of them for next year’s ESG report.
- Then, take stock — or not. Stock images can be useful in some of your messaging, but not on Earth Day. Use real pictures of real people doing real service projects, and your audience will know that you take sustainability seriously. If you don’t have any photos of your team members participating in green activities, either on the job or through volunteer work, start building that photo library now.
- Finally, keep the momentum going. If you’ve read our story about the newest Edelman Trust Barometer, you know that corporate responsibility is important to your clients and employees. In fact, 60% of Edelman’s survey respondents said when considering a job, they expect the CEO to speak publicly about controversial social and political issues, including climate change. Your values matter, and you need to put them front and center — on Earth Day and every day.
We’d love to know what you have planned for Earth Day. Or, if you have questions and could use some help with Earth Day plans — it’s not too late to get in touch; we’re good at this. And we always love a reason to celebrate.
by Emily Pappas