Green Corporate Communications: The Unstoppable Urge to Talk the Talk

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I've spent the past few weeks on the road talking about the State of Green Business, listening to the questions and concerns of audiences at the companies and conferences I've addressed. There's one constant query: In a world gone green, how does a company make itself heard, credibly and authentically? And how does it do this in a way that minimizes the risks of being charged with greenwash, or worse?

The questions themselves represent a sea change. For years, companies have been satisfied to walk more than talk - that is, do more, environmentally speaking, than they'd publicly disclose. It's not that these companies were being virtuous, or that they didn't care about the world knowing of their green commitments and achievements. Far from it. But the corporate risks of sticking one's neck out, calling attention to what a company is doing right, often unwittingly illuminates environmental problems about which the public wasn't aware. (You're using 10% organic cotton? Why? Oh, because growing cotton requires intensive pesticides, harming groundwater, farmworkers, and wildlife? Gee, why only 10%? Why not 20%?)

So, being humble was a virtue. Of course, companies maintained hoped that some enterprising reporter or activist would catch them in the act of being good and lead to positive press or word of mouth. It happened from time to time, but not often enough.

Now things are changing. As the conversation has ratcheted up in recent months, being quiet is no longer an asset. Companies are being pressed to talk about what they're doing - and not doing - by customers, employees, investors, activists, and others. Previously reclusive companies are rethinking their taciturn strategies.

Suffice to say, shyness isn't something that becomes a lot of companies, many of which have no problem shouting their stories from the rooftops. Some of these stories are worthy of attention; many aren't. Unfortunately, there's no correlation between signal and noise, as a recent study by the U.K. firm Genesys Conferencing found out:

U.K. companies are failing to match fine words with positive action in implementing green policies throughout the business, with fewer than one third of respondents believing that they are moving strongly or very strongly to adopting 'green' policies in their organisations.

"Visitors to any company's website today are almost certain to find a stated commitment to the environment," says Jerona Noonan, sales director, Genesys Conferencing. "Yet, as this survey shows, to-date in most businesses this has not been put into practice in the form of positive environmental initiatives.

The need to align the walk-talk ratio has caught the attention of those in the business of helping companies tell their stories. They, in turn, are sharing their insights with the rest of us. A sampling of what's crossed my in-box in recent weeks:

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