How to cascade your sustainability strategy 

Your business has a robust sustainability strategy. It’s been signed off by the executive leadership team. But to deliver on its goals, you need buy in from everybody in your organisation. Which means being able to communicate your strategy authentically, and in a way that engages people to take action.

For a strategy to succeed, and for you as an organisation to meet your goals for people, planet and profit, it needs to be embedded into the DNA of the business and internalised by all.

Every employee needs to understand the role they can play to help deliver on the commitments you’ve made. This is not just about setting a vision and pledges, but about providing strong and consistent messaging which everyone can get behind and which feels meaningful to people, no matter their job title or business unit.

You need to communicate your organisation’s unique sustainability story, so people at every level are inspired to connect with it, get involved and so it lands – both globally and locally – in relevant ways.

Creating an internal campaign to communicate your sustainability strategy

Cascading this business-critical information needs a  communications strategy which takes a phased approach. It should consider the flow, diversity and personalisation of communications, within the parameters of your reach, and the results you want to achieve. Measuring results is vital, so Accountability and feedback should be built into the plan.

Communicate a sustainability strategy once – something which is often done as a top down message – isn’t job done. This is about beginning a conversation and running a campaign which presents people with information in multiple ways, across a period of time. It should encourage involvement through interaction and calls to action, and enable employees to ask questions and also explore what it means for themselves.  Whilst always reinforcing the messaging and maintaining momentum.

Top Tips for communicating your sustainability strategy

Some key things to consider for a successful cascade, based on our sixteen years of experience and insight:

Look at your cascade route

• Make a strategic cascade plan and ensure everyone, across every department has been included.
• Consider who will say what, to whom and how.
• Look at the multiple channels you have available to use – from Town Halls, to emails, to intranet pages, Teams channels and more. Prioritise the most effective and relevant ones for your comms.

Ensure clarity and consistency of message

• Comprehension is critical, especially as some sustainability strategies can be complex. We know people engage with information in different ways, so produce a clear narrative that will get cut through and prioritise the emotionally-based reasons for the plan, as well as the nuts and bolts of what it outlines.
• Sustainability progress will mean great stories, so make sure you include those, telling the story of the difference you want to make.  Use words, visual representations and interactive activities to boost engagement.
• Think about how you will ensure that the information you communicate from the top can be passed onto others in a digestible way. 
• Provide the right tools. We often produce Digital Toolkits or Playbooks for our clients, which simply and creatively set out the overarching strategy, a glossary of terms, key messaging, some FAQs and which provide templates and a communications brief for team leaders to manage the cascade itself.

Understand your audiences  

• Personalise the information so that alongside the wider business strategy, you create content which shows how it is relevant for different functions, ensuring it is meaningful for different business units, teams and individuals.
• Consider if any content needs translation or cultural adaptations for global markets.
• Be creative and don’t be afraid to plan in rewards for involvement. We’ve successfully used both gamification and incentivisation for some of our clients’ cascades.

Join the webinar

To learn more about how to successfully cascade and communicate your sustainability strategy, and to hear learnings from successful case studies, sign up to our next free webinar on 19 October 2022 here.