This document presents a case study for a green action plan aimed at reconciling business communication with sustainable development. The plan seeks to address public skepticism of companies' ethical initiatives by discouraging misleading practices like greenwashing. The objectives are to restore trust in genuinely sustainable businesses and support a transition to greener manufacturing. While sustainability reporting is growing in the EU, the communication industry has been slow to adopt it. The action plan aims to correct this issue and increase transparency.

1. Reconciling business
communication with
sustainable development
Case Study for the UNITAR course:
Introduction to a green economy, concepts and
applications
Edited by
Giuseppe Flavio Fabiani

2. Contents
SECTION 1: CONTEXT AND SITUATION ANALYSIS ............................................ 2
The social role of business ................................................................................................. 2
The scepticism about company ethical initiatives ........................................................... 2
Overall long-term goal of the Action................................................................................ 4
SECTION 2: OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTED RESULTS ............................................ 4
Sustainability reporting in the European Union ............................................................. 4
The multiplier effect of communication ........................................................................... 5
Objectives of the Green Action Plan ................................................................................. 6
SECTION 3: PLANNED MEASURES/ACTIVITIESS.................................................. 7
SECTION 4: RESOURCES ............................................................................................... 8
SECTION 5: IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY.................................... 9
BIBLIOGRAPRPHY........................................................................................................ 10
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3. SECTION 1: CONTEXT AND SITUATION ANALYSIS
The social role of business
Society at large has been aware for many years now of the
influence that business has on natural resource use,
technological development, models of production and consumption
and lifestyles. This influence implies major responsibilities
for these actors in their development, management, marketing and
communication activities, especially in sectors that produce a
major social and environmental impact like energy, transport,
textiles, and food. The development of any sustainable
product/service needs to meet new evaluation standards and take
into account the environmental, social and economic effects it
will produce over its whole life cycle: i.e. the impact of
manufacturing in terms of natural and human resources, the
specific characteristics of the product/service (polluting?
reusable? recyclable? etc.), methods of use, and whether it
encourages rational consumption.
Corporations can play then a central role in helping solve the
world's environmental, economic and social challenges by making
real changes to their policies and practices. As a consequence
an increasing number of businesses have been quickly to
introduce ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR)
strategies to comply with the pressure coming from a variety of
internal and external stakeholders.
Nevertheless companies' ethical initiatives have not always
achieved the desired effects in terms of stakeholders’
behavioural change and return on investment (ROI). One of the
main reasons of these failures is the malfunctioning of the
marketing communication industry where bad practices like
greenwashing and astroturfing are increasing the mistrust and
confusing truly green oriented actors.
The scepticism about company ethical initiatives
There is a great deal of public scepticism about companies’
ethical initiatives that are heavily publicised without any
clear evidence to support their claims and the growth of the so-
called 'greenwashing' is not helping it.
The temptation to over-claim in a market in which consumers will
often pay a premium for environmentally friendly products or
have more brand loyalty to an ‘ethical’ marketer is enormous and
set to increase.
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4. Stephen Green, the group chairman of HSBC, in an interview to
The New Statesman (2 July 2009) said:
“there has in particular, been a marked decline in people's
perception of whom they can trust. The collapse in perceived
trustworthiness is most marked in relation to the banking
sector, but applies to the business world more broadly, as trust
has declined generally within family life and social
relationships ... trust is central to the workings of the
economic system and we are to restore people's confidence in the
market”
According to stopgreenwash.org, a Greenpeace’s website
discussing the practice of greenwashing, there are many ways in
which corporations greenwash:
1. Dirty Business
Touting an environmental program or
product, while the corporation's product or
core business is inherently polluting or
unsustainable. For example, if a company
brags about its boutique green R&D projects
but the majority of spending and investment
reinforces old, unsustainable, polluting
practices.
Malaysian Palm Oil Council
2. Ad Bluster television ads that ran on
Using targeted advertising and public the BBC in 2007: the ad
claimed that palm oil was
relations campaigns to exaggerate an environmentally friendly, and
environmental achievement in order to used green images and
divert attention away from environmental statements, such as "A gift
from nature, a gift for life, "
problems or if it spends more money "Helping the planet breathe, "
advertising an environmental achievement and "Sustainably produced
than actually doing it. For example, if a since 1917." link
company was to do a million dollar ad
campaign about a clean-up that cost less.
3. Political Spin
Advertising or speaking about corporate "green" commitments
while lobbying against pending or current environmental laws and
regulations. For example, if advertising or public statements
are used to emphasize corporate environmental responsibility in
the midst of legislative pressure or legal action.
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5. 4. It’s already in the Law
Advertising or branding a product with environmental
achievements that are already required or mandated by existing
laws. For example, if an industry or company has been forced to
change a product, clean up its pollution or protect an
endangered species, then uses PR campaigns to make such action
look proactive or voluntary.
Another PR practice which is increasing the public scepticism
about company ethical initiatives is the so-called
'astroturfing'. Astroturfing initiatives are a form of advocacy
in support of a corporate agenda, designed to give the
appearance of a spontaneous civil movement.
Overall long-term goal of the Action
The Action Plan I am proposing focuses on correcting the adverse
effects of the marketing communication industry by discouraging
misleading practices, in order to restore people’s confidence
and trust in genuine environmental and social responsible
businesses.
In a broader context this Action Plan contributes in changing
the composition of the demand and supply of manufactured
products/services in order to support the transition to greener
manufacturingi.
SECTION 2: OBJECTIVES AND EXPECTED RESULTS
Before talking about objectives and expected results of this
plan, we briefly need to mention the sustainability reporting
state of play in the European Union and the anomaly of
advertising and communication industry which is very slow in
receiving it despite the key role it is playing by linking
manufacturing companies and customers.
Sustainability reporting in the European Union
A number of countries member of European Union have included
mandatory and voluntary requirements for sustainability
reporting in their national legislation. Early adopters were
Sweden, France and Germany (2001), followed by Norway,
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6. Belgium and Italy in 2004. In
Sweden, reporting is mandatory
for all state-owned companies
including assurance, in
Denmark it is now mandatory
for the largest companies to
report on CSR in their annual
reports, and this legislation
update has affected around
1,100 companies. In general,
Western European countries
have more regulations in
place than Eastern European
Source: Corporate Register 2010:, CSR countries, where only Hungary
Reporting Award’10. Global Winners &
Reporting Trends and Romania have some
mandatory standards in place.
This trend in European legislation is not affecting the
communication and advertising industry at all.
As the environmental footprint of the communication agencies is
still low compared to others, the communications sector has been
slow to catch on regarding sustainable development. For
instance, only one corporate network of communication agencies,
WPP, has recently published its first CSR annual report.
Paradoxically, though, when searching in Google for 'green
communication agencies', results show a large number of self-
described 'green', 'sustainable' or 'responsible' agencies.
Thus, if annual reports are scarce in the field, then on what
basis do these agencies prove their sustainable activity
engagement? On what do green communication agencies rely to
prove their CSR assertions?
The multiplier effect of communication
One may ask what do the business communication sector has to do
with green manufacturing. In this context, the UNEP insists on
the important role of advertising and communication agencies
that are a key link between manufacturing enterprises and their
stakeholders. The position they hold and the influence they
wield over society give them an undeniable responsibility.
The biggest advertising investments are in sectors that
represent a large portion of the individual ecological
footprint: food, transport, energy, textiles. Marketing and
communication professionals sometimes find themselves promoting
new products that have a strong environmental impact(SUVs,
mobile phones), with the risk that they may encourage people to
over-consume or may promote products which consumption is
recognized as dangerous for individuals (junk food, tobacco,
alcohol, etc). Professionals who promote products or services in
these productions and consumption sectors may send out messages
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7. that lead to behaviour with substantial adverse consequences for
the environment and society. Conversely, other communication
agencies promoting different businesses or social messages can
definitively inspire and orient positive changes in behaviours
and support transition to sustainable consumption.
Objectives of the Green Action Plan
Given the social role of business in helping solve the world's
environmental challenges through sustainable business policies
and practices, and provided the raising scepticism of people
about sustainable businesses advertised on media a Green Action
plan is needed to restore the 'consumer trust' a key element to
the workings of the economic system. This Green Action is
required to discourage misleading sustainability claims in
promotional messages, and restore the correct market mechanisms
which should strongly award those companies marketing genuinely
environmentally/social-friendly products and services.
The Action’s purpose will be therefore to reduce the information
asymmetry between consumers, communication professionals and
manufacturing companies as far as the businesses promoted
through green communication campaigns is concerned.
Specifically this action should achieve the following details
results:
- reduce by 25% the occurrences of misleading environmental
claims reported to or spotted by the national authorities
responsible to take action against misleading campaigns;
- increase to 20% of the total amount the European CSR-certified
communication and advertising agencies;
- grow by 5% the green versus brown economy performance in those
industries where compete big advertising spenders selling
products/services with a major social and environmental impact,
i.e. energy, transport, textiles, food.
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8. SECTION 3: PLANNED MEASURES/ACTIVITIES
The Action’s results listed above will be achieved through a
proper planning of activities drawn up by the project group with
guidance from the problem analysis and based on the objective
description. At this stage of simulation we can expect
activities involving the main project stakeholders as follows:
MANUFACTURING COMPANIES
[measure 1]
according to a new European regulatory framework established by
local institutions, fines will be levied on companies that use
misleading green claims; these fines will actually work as a
sort of polluter-pays tax, imposing to compensate for the
negative externalities of 'bad claims' in terms of promoting
behaviours considered undesirable like drastically increase
health hazards, environmental footprints, and financial risks of
people.
Misleading campaigns will have to be withdrawn immediately
according to the current use and the budget allocated for the
original campaigns will have to be matched by the charged
companies (the amount request will be the total value of the
misleading green campaign) to finance the actions described
below which aim at restoring the important economic element
endangered by the misleading messages, i.e. the 'consumer trust'
in genuinely environmentally/social-friendly products and
services.
[measure 2]
50% of the money collected this way will be provided as
incentives to European companies marketing or planning to market
genuinely environmentally/social-friendly products and services
in exactly the same industries of the charged companies.
- 1/3 of the incentives will be allocated to education
programmes covering industry-related green economy topics like
environmental, economic and social impact of traditional
productions, green transition opportunities, investment options
and enabling conditions, etc. These programmes will be made
available to the direct competitors of the charged company who
are already marketing or planning to market genuinely
environmentally/social-friendly products and services
- 2/3 of the incentives will go on green stimulus package on
green innovation in the industries where the charged companies
operate
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9. COMMUNICATION AND ADVERTISING AGENCIES
[measure 3]
10% of the money collected from European companies advertising
misleading sustainability claims will be provided as incentives
to European communication and advertising agencies to attend a
green your skills voluntary certification programme hosted by an
industry association like for example the EACA (European
Association of Communications Agencies). The programme will have
two main objectives:
- rehabilitate those agencies who released already misleading
environmental/social campaigns in the past so as to help them to
adopt common code of ethics and to achieve the GRI CSR
certification;
- train agencies who wish to participate in the voluntary
certification in order to deepen the topic, to obtain a positive
branding and to get first-mover advantages.
PEOPLE
[measure 4]
40% of the money collected from European companies advertising
misleading sustainability claims will be provided as incentives
to European citizens, to increase the demand of genuinely
environmentally/social-friendly products and services.
- 1/3 of these incentives will be allocated to develop education
and awareness programmes for citizen which should motivate them
preferring green to brown businesses in their purchase decisions
These programmes will be co-created with local community
organizations, consumers associations, environmentalists and
activists and will cover topics like eco-labelling, personal and
societal advantages of sustainable consumption, misleading
sustainability campaigns, etc.
- 2/3 of these incentives will be allocated on consumers tax
incentives on green products marketed in those industries where
compete big advertising spenders selling products and services
with a major social and environmental impact, i.e. energy,
transport, textiles, food.
SECTION 4: RESOURCES
This plan will be self-financed by the regulatory mechanisms
discouraging bad marketing communication practices. A minor
budget will be anyhow necessary in the scoping and preparation
phase and should be supported by the European Union.
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10. SECTION 5: IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
This phase still require a clear strategy as the same measures
could be achieved involving different stakeholder. At this stage
of simulation we can expect the following stakeholders being
involved for the 4 key planned measures.
MEASURE 1
European Commission and national authorities responsible to take
action against misleading campaigns
MEASURE 2
UNITAR and national training/education organizations
MEASURE 3
European Association of Communications Agencies and Global
Reporting Initiative (GRI)
MEASURE 4
Local governments, local community organizations, consumers
associations, environmentalists and activists
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11. BIBLIOGRAPRPHY
European Union (2011), State of play in the sustainability
reporting in the European Union
McKinley, M. (2012) ‘ Ethics in Marketing and Communications:
Towards a Global Perspective’, Palgrave Macmillan
UNEP (2009), Sustainability Communications - A Toolkit for
Marketing and Advertising Courses
European Commission (2000), Guidelines for the Assessment of
Environmental Claims
GRI’s 2010-2011 Sustainability Report
Al Iannuzzi (2012), Greener Products - The Making and Marketing
of Sustainable Brands, CRC Press
Giselle Weybrecht (2009), The Sustainable MBA: The Manager's
Guide to Green Business, Wiley
i
Green manufacturing aims to reduce the amount of natural resources
needed to produce finished goods through more energy and materials
efficient manufacturing processes that also reduce the negative
externalities associated with waste and pollution
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