Choosing not to communicate about sustainability is high risk.

In this post I’ll tell you why.

And I’ll tell you what you need to have in place to go out and more safely communicate about sustainability.

I’ve come across so many business leaders that are fearful and are holding back on communicating about heir effort on sustainability, and the main reason that they keep coming back to is “I’m not perfect or anywhere near perfect”.

There are so many areas in almost every business where people can point to and say, “f you’re doing this and saying that, then why are you not doing something over here?”. For a fear of this situation a lot of companies choose not to go out and communicate about sustainability.

My guess is that you have had similar thoughts and that you can recognise this picture somehow.

If you do, I would like you to read to the rest of this post, because choosing not to communicate it is really risky in todays world.

Remember, you can do all the right things, but if nobody knows, then they might look at you and they will judge you as if you do nothing.

You will have the same risk of ending up being accused of not doing enough and not doing anything as if you’re actually not doing it.

Thus, it’s important that you go out and communicate your effort.

What do you need to have in place?

It’s actually not that hard. There are just three things, that you need to have in place and have pretty solid.

The first one is that you must have a clear and appealing answer to this question: Why is the world a better place because we exist?

Such a compelling and clear mission, that bigger purpose, that is going to give you the foundation for your communication and the bigger picture, the frame, within you present your actual initiatives.

When you have the bigger picture, the mission, the answer to why the world is a better place because we are here, then the next thing is the pathway, that’s the strategy, the roadmap that trustworthy will show how you intend to progress towards that mission you are on.

And then of course you’ve got to have some specific results to go out and communicate about. That is the third and final thing. And this is really crucial because the reason why most people end up being accused of greenwashing is because they have big and broad statements like ‘we are a sustainable company’ or ‘this is a sustainable product’, or ‘this is a green product’ or whatever it is, they are really unspecific and you will not get away with this. In many countries, it is actually also illegal. So you have to be able to communicate on your specific initiative.

If you have your specific results to show for, have a trustworthy pathway going forward and clarity where you are heading, then you can go out and communicate.

Nobody will expect you to be perfect.

It’s absolutely okay that you’re not, but you’ve got to be onto something bigger and better. Something to make the world a better place and show specific results and have a trustworthy pathway going forward.

That’s basically all you need.

If you have it already, go out and start communicating and start harvesting positive results and feedback that you will get from the marketplace and the community around you.

If you don’t have it, that’s what you need to get a hold on within the next couple of months.