Communicating CSR successfully - The do's and don'ts - Part 2

“Do good and talk about it” is a mantra in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. But what sounds simple in theory is often challenging in practice. Perhaps you and your company are currently facing the question of where to start with your commitment to society - and how to talk about it the best way. Or your company is already doing what it can to protect environment and climate and is socially committed, but is not getting through to important stakeholders. Successful CSR is therefore not just a question of good practice, but also of effective communication. We asked our partners at Compass Ethics how they help companies tackle their ethical challenges and share our own insights on how you can ensure your CSR messages have the impact they deserve.

In the second part of our article series, our founder and managing director Benedict Rehbein presents the most important do's and don'ts of successful CSR communication. Click here for the first part.

- Nerses Chopurian, managing director at PIO

Talking about your company's CSR activities can feel like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, no company today can afford to remain silent about its social commitment. On the other hand, they make themselves a little more vulnerable with every word. If your stakeholders are dissatisfied with your CSR communication, it is usually because you are promising something that you cannot deliver or keep. The consequences for your reputation can be serious. Your company could be seen as poorly managed, out of date or even dishonest or fraudulent. Such impressions can seriously and permanently damage your company's reputation, scare off customers, business partners and investors and influence public opinion to its disadvantage.

The old principle of “any news is good news” does not apply to CSR. Instead, you should carefully plan and monitor your communication in this area. This can be complicated in detail. In fact, the most important thing is that you follow some very basic principles.

In the following, we have therefore compiled some of the most important factors and pitfalls that you should bear in mind when organizing your company's CSR communication.

Communicating CSR and ethics - Step 1: Involving the right supporters

Every company organizes its CSR management differently. Perhaps your company has a dedicated team for the topic, or perhaps you organize your activities in this area in a more decentralized way. When it comes to communicating about the company's CSR commitment, such organizational structures are irrelevant. Because your company should speak with one voice both internally and externally, you will need to involve many different departments in any case. In the following, we will therefore give you an overview of the six company departments you should always include in your CSR communication.

Six corporate units you should include in your CSR and ethics communication:

1. Public relations: PR explains the process, outcome and rationale behind your decisions and activities to your external stakeholders, especially the media, customers and the general public. Its main role in CSR communication should be to write and disseminate external messages, maintain benevolent relationships with key media and organize appropriate crisis communication in critical situations.

2. HR: The HR department communicates the relevance of CSR to your employees. Its main tasks should include communicating your shared values and positions. It should also ensure that employees are given opportunities to get involved in the formulation of your ethics strategy and train them in ethical practices and principles. Finally, HR should foster a culture that emphasizes respect, accountability and constructive discourse.

3. Marketing and branding: Marketing teams should incorporate CSR information into their marketing campaigns and brand communications, highlight CSR achievements in product and service advertising, and work towards building a brand image that authentically represents the company's ethical identity.

4. Investor relations: Investor relations is primarily aimed at your shareholders, potential investors and financial analysts. Their main tasks include communicating CSR performance and its impact on the financial success of your company, for example in annual reports and presentations. They also answer inquiries from investors about your sustainability practices. 

5. Procurement: The procurement department should primarily communicate your CSR expectations to suppliers and partners and check whether their business practices fit with your ethics strategy. The unit works with your suppliers to ensure ethical and sustainable sourcing practices, reports on sustainability initiatives in the supply chain and decides how to deal with supplier failures. 

6. Legal and compliance: Legal and compliance teams should focus on whether your company complies with applicable law, industry best practices and the ethical standards it has set for itself. In addition, they should consider your company's options in cases of legal uncertainty.

Communicating CSR and ethics - Step 2: Principles of successful communication

If your company makes a statement about its CSR commitment, you should be aware that there is a lot at stake not only for you, but also for your stakeholders. Of course, you want to talk about your achievements in this area and arouse the goodwill of your audience. Nevertheless, CSR communication is not advertising. Customers may forgive your company if it embellishes the performance of its products a little in a commercial. But if, on the other hand, you undeservedly claim a clean slate in moral terms, disappointment and rejection are often not long in coming. It is therefore important that your company adheres to certain ethical principles when communicating CSR issues.

Six principles for CSR communication:

1. Authenticity: Be sincere and honest in your communications. Make sure that what your company publishes and promises about its CSR and ethics efforts matches reality.

2. Transparency: Share clear and accurate information about your CSR initiatives and ethical practices. Speak openly about achievements as well as challenges and failures. Explain the processes and reasons why your company made certain decisions. 

3. Stakeholder engagement: Engage with your stakeholders, including employees, customers and investors. Get their feedback and involve them in your decision-making and communication processes. Ensure that the opportunities to exert influence are fairly distributed.

4. Commitment: Take responsibility for your actions and your results. Be publicly accountable for whether the company is achieving its CSR goals and how it intends to address emerging ethical dilemmas. For example, use RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrices to be binding in your acceptance of responsibility. Set specific, measurable, achievable and time-bound goals for your CSR initiatives. Report regularly on progress towards these goals, both within the company and to third parties. Use data and metrics to illustrate the progress you are making in areas such as sustainability, community engagement and compliance with ethical standards in your business practices.

5. Consistency: Spread a consistent message across all your communication channels, from your website and social media to annual reports and press releases.

6. Storytelling: Tell individual stories that give your CSR and ethics commitment a human face. Make the people who are positively influenced by your initiatives visible. However, avoid inappropriate simplifications. Remember that avoiding harm and injustice is often more important than promoting positive effects. Compelling storytelling takes advantage of this nuance.

Communicating CSR and ethics - Step 3: Common mistakes

Companies often make similar mistakes when communicating their CSR and ethics commitment. It is therefore important that you know in advance which communication pitfalls you should avoid when developing your communication strategy. Below we give you an overview of some of the most common mishaps you should be aware of when speaking publicly about such challenges:

Nine things you should avoid when communicating your CSR commitment:

1. Reactively, not proactively: Many companies only address CSR issues when they develop into a crisis or PR problem. This means they fail to actively address potential ethical concerns. Be clear about potential risks early on to stay in control of your communications.

2. Remaining in your own bubble: Companies stick to a dangerous echo chamber if they do not involve their stakeholders in their CSR communication measures. Such echo chambers can also arise if they only stay in contact with selected stakeholder groups or avoid those groups that are openly critical of the company. Therefore, engage in a detailed exchange with all your stakeholder groups - including the 'difficult ones'.

3. Lack of transparency: Another problem is when companies fail to share clear and detailed information about and justification for their ethical positions and decisions. This makes it difficult for your stakeholders to assess the credibility of the information shared. Therefore, always strive for the greatest possible transparency.

4. Inconsistency: Furthermore, companies often act inconsistently, for example by publicly representing certain values while at the same time applying or tolerating practices within their supply chain that are incompatible with them. Such inconsistency occurs, for example, when companies speak out against child labor but at the same time cooperate with suppliers who use this practice or do not sufficiently monitor compliance with their standards. Therefore, make sure that your company actually complies with important ethical standards that it refers to in its communication.

5. One-sidedness: A common mistake is for corporations to focus on communicating only the positive aspects, achievements and successes of their CSR program while ignoring negative events, failures or controversial aspects of their operations. In this context, your communication should take into account that avoiding harm and misconduct is often considered more ethically important than delivering positive performance. So if such failures occur in your company, address them openly.

6. Short-term focus: If companies prioritize the announcement of short-term successes, their CSR communication often lacks the perspective for long-term, sustainable solutions. This is problematic, as ethical guidelines are often costly in the short term, but offer strategic advantages in the long term. Therefore, question whether your company is only pursuing certain CSR measures for short-term prestige reasons. If measures are not related to your long-term CSR strategy, you should consider discontinuing them.

7. Exaggerations: Also, when companies exaggerate the positive effects of their practices or fail to substantiate them, CSR communication takes on an inappropriate promotional character. If companies refuse or fail to talk to relevant stakeholders, they may make uninformed or one-sided statements on an issue. This can cause negative reactions from the public. For this reason, you should avoid exaggerations and statements that you cannot substantiate. 

8. Lack of accountability: If companies do not take measures to prevent misconduct or refuse to take responsibility for the negative consequences of their practices, this can damage their reputation. Similarly, if they do not set measurable targets and benchmarks that would allow them to independently assess the success of their CSR initiatives. Therefore, publish clear goals for your company and also speak publicly about the consequences you want to draw if it fails to meet these targets.

9. Neglecting the value chain: If companies fail to address and talk about ethical practices throughout their value chain, they are ignoring a crucial part of their influence. In particular, what happens at key suppliers or partners is of crucial importance to many stakeholders. In your communication, you should therefore remember that your responsibility extends not only to the products you produce directly, but also to the resources you procure and the customers you sell to.

As our overview shows, sincere and effective communication of CSR and ethics activities needs the support of many different departments within your company. There are also several important guiding principles to adhere to and pitfalls to avoid. Striking the right tone when it comes to CSR remains a challenge. However, if your company takes the communicative aspect of CSR and ethics seriously, there is a lot to gain for you. Good work is often rewarded - with a good reputation and active support from supervisory authorities, business partners, employees and customers.