With the days becoming that little bit longer, and the crocuses beginning to nudge their way up through the soil, it definitely feels as if Spring is on the horizon.
Coupled with this week’s roadmap out of lockdown announcement, spirits have been high at the Forum HQ, with a refreshed (but cautious!) hope that we may be able to return to live events in some capacity in 2021.
All things considered, we’ve really enjoyed engaging with Forum Members digitally over the course of the past year, and made some new friends along the way as a result. It’s also helped us become more mindful and inclusive towards Members who are based in different parts of the country. So, we’ll be looking at ways of capturing content via a hybrid event model in our future event plans.
4 key takeaways from yesterday’s differentiating your ESG offering webinar
Yesterday we were joined by Simon Hildrey, Chief Marketing Officer at Liontrust, Carmen Reid, Senior Writer and Content Planner, Copylab and Sandra Rockett, Director, Wealth and Corporate Distribution at Irish Life Investment Managers, to discuss how businesses can supercharge communications to make sure their ESG offering stands out from the crowd. Here are my 4 key takeaways from the event.
1. Your ESG engagement and communications strategy shouldn’t just be limited to your customers.
As Sandra noted, ESG isn’t just a new product or sales campaign, it’s an opportunity to engage with your employees and help them to connect to a meaningful shared purpose. Being willing to bring in new ideas and skillsets is imperative to this, with Irish Life having looked outside of the industry for a new internal communications resource in their own business.
2. 75% of customers agreed that ESG investing is important, yet only 41% of that group actually invested sustainably.
Simon referenced recent research carried out by Liontrust, reinforcing the message that whilst the majority of people do state that they believe in the benefits of ESG investing, there is still work to be done.
3. Articulate your accountability by publishing your long-term sustainability goals – and updating your audience on the progress.
This is something that Marks and Spencer do really well, Carmen pointed out, with their Plan A reports, which are visual and easy to understand. They are also completely transparent, with Marks and Spencer challenging themselves to improve by illustrating where they have fallen behind and what they will do to improve.
4. And finally, in the words of French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal; ‘I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time’.
Carmen shared top tips from Copylab on how to improve your ESG communications; be concise, find a fresh way to talk about your subject, and come from an inspired place.
Also, avoid any jargon or industry terminology, or as George Orwell put it: ‘never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent’.
Here’s hoping that the sunshine holds out for the weekend, and that you have a restful couple of days. See you next week.
Jasmine
