The Gist
- Reputation matters. ESG commitments influence brand and investor decisions.
- Visual proof. Use data visualizations to showcase ESG progress effectively.
- Real actions. Demonstrate ESG efforts with updates to avoid greenwashing claims.
Over the past few years, environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters have risen up in the corporate social responsibility agenda. ESG commitments and any related actions are now taken seriously regarded as reputational, compliance and risk-related issues. How a company presents its record on ESG strategies to the outside world — including on its website — must be carefully considered.
Are ESG Commitments Worth the Investment Risk?
There are still some skeptical voices about the importance of ESG commitments in corporate social responsibility goals. However, a stack of evidence suggests that an organization’s track record on ESG can impact everything from global investment strategies to customer buying decisions.
Research from PwC found that 79% of global investors consider ESG risks an important factor in choosing where to invest. Joint research from McKinsey and NielsenIQ also found that products making ESG-related claims on average had stronger cumulative growth over a five year period than products that didn’t.
Related Article: How Delivering on ESG Means Delivering on Customer Experience
Is Your Website ESG Aligned?
Any digital team should ensure that a company’s digital presence and website is fully aligned to their ESG commitments. This alignment occurs across two main dimensions; first, that a company’s ESG record is presented optimally; and second, that its website and digital footprint is managed in such a way that is consistent with the ESG commitment.
7 Tips for Solid ESG Commitments
It’s fair to say that generally much more attention is given to the presentation of ESG-related content than how a website is managed. Let’s dig into seven tips covering both aspects.
1. Detail Your ESG Related Policies and Reports
ESG is important when it comes to corporate social responsibility matters, and it can certainly impact brand and reputation. At a minimum, your web presence should detail your ESG commitments. Most big corporates put considerable effort into this, and some will even have a dedicated site and also likely some kind of annual report, often in PDF format.
To cover some of the basics, ensure your website remains up to date with your ESG policies and reports and give these the prominence they deserve within your site navigation and via corporate social responsiblity content spotlights on your homepage. Consider providing the quick headline view as well as the detail that can then be drilled into, including the inevitable PDF download if people want more details.
If all your ESG-related content and messaging is wrapped up in the PDF download consider liberating some of this into a page format so it can be more easily consumed.
2. Include Visuals of the Roadmap and the Numbers
ESG commitments — particularly in the environmental area — are often about the future roadmap with specific targets to reach. Presenting the steps of the roadmap and the specific numbers around the progress made presents an opportunity for attractive data visualization that can also create a powerful impression. Although this will need to be updated periodically, which can be time consuming for the web team, it is worth spending time on the design to get it right.
3. Include the News and Updates That Validate Your Actions
One of the valid accusations leveled at organizations is that their ESG commitments are shallow PR exercises, essentially “greenwashing,” with bad practices that contradict their good intentions. In some cases, these accusations might have some truth to them, but for others, they may be very unfair.
Any website presence related to ESG commitments should demonstrate your commitment by providing news and updates that show your company is taking action. Only by showing that your company is actively taking steps can you establish that a policy is more than just words, helping to validate your overall ESG message.
ESG is important, so major news items should reflect your corporate social responsibility commitments, with updates also appearing on any relevant ESG page or area of your site.
4. Make Your Website More Sustainable
Environmental commitments such as reducing carbon emissions and achieving net zero are at the center of many ESG strategies. Some organizations are also making substantial progress around improving wasteful or damaging processes. Ideally, a website should also be managed in a way that minimizes its environmental impact and aligns with your company’s ESG commitments.
Any website will create a carbon footprint itself but there are multiple practices for more sustainable web design that you can take to reduce emissions. These include measuring your carbon footprint, using more sustainable hosting, offsetting your emissions and using caching and content delivery networks (CDNs). In particular, ESG areas of a site often use images and video as well and sometimes post reports in PDF format. Practices such as minimizing file size and avoiding auto-playing of videos can also help reduce carbon emissions.
5. Ensure Your Site Is Accessible
Having an accessible website should be a priority for every organization regardless — not only because it’s necessary from a legal and risk point of view, but it’s also the right thing to do. It’s also essential if you want to ensure your site reflects any organizational commitments to diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I).
Many sites strive to achieve AA level compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards, and this may have been the case when a site launched. However, teams often take their eyes off the ball, and a site may cease to be fully accessible due to added content or forgotten alt text. It’s always worth checking if your site is accessible. There are a number of free and paid solutions that can help as a starting point, as well as external consultants offering audits, reviews and advice.
6. Use Inclusive Language Where You Can
The language we use and choice of words makes a difference. Using the wrong language or a poor choice of terms that is not inclusive can seem counter to ESG commitments; here the devil is in the detail as people can leap on the use of particular terms or words. At the same time, it is very easy to get too wrapped up in this and create problems where there aren’t any.
One way to make sure you are using words that are inclusive is to get specific stakeholders to review it. For example, your organization may have internal employee resource-groups (ERGs) representing different groups that can review content. You can also reach out to relevant third parties. Working with different groups to ensure you’re using the best possible vocabulary will help to ensure your content is aligned with your core ESG messaging.
7. Use Real People in Your Photography (and Get Permissions)
The overuse of stock imagery involving people is one of the cardinal sins of website creation. It’s lazy and makes content feel less sincere and authentic, which arguably matters more with ESG content, particularly if there is an indication that the people in the photo might be real.
Most people can tell you are using stock imagery. For example, if all the pictures of your employees just happen to look like international models having the time of their lives at work, it will devalue any content that might actually detail the positive things you are doing to support your employees.
If possible, use real people in your photography that also reflect the diversity of the communities you are working with. Obviously using real photography can be more expensive and also requires you to gain the necessary permissions, but it will help make your ESG pages more authentic and relatable. Note that a similar principle also applies to AI-related imagery that also comes across as generic and not genuine.
Aligning Your Website With Your ESG Messaging
ESG strategies and commitments are important, and they’re potentially going to become more prominent in the next few years. It’s absolutely worth getting it right across your digital presence, both in the presentation of your content but also in how you manage your website.
