SMALL AND LARGE ORGANIZATIONS

What you have begun to do may well have given you a competitive advantage already, and if it has not yet it probably will soon. So you will probably have several alert and eager audiences for the feedback you can provide.

The bigger you are, the more important an organized communication campaign will be to justify the investments that you certainly had to make. Different groups will be interested in different things. Differentiate the information you give out according to the audience it is aimed at. Tell your staff what you are doing, and how it will make the company – their company – more profitable and their families’ futures better. Tell your customers how you are (or soon will be) saving money and keeping prices down. Tell your shareholders how you are securing the company’s future. Tell your rivals what they are missing and how everyone gains from reducing their GHG emissions. Tell the community in which you work how your efforts are improving conditions for everyone and offering them – and their children – a healthier future.

Strategic communication
Do not rely simply on spreading the word informally, by word of mouth and chance contacts. By all means write reports and put details on your website, if you think people will read them. Hold a meeting to explain what you have done if you think you can attract a decent audience. Mount a media campaign, because if you can get journalists interested you can inform far more people than by direct contact. Try to get someone from the company invited into schools and to visit groups like local senior citizens’ or civic associations. Many of them are always on the lookout for interesting speakers anyway, and nobody is too young – or too old – to start down the climate-neutral road. Hold