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Mind the Gap – The Role of Expert Sustainability Communications

Sustainability marketing and communications influence behaviour and inspire action at a transformational level, elevating plans to proof points and intent to actual impact.

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  • 12:03 pm

Most organisations are missing a critical skill, one that is has become increasingly essential for advancing sustainability effectively. This is expert sustainability marketing and communications: strategists who understand the complexity of social and environmental progress and can translate it into clear, compelling, and compliant messages that resonate across stakeholders, cultures, and channels. 

 
Recognising and building this capability represents an often overlooked opportunity (and dare I say it, advantage) for organisations seeking to advance and accelerate their existing and future social and environmental sustainability progress, without falling foul of anti-greenwashing regulations.
 
True experts in this field can:
 
  • Build and direct strategies that flex in real time as sustainability priorities evolve (or pivot).
  • Translate technical progress into accessible content and campaigns that engage stakeholders in the formats and channels they actually use.
  • Create content that is compelling, culturally resonant, and fully aligned with brand voice — while staying compliant with ever-evolving Green Claims regulations.
  • Fuse every message with credible, publicly available data that meets regulatory substantiation criteria and gains the (trust and) approval of production, operations, legal, and corporate affairs teams.
 
In short, they make sustainability communications both possible and powerful, delivering messages that are credible, compliant, and impactful for all stakeholders.
 
What It Takes to Unlock the Benefits
 
This expertise delivers even greater benefits when it exists within the right internal conditions, including: 
 
  1. Understanding that green claims need both legal and marketing interpretation. Many global brands still make avoidable errors because no one is interpreting what Green Claims criteria mean for marketers in practice and how they directly affect both the message and medium.
  2. Recognition that the skillset doesn’t already exist in-house, even if comms, legal, and sustainability teams each communicate effectively in their own lanes.
  3. Appreciation of timing and that an expert can advise if and when progress and situations will benefit most from proactive responses or reactive preparations.
  4. Awareness of the penalties for getting it wrong with breaches of Green Claims carrying penalties of up to 10% of global turnover, not to mention serious reputational damage.
 
Recognising these conditions is step one. Step two is acknowledging the skills gap.
 
The Skills Gap We’re Not Talking About
 
The talent pipeline is still extremely limited. While a handful of universities are only just beginning to introduce Sustainability Marketing into MBA and MSc programmes, the job market hasn’t caught up and roles labelled Sustainability Communications Expert remain exceptionally rare, probably because most businesses are still grappling with compliance-focused communications and reporting. 
 
But perhaps that scarcity is not entirely a problem. There are two ways organisations can close the gap:
 
  1. Recruit full-time Sustainability Communications experts into in-house teams to build systems, strategies, and governance from within. 
  2. Work with boutique consultants and specialists who guide existing comms and sustainability teams, embedding new skills while offering expert support for audits, approvals, and complex message crafting. 
 
Either way, the reality is that all businesses and brands with social or environmental sustainability goals, plans and initiatives need to lift their heads and look beyond compliance-only communications.
 
Why This Matters
 
This form of expertise is the missing link between sustainability ambition and sustainability reality. To hit organisational, national, and global goals, we need to influence behaviour and inspire action at a transformational level. Effective communications are the lever and, quite simply, without them progress stalls, with them it accelerates.
 
At KCMD, we know that sustainability communications isn’t an add-on, it’s how organisations move from plans to proof, from intent to impact. The missing link is here. Build it into your strategy with our support. kirstie@kcmdltd.com

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