Effectively communicating your Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) credentials through content marketing is an essential prerequisite of companies of all sizes today.

However, there are three key trends surrounding ESG at the moment to be aware of:

The first is the politicisation and controversy of ESG as a term despite general recognition of underlying values, leading to “greenhushing”, particularly in the US.
The second is changes to sustainability reporting requirements, particularly in the EU.
The third trend is changes to greenwashing legislation to enhance consumer protection.

In this piece, we’ll explore how these trends affect small to medium businesses, and how creatives can use content marketing to effectively communicate their small business’ ESG efforts.

The ‘anti-ESG’ movement may seem distant, but it can have a knock-on effect, generating distrust around the term and associated action. This can create a discouraging and difficult atmosphere for ESG communications.

Meanwhile in Europe, there has been a shift towards more disclosure to drive transparency on corporate responsibility, such as the Corporate Social Responsibility Directive (CSRD). This has created opportunity for communications professionals, although it has also increased the pressure on sustainability professionals as the default team to handle sustainability reporting. For example, a survey by PWC found that 60% of businesses have not involved their technology function and teams in assisting with data collection for their CSRD.

While the requirements of the CSRD currently affects large businesses, it is likely that they will trickle down to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

From a consumer perspective, there has been a real focus on consumer protection in recent years with the release of the Green Claims Code in 2021. While the primary focus is consumer-facing communications and advertising, the rules apply across the board and creative agencies should use this as a guide to check if their client’s sustainability claims are misleading, protecting all parties from legal fallout.

Greenwashing is also mentioned in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer’s Bill, which has been in the pipeline for the last year and was hurried through parliament due to the general election on the 4th July. The most recent amendment of the Bill, explicitly states that it is seeking to ban greenwashing through its policies and states the need for a legal definition of sustainability.

How does this apply to content marketing?

Typically, one might associate greenwashing with misleading statistics, or words, but it is important to remember that the Green Claims Code applies across all contexts—including visual, such as graphics, imagery and videos.