From The Editor’s Desk (August 2021): Showing a Company’s Value Through ESG Press Releases

This spike in August is partially attributed to the rise in the number of earnings releases by companies in the Q3 earnings season. Rounding up the top 4 topics of press releases distributed (in terms of volume) in August are Carbon Neutrality & ESG, AI and Travel.

Consumers are now just as concerned with what a company does to make the world a better place as they are the company’s products and services. As such, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ESG releases have become essential tools in a company’s PR kit.

Demonstrating proficiency in these types of releases can build up your company’s profile as a game-changer in society. To write these releases, it’s important to take a few notes on how to do so effectively. PR Newswire’s Senior Editor Nathan Brown shares some tips on how brands can showcasing their value through ESG press releases.

Tip 1: Don’t be Bombastic. Humble Brag

The goal of PR is name recognition for the company. But CSR- and ESG-focused releases are meant to shed light on other causes: charities, environmental issues, or services outside of the company. Therefore, companies have to humble brag to keep the cause at the centre of the release while still connecting themselves to the news.

Humble bragging is the subtle art of showing you’re good without stating it explicitly. You show how your institution can provide extra value in the world without overt focus on the greatness of the company or their services. ESG-focused releases by global biotech company I-MAB and alternative asset manager CPE’s demonstrate some of the keys to humble bragging.

Keys to Humble Bragging in CSR/ESG Releases:

1. Provide cause-focused data without being self-impressed at your work (e.g. This I-MAB release includes the percentage of women in the workplace and details about its Women’s Leadership Council.) 
2. Link your company’s work to higher causes/institutions without taking on the lead role of the cause (e.g. CPE’s alignment with UN regulatory principles) 
3. Avoid going into too much detail about what your company does outside of the CSR/ESG – Readers will learn on their own if they’re impressed by your work.

Avoid These Pitfalls When Attempting to Humble Brag:

1. Include discussion of your company’s products/services onto the CSR/ESG content – It will be seen as a transparent attempt to sell your services instead of a cause-driven release
2. Being overly enthusiastic with adjectives and adverbs – Like all press releases, CSR/ESG releases should be fact-driven. Over-use of adjectives and adverbs reads as insecure in your work for the cause at best and disingenuous at worst
3. Compare your work to other companies – There is no need to put your company on a pedestal at the cost of another company. Only focus on what you do, not what others are or are not doing

Tip 2: Contextualize the Cause

Readers will be accessing your PR from around the world. They’ll be coming with different languages, backgrounds and ways of understanding the world. Thus, you have to approach your CSR/ESG press releases with this in mind. Craft your content knowing that you’ll have to provide your readers with a certain amount of context.

Background information about the issues, details about a charitable organization or cause, or reasoning for your company’s tackling of the cause are all necessary elements of a successful CSR/ESG release. If the readers don’t know why they should care, they won’t care. And they won’t read on.

Shanghai Electric realized this when they put together their release detailing their charitable work in Pakistan. They provided details on the Eid holiday, the region, and the circumstances of the individuals involved, as well as data, so that readers outside of Pakistan would be able to empathize and understand the work better.

READ MORE: Doing Good With Technology: A Q&A With Tencent Charity Foundation

Tip 3: Put the Other Parties Front and Center

When it comes to quotes and optics, it might be tempting to highlight the company. Images of company volunteers wearing vests with the company’s logo or quotes from the company’s CEO seem like a good idea, and they’re not bad at all, but it would behove writers to remember to focus on the purpose of the release. However, you want to highlight the cause – quotes should be provided from the beneficiaries as well as from the company.

Huawei puts its CSR recipients at the centre of the story, highlighting the impact of Huawei’s work through the voices of those who have benefitted from it. A company can toot its own horn all day, but having someone else brag on them does so much more for the credibility of their work.

Meanwhile, Cathay Bank Foundation made sure to not only include the recipients of their donations but also to list them out to keep the focus on their organizations rather than Cathay Bank.

Reminder:  If you’re going to focus on the recipients of your company’s charity, it is best not to patronize them or use infantile vocabulary to describe them. The quickest way to turn off readers is to sound like you know better than the people at the centre of the issue.

Tip 4: Gear Readers up for Action

When it comes to CSR/ESG, the end goal is betterment. But your company can’t act alone. Your company’s goal is to highlight the cause, what you’re doing about it, and to show what can still be done. Readers can get involved with CSR/ESG releases more than in any other types of press release. This will, in turn, connect them even more closely to your company as they begin seeing your work as their work, creating a relationship stronger than other types of news could.

Get your readers involved through:

• Websites to the relevant charities
• Donation locations or links
• Future Charity events
• Future CSR/ESG events
• Government resources
• Further reading/knowledge points

Jebsen Group and Traveloka both provide ample opportunities for readers to access the charities they’re promoting. Jebsen Group provides a long list of the charities they’re working with and each organization’s webpage so that readers can do their own research and see what they can do as well. Traveloka provides a step-by-step guide to encourage users in Singapore to donate their government-issued tourism vouchers to provide beneficiaries of charities with a fun day out at local attractions.

At the end of the day, if your work for a cause outside of your company is genuine, it’s not going to matter if you’re distributing press releases or not.

But if you are, keeping the above details in mind may help aid you in getting more readers interested in doing their part. Your company then becomes not just a service provider, but a thought and social leader. Your gains are not made in revenues but in the betterment of the world around you, and that’s what’s most important about an ESG release.