In this episode of the Speak PR podcast, host Jim James explains why the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are critical for a company’s reputation and long‑term viability. He cites Unilever CMO Keith Weed’s warning that firms that fail to embed environmental and social sustainability will disappear within decades, using the automotive sector’s shift toward electric vehicles as a concrete illustration. James outlines practical ways businesses can adopt and measure SDG impact, highlighting tools such as the SDG Funders platform, the UK Good Business Guide, and BITC’s Responsible Business Tracker. He shares examples of sustainability‑centric business models—including Impactable Analytics, urban‑farm container growers, and the refill‑station brand Scoop—to show how sustainability can be a core value proposition. The episode then connects measurement to public‑relations strategy, describing how quantified SDG performance can be turned into compelling stories, media coverage, and award nominations (e.g., International CSR Awards, Guardian Sustainable Business Awards). James also discusses emerging analytics that link sustainability actions to financial returns, arguing that investors, consumers, and talent increasingly judge companies on how they create value, not just what they sell. The key takeaway is that sustainability will become a central narrative in PR, and businesses should proactively measure, communicate, and celebrate their contributions to the SDGs.
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Hello and welcome to Speak PR, the podcast for business owners to help you to unlock value in your own business by using effective public relations. My name is Jim James and I'm your host. And today I'm going to talk about sustainable development. What is your company doing to help reach the agenda for sustainable development? And how do you measure it? And once you're measuring it, how can you get noticed for doing so? Now, according to the Chief Marketing Officer of Unilever, Keith Weed, now he said that the brands that have not yet caught up with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and are not thinking about how they will embed environmental and social sustainability within their business model will not be around in the next 50 years. Today we're going to talk about how you can use sustainability in your business for your communications program. Now, for those of you not familiar with the United Nations program that was written in 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has at its heart some 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and I think I'll just share those with you. They are no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, Climate Action, Life Below Water, Life on Land, Peace and Justice and Strong Institutions, and Partnership for All the Goals. Now, these 17 different goals have underneath them a number of different programs. There are some 960 events, some 1,205 publications, and 5,132 partnerships. And 174 targets. Within these 17 goals, a question will be, what can your business do to participate in making the world a better place? Now, as Unilever Keith Weed said at the beginning of the episode, if we don't have these goals somehow embedded into our business operations, the view is that the business will be out of business within 50 years, and I personally would say it would be a lot quicker than that. If we look at, for example, in the automotive industry, the rapid decline of some of the big brands and the growth of Tesla, for example, what we're really seeing there is that the markets— consumers are saying no to traditional internal combustion engine cars and saying yes to electric-powered cars. But some of those big brands have not incorporated electric vehicle manufacture into the very heart of their businesses, and those are the ones that are going out of business now. We're going to see this across a number of different industries, if, if not all industries. And what's interesting is that it's quite possible for companies big and small to adopt one or any number of these 17 goals, and there are steps and guides that we can use in order to identify best practices, not only on a tactical level but also to incorporate into the very heart of our businesses. I was having a chat today with the founder of a company called Impactable Analytics. And Catherine Griffin, her name is, out of Pennsylvania. And she's now working with founders who have at the very heart of their business sustainability. She's going to come on the podcast in a few days' time. But when we look at, for example, how plants are now being grown in in urban areas and in containers, for example. Sustainability using actually a whole new business model where sustainability is part of the business model is very attractive to consumers, and it should be because it's going to preserve the well-being of our planet. There are a number of ways as well that as companies, if we're taking part in the sustainability goals that we can track and measure them. One, for example, is a website called SDG Funders. That's sdgfunders.org, and it's funded by Candid. And this organization was originally called the Foundation Center, and it was funded by the Conrad Hilton Foundation and the Ford Foundation and the MasterCard Foundation. So it goes to show you that at the very heart now of philanthropy and corporate governance is a drive to not only do good but to measure good. We're all familiar now with, for example, on aeroplanes, the carbon capture and the choice, for example, on British Airways to pay extra money and have a carbon offset. That was kind of a carbon trading scheme, but new companies and new industries are being built where actually sustainability isn't a bolt-on to the existing business. It is the business itself. This is playing into the narrative that we have now, of course, with COVID and with the the global warming, that companies must play a role in the same way that communities must in the well-being of society and the well-being of the planet. Now, this is important because doing so, A, is the right thing to do, but also from a publicity point of view, this is really what readers and the media are interested in now. It's no coincidence that a company like Tesla gets the kind of media coverage it does, even though it sells less than 10% of the number of cars as VW. It gets much more favorable press because it's doing something with a purpose, with a vision. And as we know, when we have our Speak PR methodology, we talk about storify and personalize, engage, amplify, and to know. And in the Elon Musk story, there is an ambition to help people to move to Mars and to live a better, a better life in a better world. So sustainability at the very heart of a business isn't just part of the narrative within, for example, the business model, but it becomes the heart of what people buy and what people are interested in covering. So when we look at, for example, the SDG Funders website, we can see here an indicator wizard where you can actually put into your own web— your own information, and it will start to give you an indication of how well you're doing on the tracker. There's also a compass, for example, that can help you on this SDG website. Closer to home, perhaps in the UK, we also have the Good Business Guide. If you head over to the nibusinessinfo.co.uk website, you can see there a list of ways that you can measure the effects of your corporate social responsibility. There is a way to see performance measurement and set targets. You can also use the BITC's Responsible Business Tracker, and you can actually also get that at the bitc.org.uk website. And on this tracker, for example, they have a responsible business map, and it's a very attractive chart actually, and it covers the Sustainable Development Goals, and it enables you to see those, and you can download it. And it has at its heart purposeful leaders, and in there it has future generations, purpose and values, governance and transparency, and policy engagement. And it has leadership at every level— stakeholder collaboration, supply chain and human rights, products and services, All of these at the heart of the sustainability goals for a company, and then it has the other goals around it: education, good work, environment, diversity and inclusion, healthy ecosystems, net carbon zero, resource productivity, and health and well-being. And then it shows those as two halves of the same equation, which are the healthy communities and the healthy environment. So starting with those UN Social Development Goals, which articulate 17 different goals, these are now moving into much more tactical plans and tools that companies at any level can use. And if we don't start to get involved in developing these, our companies, much like the automotive companies that have failed to do so will perish, just as the head of Unilever's marketing has suggested. But what if you are doing these things? What if you're already running, for example, an eco-friendly business? There's a group here called Scoop in Bath where I took my daughters, and we're all excited because you take your own containers in and you fill them up, whether it's for liquids shampoos, cereals, and so on. So we can reduce our carbon footprint by taking our own recycled containers. What about if companies like this are wanting to promote themselves? Well, there are a number of different awards that people can enter. In the UK, for example, there are the International CSR Awards. There's the Global good awards. There's the newspaper-led Guardian Sustainable Business Awards. There's also, for example, the Ethical Corporation Responsibility Business Awards. A bit of a mouthful, that one, but I think you get the idea. Increasingly, the community will want to celebrate those companies that are somehow involved in helping to promote Either a healthy community, a healthy environment, or both in all of those different dimensions. I was talking with a with an entrepreneur earlier on today who's involved in helping to measure the financial impact of sustainable activity. So there's a new generation of analytics which will start to generate results which show the return on. Capital employed and the direct economic impact of that work. That's going to be very powerful because it'll mean that when people are raising money, for example, for a new venture that maybe takes carbon out of the air or maybe reduces the amount of oil or plastics that we're using, they'll be able to start to demonstrate a metric, a return on investment. CSR social responsibility has always suffered in the past as being seen as sort of a, a thing to do well and to look good, but doesn't really have a measurable impact on a business's well-being. I think that's going to change. I think it's going to change because audiences, consumers, partners will start to judge a company based on not only what it makes but how it makes it, not only who it employs but how it treats its employees. It's been the case for a long time where we've been worried about, for example, child labor or leaving behind disused factories, but people have also turned a bit of a blind eye to it. I think what we're seeing now is a new generation of consciousness and awareness And companies like Tesla will reflect that. And earlier days, company like Body Shop also exemplified this new ethos. As a company, playing a role as a corporate socially responsible citizen is going to be both essential, uh, for long-term growth probably, as we're seeing from green funds, increasingly companies will be asked about the ethical and sustainable impact of companies as they raise money. But what we're also going to see probably is generations of employees wanting to work for companies that are making a difference as well. It's possible then to take the CSR activity that you're involved with, however big or however small, and to translate that into public relations. And this is really where we talk in our Speak PR program about storification and the narrative that we have around our business. If we want to change something, if we want to create something good, there cannot be a negative impact as a result of creating something good. So having a low carbon footprint, for example, in what we make can't be at the expense of, for example, high and exploitative use of labor. So this overall— what in some cases is called a balanced scorecard, where you have good profit but also low impact— is going to be increasingly important. But also it can be used by companies as part of their public relations stories. People will be interested in how we make things or what we're selling, but they'll also be interested in the byproduct of what we're making and how we're selling it. I've been interested and will follow with more interest my conversation with Catherine today and her program of measurement at Impactable Analytics, and I'll be looking at how technology will enable us to measure the impact of our footprint as companies, but also looking at how those metrics can then be translated into, for example, infographics, into presentation slides, into SlideShare PowerPoint presentations, into tweets, into Instagram infographics. As we look now at our businesses, And we look for content about our businesses. The key message of this podcast is that how we run our business is going to be increasingly in the spotlight, not just what we make as a result of our businesses. Sustainability, much like healthcare and approach to health during COVID is going to be a key part. of anybody's public relations narrative from now on. So I encourage you to look for ways to get involved with those, but also look for ways to celebrate those through public relations activities. So with that, thank you very much indeed for listening to this episode of Speak PR, and I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that you keep on a sustainable business. And if you like this, please do come to our website at eastwestpr.com and subscribe to the podcast or to our weekly newsletter. My name is Jim James. Thank you once again for listening to Speak PR. Thank you.
