AMEC Virtual Summit Presented by Mathias Kortegaard, Program Manager and Maria Bach, Senior Advisor, Infomedia

Sustainability is high – and rising – as a focus for more businesses around the world and many companies report on sustainability as part of Corporate Responsibility. Yet, setting meaningful sustainability goals and gaining actionable insight on the values and views of other countries or organisations creates an obstacle in ensuring business opportunities, partnerships and supplier relationships are always reinforcing the core brand.

Explaining why sustainability measurement matters, Infomedia explains how to turn the sustainability agenda into impact-orientated insights and commercial opportunity.

The sustainability agenda has been one of the biggest focal topics for the last decade, and continues to rise on the public agenda, particularly among a younger audience. In the last year, there have been almost two million mentions in English language media alone. Even impact of the pandemic on media reporting was temporary (and less significant seen annually at Christmas), and interest is back on the rise again already.

In fact, sustainability has become critical to both purpose and brand. Companies can’t choose to do it because it feels nice, they have to commit to it for audiences and stakeholders to engage with them. Action towards UN goals for sustainability is increasing being required by governments and investors in compliance and reporting.

However, the emphasis varies around the world. From media analysis, we see that Scandinavia, for example, prioritises climate action and climate change, whereas Africa is more interested in compliance and philanthropy, and Asia wants to know about economic growth and long-term wealth.

As a result, sustainability as a whole is too complex to measure with so many cultural factors making up the agenda. That is why most companies report on progress by measuring action rather than impact, which risks missing out on potential growth.

Connecting to the global agenda and finding out what is going on in other countries or companies can influence or uncover new opportunities. And, whether your sustainability priorities are gender equality, ethical work practices, responsible consumption and production or climate action, aligning on these qualities with potential partners, subcontractors or suppliers will greatly enhance brand authenticity and value.

Through measurement and evaluation of editorial and social media coverage relating to these goals, companies can also see how closely their brand promise links to brand perception.

In this way, intelligent media analysis creates meaningful insight, which makes the complex sustainability agenda much more specific, and turns sustainable communication into sustainable business practice and growth.