How PR firms can be more sustainable

Every so often, maybe once every three weeks, your correspondent opens his morning mail to find an envelope with a press release from a PR firm tucked inside. There was even one occasion, in autumn 2021, when one posted press release contained multiple sheets of A4 which waxed lyrical about the sustainability measures one organisation was taking in the run-up to the Cop26 Climate Change Conference. Clearly, this business’s eco-makeover didn’t involve cutting down its paper trail or thinking about the transport emissions generated by mailing these communiqués to the media (the average letter emits 29 grams of CO2). 

Events swag, merchandise, stuffed goodie bags: the PR industry doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to wastage. 

“As an agency, is it still appropriate to do good old-fashioned press drops, sending merch out to journalists just to get their attention?” says Narda Shirley, co-founder of the Wilful Group, a purpose-driven communications agency whose clients include businesses working in climate adaptation, biodiversity and carbon removal. “The answer is most definitely not. If you have to send merch out, make sure it’s with an eye on the resource management and recyclability, not things which are plastic and single-use. It’s common sense…”

Shirley knows all about embarking on a journey to greater sustainability. In 2017, her Gong Communications agency – which merged with Cherish in 2021 to become the Wilful Group – was certified as a B Corporation [the global benchmark to show organisations are ethically sound; similar to a fair trade sticker for corporations]. The assessment procedure “really makes you stop and question everything” says Shirley, who is also a B Corp ambassador. 

Given the global race against time to tackle the climate crisis, there’s an urgency for all businesses to consider their environmental impact. For PR/comms agencies, there’s a strong business imperative too. Not only does being more sustainable help future-proof the firm as the UK works towards reaching its 2050 goals, but it could also see agencies benefit from green tax breaks, win new clients and attract talent. 

Green ideas

Although B Corp remains the acme of sustainability assessment for businesses, companies don’t have to go through the process, which can take several years to complete. Changes can be made right now, starting with the office (or home office). Giving your workplace HQ an eco-makeover could be as simple as ensuring all coffee/tea is fair trade, switching off computers at night, installing a smart meter to monitor energy consumption or investing in energy-efficient lighting (switching halogen bulbs to bright LED bulbs could result in savings of £1-4 a year per bulb, according to the Energy Saving Trust). 

“We’ve introduced lights that don’t stay on all night, which might seem like a little thing, but it all adds up” says Shirley. “Try talking with your landlord about energy-saving measures. Unfortunately, the housing/building stock in most of the UK is energy-inefficient, so many firms are limited in what they can do.”

Considering how employees travel to the office can also help reduce emissions: encouraging staff to walk, cycle or take public transport instead of driving, for example (or even working from home). “When we did our B Corp data collection, we had to record how everybody gets to work, and what their carbon footprint is,” says Shirley. “Handily, my Chiltern Line train is now run on vegetable oil – which goes into the assessment!”

Then there’s event swag. As Shirley points out, there’s plenty of good practice in the PR world if you’re seeking inspiration. “I once attended a Volans [sustainability-led thinktank/advisory firm] event, which had name badges with guest’s details were laser-etched into the wood and could be re-used in the future, rather than being made from plastic.”

Corporate events with their PVC plastic banners and brightly-lit venues situated in arenas many miles away from train stations, are another area that PRs could make changes. The UK events industry emits 1.2bm kg of CO2e every year (roughly as much as the nation of Malta) according to a 2019 report by Hope Solutions/ZAP Concepts. “If you’re going to create a banner, do it in a way that you can reuse it and is recyclable,” says Shirley.  

Elsewhere, PRs may want to consider digital press kits, gifts made from mycelium [mushroom roots] and drawstring goodie bags (rather than plastic/paper bags) crammed with local, ethically-sourced products (rather than useless stuff which ends up in the nearest bin). 

Sustainability and PR clients

Scrutinising your client list – perhaps even jettisoning accounts held by polluting companies – can also help. As Shirley says, “Who you choose to do business with is now a key part of the way you do business. If you had clients who were trashing the environment or non-progressive mining companies, there could be a big red flag against you… Today, you can’t be seen to promote bad business practices.”

Whatever your client’s environmental track record, erring on the side of transparency is always the best policy, says Shirley. “One legitimate criticism of PR is that we sometimes advise clients to only talk about the good stuff, and not be transparent about where they still have work to do. It’s where the whole greenhushing [the relatively new trend for organisations to hide their ESG credentials to avoid scrutiny] comes from. The best practice these days is to be transparent as possible. Because if you hide things and get caught out, it’ll be much worse for the client than if they were honest about it.” 

In advertising, terms such as ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘nature positive’ are about to undergo stricter enforcement from the Advertising Standards Authority watchdog as part of a clampdown on greenwashing (any adverts that claim products are carbon-neutral using offsets will be banned, for example), which comms professionals should be aware of. 

PRs also have a role to play as consultants. If a client has shown a desire towards a green transition, Shirley says the profession should help them: “If you’re helping these companies communicate the changes they’re making – or even helping them become more transparent about where they need to do work – then it’s a legitimate way comms can be part of the solution, rather than maintaining the status quo.”

When it comes to staff, giving them ‘activism’ or ‘volunteering’ days is one way of implanting a green-minded ethos into the company mindset, says Shirley. Also, it’s worth ensuring staff can answer any tricky journalist questions about the provenance of a client’s product, or how many greenhouse gas emissions they produce. 

Incorporating sustainability into the fabric of your firm can give agencies a competitive advantage, especially when many organisations today conduct environmental due diligence on the businesses they work with. Compared to traditional organisations, B Corps companies have a faster growth in turnover (27% versus 5%) and employee headcount (14% vs 1%) and are more successful in securing equity finance (70% vs 56%). 

To join the 1,500+ UK businesses that are B Corp, agencies will need to go through a rigorous independent assessment, where their environmental and social impact are put under the microscope. “The process is rigorous but worth it,” says Shirley. “The B Corp assessors can pick on anything, so businesses need to make sure you have all your receipts and details about carbon footprint.”

Tips for small PR agencies

For those smaller PR firms who don’t have the resources to undergo an assessment, the good news is that B Corp has a free framework (the B Impact Assessment) that any business can use to measure (and improve) their sustainability performance, even solo home-workers.  “Then if somebody asks you about your sustainability, you can then say, hand on heart, you know how you’re performing,” says Shirley.

Other resources are available such as Net Zero Now, a cloud software platform that calculates carbon emissions for businesses, sets targets and produces a bespoke reduction plan. 

Since being certified B Corp, Gong Communications/Wilful has noted countless benefits. “Today, when it comes to requests for proposals (RFPs), many clients have started to ask about what your environmental management systems are like,” says Shirley. “Some bigger clients send out questionnaires. If you’re a smaller company that’s been through B Corp certification, you’ll have lots of data in a way you wouldn’t have otherwise had… It’s helped raise the bar [meaning] we can operate alongside companies much bigger than us.”

Being a sustainability-sound business isn’t just about winning new (and bigger) clients: it can also help attract talent to your firm: around 55% of Gen Z and millennials said they research brands’ environmental impact and policies before accepting a job, according to a recent Deloitte survey.

Shirley says that the onus for a PR/comms agency to ensure their own organisation, plus their clients, are sustainable isn’t an obligation that should be taken lightly. “As service companies, we [PR/comms firms] don’t make physical products, so sustainability impacts us in a different way: thinking about the service we provide, plus recommendations we make for the campaigns we’re running… Because our currency [as PR/comms professionals] is reputation, we should be caring about this stuff and absolutely be all across it…”

Christian Koch is an award-winning journalist and editor who has written for the Sunday Times, Guardian, Evening Standard, Metro, Director, Cosmopolitan, ShortList and Stylist.