Social Media and Sustainability

Over the last decade, we have seen social media and sustainability play an increasingly important role in the way that businesses conduct and talk about themselves. They’ve helped push corporations to new levels of transparency, opened up avenues for greater engagement, forced organizations to rethink their role in society, and aligned individuals, businesses and communities around shared purpose.

Unfortunately, for all the common benefits, many companies still haven’t quite figured out how to put the two together effectively. “Brands are blowing a major opportunity to communicate their sustainability initiatives to millions of consumers with social media updates that are ‘inane, safe and saccharinely artificial in their bonhomie.’”

According to Pew Research that “clear majorities of Twitter (63 percent) and Facebook users (63 percent) use platforms as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family.” Social media has quickly taken a front seat to other, more traditional ways of receiving information – and the trend shows no sign of slowing down. If sustainability messages seek to reach specific audiences, it stands to reason that those messages should be communicated through the audiences’ preferred channels.

But identifying proper channels is only one part of the equation. Organizations must then engage audiences – no short order in light of the amount of messaging vying for users’ attention. According to cio.com, Facebook’s 1.44 billion monthly active users sent out an average of 31.25 million messages every minute – and that’s only one network. That figure doesn’t even begin to account for LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Medium or any of the host of other social media apps available to users.

List of companies that have taken an initiative to engage audiences on their sustainability practices.

H&M – H&M utilized a strong media push to raise awareness for the brand’s sustainability programs and reduce the environment footprint of the fast fashion industry. The company used the hashtag #WorldRecycleWeek to encourage customers to  recycle unwanted clothes at their stores.

Toms – Toms shoes regularly uses social media to promote initiatives in the arena of social good. Once a year, Toms promotes One Day Without Shoes using the hashtag #withoutshoes on social media to raise awareness about children’s health. Last year, they gave shoes to over 27,000 children based on the results of the one-day campaign.

SAP – The software corporation SAP has also found success in communicating its sustainability efforts through social media. The company created its own separate Twitter account (@sap4good) for its sustainability and corporate responsibility initiatives and posts enough compelling content to gain over 15,000 followers.