Through your work with the Norwegian Environment Agency (Miljødirektoratet), BCW has built up considerable knowledge about the barriers Norway’s municipalities face when working with environmental initiatives. Given the critical importance of corporate sustainability in today’s global business environment, what can companies learn from these insights? How can they better communicate on sustainability?

Sustainability has for some time now been a top priority for boards and leadership teams. Now the analytics, investors, and financial teams are starting to get sustainability into their key assessments. I would say that companies that, within their scope, are not able to deliver on sustainability will have an uncertain future. 

In 2018, a team of experts at BCW and I read through the sustainability reports of the 100 largest companies listed on the Norwegian stock exchange. Our findings and recommendations are clear: Be honest, concrete and report on progress – or the lack of progress. Showing how sustainability has become an integrated part of the overall business strategy and clearly linked to core business is much more valuable than just a lot of words and reference to the UN SDGs. The key leadership team within the company should also be fully committed. Again, action speaks so much louder than words. For most companies and organizations, it is of vital importance to attract young talent. For the most part, these talented young individuals want to work for a company that is making a positive change. They are well trained – they can see through nice words to find proof of real action. So in short: Showcase action – and do not oversell.