Social Media: Is it the Sustainability Manager's Job?
November 9, 2009 | Posted by Beth Trask in Exchange, Innovation, Tools
A corporate sustainability manager's job is never done. These harried multi-taskers deal with everything from phasing Styrofoam cups out of the cafeteria to setting company-wide carbon reduction goals.
And now they need to blog, tweet and manage Facebook fan sites—so said the line up of experts at the recent Social Media for Sustainability conference, hosted by Just Means.
Panel after panel covered the hows and whys of using social media to engage employees, customers and other stakeholders. But the big idea, underscored in nearly every presentation, was much more fundamental: It's all about transparency.
The rapid rise in social media has heightened our society's expectations for transparency. Writer and psychologist Daniel Goleman calls it the new "radical transparency."
In our brave new world of camera phones and Twitter, the "closed door meeting" has become a quaint, old-fashioned notion. The idea of "message control" is as antiquated as the fax machine. In the conference's opening panel, Seventh Generation's Jeffrey Hollender got our attention with a prediction: "Successful companies will be those brave enough to expose what their competitors won't."
Many companies are already exploring this new frontier, particularly for their supply chains. Patagonia's Footprint Chronicles and China's PCH International, offer interesting examples.
But what does all this have to do with the already overloaded sustainability manager? At EDF's Innovation Exchange, we believe transparency is actually going to make his or her job easier. Reducing a company's footprint is just too complex to tackle alone. Sustainability managers need to be able to share more, collaborate more and get comfortable with learning right out in the open—both within and across industries.
So how can anyone carve out the time to tweet and blog?
The conference offered a couple of ideas. For starters, in-house communications staff can help. Given the changes in the media landscape, they should be spending less time issuing news releases and more on social media.
Perhaps the most exciting idea was offered by eBay: The company had to figure out how to keep 2,000 members of its employee green team engaged. The solution? Let them be social media ambassadors. You'll now find eBay Green Team members carrying on a lively conversation with eBay shoppers, and the world at large, via Facebook, Twitter and a website.
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One Response
Comment from Jagan
November 11th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Beth,
Interesting post, thank you for sharing.
Social media does have the power to not only engage/inform customers about company's sustainability efforts but also to engage employees in sustainability initiatives. In my conversation with CSO's I have found that social media offers an opportunity to engage and create sustainability culture within a company. Also, data from a recent consumer survey I conducted shows that employees are more likely to engage in work sponsored communities for saving energy at home.
So there is an opportunity for CSO's to engage with employees using social media. They just have to make it personal and meaningful to the employees.
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