ESG Content Strategy: An Essential Checklist for the Reflective Marketer

Ready to kickstart or fine-tune a meaningful ESG content strategy? Go beyond the surface while keeping your contribution authentic and impactful with these key considerations.

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As a brand or marketing strategist, your path to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) content is likely fueled by one of two scenarios: 

• You have a vision of more purpose-driven storytelling that connects with consumers and builds your brand’s reputation
• You’re responding to a mandate from leadership to align the brand with ESG values 

Whichever camp you fall into, you likely already understand what’s at stake. Consumers increasingly want socially responsible brands (the opportunity), yet they can easily detect and reject inauthenticity (the risk).

At studioID, we spend a lot of time working to strike this balance with clients looking to communicate their ESG goals and outcomes in a way that connects and resonates with audiences. At the heart of our approach is the belief that an effective ESG content strategy requires more than just checking the box on reporting and compliance or highlighting a company’s sustainability achievements.

It demands a strategic, thoughtful approach that embraces the full spectrum of the ESG story — successes, challenges, and discussions that are less focused on perfection, but progress. 

What follows is a checklist of our most vital alignment areas to help you devise a more intentional ESG content strategy: 

1. Align on a Unified Vision

Assemble Internal Collaborators

An ESG content strategy cannot exist in a marketing or brand vacuum. Identify and assemble a diverse group of stakeholders from teams like product, comms, legal, data, and ESG (if this function exists) to be your internal champions and thought partners. This ensures your approach is informed by the company’s actual operations and impact, while also driving buy-in from across the organization. 

Some questions to consider:

• Who are the cross-functional partners that can help inform, develop, and champion our approach? 

• Do any internal ESG working groups already exist? 

• What key stakeholders will need to be consulted and informed along the way? 

Align on Existing ESG Strategy & Goals

Before advancing new initiatives, align with any existing corporate strategies related to ESG. Understand your company’s existing commitments, priorities set for ESG, and business objectives. 

Some questions to consider:

• What are the current ESG commitments, business objectives, and focus areas?

• What is leadership’s long-term ESG vision?

• What reporting frameworks, guidelines, or regulatory requirements are guiding our approach?

Assess Current Content Maturity

Determine where your brand currently stands in its ESG content maturity. Use the maturity matrix below to gauge your current approach and the level of integration and sophistication you’re targeting.

Some questions to consider:  

• What is our current content approach/maturity?

• Where would we like to be?

• What are the gaps between current and future state?

Secure Leadership Buy-In

Executive buy-in is crucial as it sets the tone for company-wide commitment to ESG goals. Alignment at the top ensures that your approach to external ESG messaging is in lockstep with internal ESG commitments. 

Some questions to consider:

• What concerns or blockers might leadership have regarding this type of content?

• How can these concerns be addressed?

• How might we leverage executive expertise in messaging? Who might serve as an ESG thought leader for our brand? 

🌱 Related Reading: Crisis Fatigue + ESG Messaging: How to Recenter Trust in Your Brand’s Narrative

2. Uncover Strengths and Weaknesses

Assess Current Impact

Identify and document specific examples of positive progress, like reductions in carbon emissions, increased supply chain sustainability, or improvements in labor practices that you might want to elevate. 

Some questions to consider:

• Has the company engaged in a formal ESG assessment or audit?

• What quantifiable impacts have ESG initiatives had so far?

• How do these positive impacts compare to our negative impacts? 

• How do these positive impacts stack-up to the larger industry’s progress? 

• Are these impacts aligned with our broader business goals? 

• Are there any areas of impact or innovation that are unique to our market? 

Assess Progress and Areas for Improvement

Assess current achievements against the long-term vision of your company’s ESG strategy. Determine if the company is making meaningful progress on the bigger picture – elevating short-term ESG gains without illustrating long-term impact can appear misleading. 

Some questions to consider:

• How has the company progressed in moving toward our big-picture goal?

• What are the function-specific wins or lessons -learned from teams such as R&D, implementation, product development, etc.?

• What are the areas of delay or underperformance in ESG efforts to be aware of? Where are the weaknesses in our current approach? 

• What corrective measures are being implemented?

Identify Pockets of Value

Identify opportunities to not just showcase your company’s impact, but to add something new to the conversation – whether that’s elevating expertise, learnings, or ideas. 

Some questions to consider:

• What unique ESG insights, lessons, or data do we have that no other brand does? 

• Are we taking any unique approaches to ESG innovation, research, product development, community engagement, etc.? 

• What internal experts or expertise on ESG issues exist? 

🌸 Related Reading: 3 Brands Getting Purpose-Driven Marketing Right

3. Read the Room 

Define Your Target Audience

Clearly define who you are trying to reach with your ESG content. Consider both direct stakeholders (e.g., customers, investors, employees) and broader community groups that might be impacted by or interested in your initiatives. 

Some questions to consider:

• Who are the primary and secondary audiences for our ESG content?

• What are the specific interests and needs of these groups regarding our ESG efforts?

• How do these interests align with our company’s ESG goals?

• What are our specific objectives for each audience segment?

• How do these objectives support our overall ESG strategy and business goals?

Understand the Current Conversation & Sentiment

Conduct research to understand the broader cultural, economic, and social trends that influence how your identified ESG priorities are being perceived and discussed. This exercise is essential to ensuring you don’t engage in topics superficially or opportunistically, which can lead to backlash and damage trust in your brand. 

Some questions to consider: 

• Are there any significant concerns or positive perceptions that we need to address or leverage?

• What are the prevailing trends and discussions in the ESG space relevant to our audience and our goals?

• Are there any sensitivities we should be aware of?

• How can our content contribute to and influence these larger conversations?

• Do we have diverse thinkers and perspectives on our team that can validate and pressure test certain topics? 

Audit the Competition

Get a pulse on how others in your industry are communicating about ESG. Determine how your company stacks up and where there might be opportunities or gaps to differentiate your brand’s approach. 

Some questions to consider:

• What ESG topics are our competitors focusing on?

• What is their POV?

• What’s the response/reaction from our target audience? 

• What is missing from our competitors’ approach?

💚 Related Reading: 5 Trends Dominating Modern Marketing

4. Offer Storytelling With Substance

Identify an Ownable Conversation

Compile your findings on the larger conversation zeitgeist (audience + competition) and company value and start to define a clear and compelling narrative that reflects your company’s unique perspective on ESG. 

Explore opportunities to not just tap into the latest trend, but to craft a narrative that aligns your brand’s strengths with issues that genuinely concern your audience. Engage topic experts from outside your organization to help validate and inform your approach. 

Some questions to consider:

• What distinct value, expertise, or impact does your brand offer? 

• What specific social challenges are relevant to your expertise? Think back to your ‘pockets of value.’ 

• What current trends or themes engage your target audience? 

• What conversations exist at the intersection of those three things?

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• Now that we’ve developed an ownable conversation, have we validated it with key stakeholders and external experts? 

💬 Related Reading: How to Create Ownable Conversations: A Step-by-Step Guide

Act as an Educator

A strong ESG content strategy positions the brand as an educator, offering valuable insights and learnings that push the rest of the industry forward. Consider how you can elevate content beyond purely promotional impact storytelling to actually catalyze conversation with industry leaders. Evaluate if your brand is in a position to lead the industry by offering actionable resources, setting new standards, and sharing best practices to drive broader category transformation.

Some questions to consider: 

• Does this content offer more than just reputational brand building?

• Does this content propel the conversation ahead? 

• Is this content rooted in solutions? 

• Does this content impart insights and learnings that the wider industry can harness and apply?

5. Keep It Real

Set the right tone

Ensure all team members are educated about greenwashing and purpose-washing and how to identify and avoid it. Keep a positive yet pragmatic voice, avoiding doom and gloom that bums consumers out. 

• Do we have established tone/voice guidelines for ESG content? 

• Are our content creators aware of what constitutes greenwashing or purpose-washing?

• How can we continually ensure our content remains authentic and avoids greenwashing pitfalls?

Keep It Transparent

Make sure your content reflects the full lifecycle of your initiatives or the comprehensive story of your efforts. Don’t be afraid to be honest about challenges, setbacks, and ongoing efforts. 

• Does our content adequately cover the full story (ie. where our materials come from, how products are made, and what happens after they’re sold?)

• Are we transparent about the challenges and limitations of our ESG initiatives?

• Are we omitting any key information about our impact? 

• Can our accomplishments be backed up with data and evidence? 

⏯ Related Viewing: [Ft. Pfizer] How Do You Use Brand Storytelling to Build Lasting Trust With Your Audience?

6. Measure What Matters

Identify Engagement Opportunities

Develop mechanisms for audiences to interact with your ESG content and provide their thoughts and feedback. 

Some questions to consider:

• Do audiences have a meaningful way to engage and provide their feedback?

• What channels are most effective for engaging with our audience on ESG topics?

• How can we improve these interactions to make them more valuable? 

• Do we have a plan in place to respond/engage? 

Track and Measure Success 

Based on your previously defined goals, define KPIs indicative of success. Be mindful that success in ESG content might differ from other content initiatives. Consider broader impacts such as sparking industry conversations/partnerships, thought leadership invitations, etc.

Some questions to consider:

• How can we track and attribute changes in brand perception or industry standing to our ESG content?

• Beyond likes and shares, what unique interactions or outcomes should we be tracking? 

• How will we use this information to inform future ESG content creation and strategic decision-making? 

You have an opportunity to not just meet, but set new standards for how ESG is integrated and communicated across your sector. By thoughtfully addressing these questions, your brand stands to gain both the trust of increasingly discerning consumers and a position of leadership in your category.

What questions do you have about ESG content strategy? Contact us.