Promoting briefs that include unsubstantiated environmental claims are nonetheless frequent in Asia, the place advertising companies are eager to leap on the sustainability bandwagon however lack crucial material experience, say professionals aware of the internal workings of the business.
There’s an growing want for capacity-building for advert and public relations professionals within the area to scale back greenwashing danger and misinformation, they steered. Corporations additionally danger reputational harm in the event that they rent communications companies with little to no understanding of sustainability points.
Communications professionals had been talking at an occasion hosted by Clear Creatives in Singapore final Thursday. The USA-based non-profit just lately launched a research that highlights for the primary time the companies working for fossil fuels manufacturers in Asia.
Carolina Rodriguez, a former United Nations govt who now runs the Singapore workplace of communications company Leidar, mentioned that getting into the promoting world has been “an insane expertise” for her, due to how uninformed the enterprise is on sustainability points.
Meilin Wong (left), CEO of Milk & Honey PR, Qiyun Woo (centre), founding father of The Bizarre and Wild, and Nayantara Dutta, analysis director for Clear Creatives. Picture: EB Influence
“It was like abruptly being sucked right into a parallel universe the place nothing made sense,” she mentioned. “Everyone’s tremendous enthusiastic about sustainability. Everyone needs to leap on the bandwagon. However no person – not shoppers nor their companies – actually understands it absolutely.”
She added: “It’s like teen intercourse. Everyone needs to be perceived like they’re getting it. However no person is aware of if they’re doing it proper – and there’s no grownup supervision in any way.”
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Getting the due diligence proper is usually skipped – as it’s a lengthy and dear course of.
Meilin Wong, accomplice and CEO, Milk & Honey PR
False claims
Qiyun Woo, a Singapore-based inventive communicator behind environmental schooling platform The Bizarre and Wild and a advisor for carbon measurement agency Unravel Carbon, mentioned she has obtained briefs from companies that include false environmental claims.
“I’ve needed to say [to the agency], ‘I can’t say this, as a result of it’s not true, and it impacts my credibility as a sustainability communicator,’” mentioned Woo, including that she has obtained briefs from companies which have erroneously claimed that their shoppers have net-zero targets.
She mentioned she has challenged companies to supply third-party verified proof to again up sustainability claims that she had been briefed to make by means of her work, and when instructed that this proof doesn’t exist, the company was keen to take away the declare from the communication.
“If nobody had instructed them that, it will have been on the script that got here out of the creators’ mouth. I assumed that was very harmful – there was no due diligence,” she mentioned.
Woo steered there was a necessity to lift the extent of sustainability experience inside companies.
There’s now rising concern that companies and model homeowners are misrepresenting or falsifying sustainability claims, and that sustainability consciousness is mostly low within the business. Earlier this month, the commerce affiliation for the PR sector launched tips for the way image-management companies in Asia can keep away from greenwashing.
Woo mentioned she doesn’t blame communications professionals for having misconceptions round sustainability info, as a result of she generally finds it troublesome to navigate the technical phrases and jargon.
There’s a want for laws in Singapore to make sure that manufacturers are speaking sustainability responsibly – simply as there are laws for well being promoting, she mentioned.
Singapore’s central financial institution and regulator has mooted restrictions on sustainability communications within the finance sector to stamp out greenwashing, though formal laws have but to materialise. No such laws have been proposed for sustainability communications within the broader shopper sphere.
Due diligence “skipped”
Meilin Wong, accomplice and chief govt of Milk & Honey PR, one of many few companies in Asia to have made the Clear Creatives pledge to cease working for fossil fuels manufacturers, mentioned that inventive companies typically take a consumer’s temporary “at face worth” and don’t do the mandatory due dilligence to confirm claims.
Companies want to supply “proof factors” for sustainability claims on the briefing stage, she mentioned. If companies can not present this info, then the claims shouldn’t be within the temporary, she mentioned.
She believes the due diligence course of is usually “skipped” by companies, as a result of it’s costly and time-consuming.
“It’s a lengthy and dear course of – and companies don’t do that for the consumer without cost,” she mentioned, noting that the verification course of will typically contain your entire group engaged on the account.
Natalie Seisser, founder and inventive director of Singapore-based design studio ANEWKIND, mentioned that inventive companies are sometimes “on the finish of the [value] chain” when executing a model’s messaging, and that may turn out to be an issue. It means they’ve little energy to push again towards their shoppers’ doubtful sustainability claims, she mentioned.
Solely a handful of promoting and PR companies in Asia have made the Clear Creatives pledge to cease working for fossil fuels manufacturers – a sector infamous for greenwashing. Bangkok-based PR store Vero was the primary Asian agency to take the pledge.
Round 2,000 creatives and 800 companies have signed the pledge globally – up from 1,000 creatives and 300 companies only a yr in the past.
