Tom Idle's Page

Unconvinced by the value of undertaking an audit and verification process for the latest report of one of its clients, the CR consultancy Acona decided to do something different.

It held a stakeholder roundtable lunch on behalf of the organisation (I won’t say which one) in the hope that documenting the views and opinions of a gathering of commentators, journalists, practitioners and advisors would prove a valuable method for assessing the reports methodologies, data and…

A new Ipsos Mori survey says, rather unsurprisingly, that most people prefer communication as a tool when it comes to governments trying to get them to change their behaviour. Around 92% of respondents pointed to the provision of information as their favourite government behaviour-change tactic. Compare this with the level of support for mandatory legislation (62%) or making behaviour more expensive or difficult (69%) and it’s clear that people much prefer a…

One of the first supplements to emerge from the SB stable back in 2008 was dedicated to corporate carbon footprinting. It was fairly early days for the practice, with just a handful of companies taking it seriously.

Tesco had just started the process of painstakingly footprinting each of its thousands of product lines. Today, I suspect that the company wishes it had not bothered throwing so much energy into addressing its…

I'm often asked to speak at conferences and seminars on the risks and challenges of communicating corporate sustainability.



I've been on both the delivering and receiving end of the good, the bad and the ugly for years now - and I'm still staggered by the lack of coherent, transparent and worthwhile messaging that is pushed out by PRs and marketers week in, week out.



Here are my top tips for better communications on sustainability:



Be realistic.…