I sat in a meeting the other day with an organisation that had just drafted a ‘three-year sustainability road map’. In terms of a strategy, it was actually really good. It considered a very pragmatic approach to reducing different footprints, specifically carbon, waste-to-landfill, water-use, and ecology.

The road map was measurable and had well thought out science-based annual targets with a clear investment strategy into the new systems and technology needed to meet these targets.

You probably think that there is a ‘but’…

There is.

During the meeting, some pretty heavy sustainability jargon was being exchanged in the conversation.

Yes, it was a room full of sustainability practitioners, but as soon as it was mentioned that they would circulate the document company wide – as is, it got me thinking.

How would “Planetary Boundaries” be interpreted by operational field workers? If you had to ask a junior finance offer, how “Internal Carbon Price (ICP)” informs the company’s investment decisions – would they sit there with a blank stare, or could they actually answer.

I have always believed that for a sustainability strategy to be successful it needs to be embedded into a company’s operations and not treated as a separate thing. This also means that employees – all of them – should receive some level of capacitation on the sustainability strategy so that they can work according to the plans.

Companies spend so much time ‘selling’ the vision, mission and values of an organisation and what this means for ways of working. For employees to buy-into your sustainability strategy, the same effort should be put in.

So, what should companies do to share a sustainability strategy company-wide?

Any sustainability message needs to be made contextually relevant to the employee receiving it. To describe what this means, let’s look at an example:

“Company X commits to diverting 50% of its solid waste stream by the end of FY2026.”

How this could potentially be interpreted by the C-Suite: “This target is embedded into operations and supply chain management who need to report on metrics” – not taking into account that a lot of waste recycling and repurposing also happens off-site which requires reporting from partners as well.

How this could be interpreted by the floor workers: “Diverting 50% means we should dispose only 50% of our waste and find a way to use the rest on-site” – not taking into account on-site and off-site recycling and repurposing projects.

How this could be interpreted by a finance manager: “Landfill disposal costs will decrease by 50%.” – not taking into account the saved costs on resource use and additional revenue from repurposed waste materials.

How this could be interpreted by procurement: “We need to procure less raw materials to account for the reintegration of repurposed / recycled material” – even with the reintegration of recycled / repurposed material, you still have to divert 50% of the output waste material. While this statement may be true in some cases, waste diversion measures against output.

Bottom line: Don’t assume that everyone will understand or accept the message. Adapt it so it speaks directly to the job functions and background knowledge of the employee receiving the message.

I will leave this story here, but if I would like you to walk away with two important lessons, this is what I would want them to be:

1. Take time to understand your internal and external stakeholders – their expectations, level of knowledge on the sustainability issue being shared, and what their priorities are in the workplace.
2. Communication materials must be purposefully segmented. The same core message needs different packaging for different audiences to ensure every employee understands their specific role in the strategy’s success.

What is some of the heavy corporate sustainability jargon that you have come across recently?