Cut Through the Noise: How to Communicate Sustainability Progress with Substance and Accountability

Hong Kong companies are investing more than ever in sustainability — but stakeholder trust isn’t keeping pace. ESG reports are getting longer while readership stays flat. Net-zero pledges are multiplying while public skepticism grows. The problem isn’t a lack of effort — it’s a credibility gap in how progress gets communicated. Too much sustainability messaging is vague, jargon-heavy, and indistinguishable from one company to the next. The result: genuine progress gets drowned out alongside hollow claims.

This workshop equips sustainability and communications professionals with a practical framework for communicating sustainability work in ways that are specific, evidence-based, and trusted.

Session Learnings:

• Understand why most sustainability communications fail to build trust — and what the research says about what works
• Apply a credibility lens to existing sustainability messaging to identify greenwashing risks before publication
• Use a practical framework to make sustainability communications more specific, accountable and audience-relevant
• Bridge the gap between sustainability teams and communications teams

Post-event Actions:

• Apply the “Red Pen Exercise” to one piece of your organisation’s current sustainability communications and identify three improvements
• Share the Substance Framework with your communications, legal or IR counterparts as a shared quality standard
• Revisit your next ESG report or sustainability announcement draft using the accountability criteria from the workshop