Workshop A

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

11 Sep (Fri) Day 2 : 15:15 – 16:30

Full Programme
Workshop A

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

Speakers

Adam Martin

Weber Shandwick

Vice President and Managing Editor

Adam is a Hong Kong-based strategic communications consultant, executive trainer and editor. As a veteran journalist with more than a decade and a half of newsroom experience, Adam helps clients with media strategy and content creation.

Working across industries, Adam applies newsroom-honed editorial sensibility to communications planning, international media engagement, content development and editing. Adam routinely leads trainings in media handling, crisis communications and message development for a variety of clients including automotive brands, financial institutions, hospitality companies, tech firms and health companies.

Adam entered the corporate communications field in 2021 after six years as a news editor with The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong. He moved to Hong Kong in 2014 to join the South China Morning Post as an editor, after eight years in New York working for New York magazine and The Atlantic on their digital offerings.

Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California at Berkeley. He began his career as a daily news reporter with the San Francisco Examiner, covering crime, courts, city politics and development.

My Sustainability Goals for 2026:

Eliminate marine trash in Hong Kong and worldwide

Speaking at 2026 sessions:

Day 2

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

Carol Yeung

Omnicom Public Relations

President & General Manager | Innovator 25 by PRovoke media

Carol is the President and General Manager at Omnicom Public Relations Hong Kong. She was the ESG lead at Golin Ketchum, with 18 years of experience in brand reputation and communications. Recognized as Innovator 25, 40 under 40 and a Women to Watch by Campaign Asia-Pacific, she holds a certification in Sustainable Business Strategy from Harvard Business School.

She has successfully led two two-year campaigns for the Hong Kong Government’s Environmental Protection Department, focusing on public education for waste reduction and recycling, and developed a strategy to phase out microbeads in personal care products.

In addition to her public sector work, Carol advises brands on sustainability communications.

Carol also served as chairperson and deputy chairperson of PRHK, and has supported the partnership between ReThink and PRHK for 3 years.

Speaking at 2026 sessions:

Day 2

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

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