Climate reporting presents brands with an opportunity – if it’s done right

The CTP translates sometimes intangible and distant net zero goals into a credible, granular, and powerful business strategy to show to stakeholders. As a mandatory part of CSRD, businesses shouldn’t view the CTP as simply a compliance exercise but as an opportunity to stand out and deliver.

Knowing that businesses will be heavily focused on CTPs this year with CSRD coming into force, Revolt conducted quantitative research with over 400 marketing and PR leaders in the US who work at companies with offices in the EU. The aim was to find out just how much marketers know about the directive and whether they will embrace the creative opportunities that CTPs present in their marketing and communications.

Making it happen

Reassuringly, we found that nearly 96% of marketeers are aware of CTPs. Given the importance and ramifications of CSRD, we were not surprised by this. However, 30% report that they are either unaware if their company has a CTP or that their company is not developing one. This is a worryingly high percentage, and clearly more needs to be done to ensure that all companies are aware of their climate transition responsibilities.

The good news is that all respondents agree – either strongly or somewhat – that CTPs represent good comms opportunities. But when asked about the extent of communications planning around CTPs for the next 12 months, only a third of respondents said they have a specific plan for communicating transition plans. Additionally, 65% reported that CTP communication was not in the broader communications plan, and 71% said they hadn’t budgeted for CTP communications.

So, while there is a good understanding of the marketing opportunity with CTPs, there is a real gap in terms of actually making it happen. When we addressed this with respondents, we found a variety of reasons for the slow or lacking movement in communicating CTPs.

Concern about accidentally greenwashing is the number one barrier to creatively engaging on climate transition plans. This was followed by a perceived difficulty in engaging audiences in what some consider a ‘depressing topic,’ as well as audiences lacking interest in the subject matter. Other reasons included the complexity of the issues and marketers feeling out of their comfort zone with the topic.

However, these barriers can and should be overcome. I believe that there are three things marketers and corporate affairs teams should keep in mind to ensure effective communication of transition plans.

Interested investors

Climate change isn’t a future concern; it’s already upon us – and investors are looking to invest in businesses that build resilience to climate risks and are ready to take on climate opportunities. Almost 99% of leading global insurance companies have now set a low-carbon transition objective within their investment portfolios, according to Blackrock.

While CTPs existed before CSRD, they lacked granularity. The new directive will create a groundswell of information that investors will look at, including the disclosure of climate-related risks, transition-related opportunities, investment plans for low-carbon technologies, impacts on staff, scenario-planning, and financial allocation for activity.

The CTP is an opportunity to translate your net-zero strategy into a powerful investment story – a story of resilience, adaptability, and competitive advantage that only your business can offer investors. It forms part of an ongoing dialogue and is a way to update investors on your transition progress.

Engaging employees

Every stakeholder plays a role in delivering on your CTP, but none is as important as your employees. Employees are potential champions and crucial implementers of your transition strategies. Employees play a role across all three principles of the CTP – Ambition, Action, and Accountability – and they act as change agents who can ensure the CTP does not just live in a document.

Showcasing how individual roles directly contribute to broader goals creates a compelling narrative that will help retain talent who see sustainability as a personal mission rather than a corporate imperative. To transition successfully, businesses will need people with the right skill sets and CTP comms that hero employees – and show that measurable impact can help to attract future talent who value sustainability.

Value added

For effective transition planning, businesses must engage their value chain because, in most cases, Scope 3 emissions (all indirect emissions relating to business activity, excluding utilities) represent the largest portion of a business’s carbon footprint. So, while CTPs are individual to each business, they can only be achieved with systemic change across suppliers and geographies. It’s important that CTPs deliver and communicate a detailed and quantifiable picture of the value chain, including its most opaque areas.

View the CTP not as a supplier compliance checklist but rather a communication device to highlight a shared purpose between your business and your value chain. Move toward storytelling that demonstrates genuine partnership and success stories, collaborative decarbonization efforts, and, in turn, acts as a confidence-builder for other stakeholders too, including investors.

CTPs will become a critical element of the comms suite around reporting going forward, and with the first CSRD disclosures being made in 2025, the time to engage is now.

Plans will be scrutinized, so get ready to be vocal and to defend and uphold them, but do not see your comms solely as a form of defense. Instead, engaging and ambitious comms are your opportunity to inspire stakeholders, catalyze investment and innovation, and ensure your plans progress into reality.