Guide: Building confidence in sustainability communications
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Your shortcut to confident, compelling and trustworthy sustainability comms.
Sustainability comms is one of the hardest things to get right.
Say too little, and people won’t know about all the great work you’re doing. Say too much, and you could risk being accused of greenwashing. The stakes are high, but the opportunity is huge – when you get it right, you build trust, inspire action and create real change.
This guide is here to help you do exactly that.
Whether you’re a communications professional tasked with telling the sustainability story – or a sustainability lead trying to get people to listen – this practical manual is designed to help you communicate with clarity, honesty and impact.
What’s inside:
- Why sustainability comms is uniquely challenging – and how to overcome the common traps
- How to communicate honestly without greenwashing – or greenhushing
- Tips for choosing the right words, tone and visuals
- Insights on how different generations engage with the topic of sustainability
- Real-world examples, do’s and don’ts and easy wins you can start using right away
- Cut through the noise. Say what matters. And say it in a way people trust.
Download the manual and start building confidence in your sustainability comms.
Download here
We’ve created two accessible versions of the manual – light and dark mode – both optimised for screen readers. Choose the one that works best for you. Need help? Just drop us a line at hello@somethingbig.co.uk.
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Dark mode PDF
A PDF in dark mode, that can be read by a screen reader
Workplace communication as a catalyst for inclusion and racial equity
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
Discover how intentional communication can drive real inclusion and racial equity in your workplace.
To mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in partnership with Race Excellence we hosted a powerful conversation exploring how communication can drive inclusion and racial equity in the workplace.
The session offered valuable insights into the role communication plays in creating fairer, more inclusive environments – where everyone feels heard, respected, and empowered.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
Make space for timely conversations
Having open, honest conversations at the right time matters. When significant events happen – globally or within your own organisation – your team are affected. Proactive communication helps people feel supported and creates space for reflection, empathy, and action.
Bring the right voices into the room
Involving senior leaders, subject matter experts, and individuals who can influence others ensures conversations lead to action. To create meaningful change, the right people need to be in the room – especially those with the authority to make decisions.
Prioritise active listening
Sometimes the most powerful part of a conversation is the silence. Good communication isn’t just about what you say – it’s also about how well you listen. Give people space to think. Avoid jumping in with answers. Create opportunities for reflection and let quieter voices be heard.
Choose your channels carefully
Communication isn’t one-size-fits-all. Consider how best to reach your audience – whether it’s workshops, one-to-ones, shared documents, or live conversations. Be thoughtful about the tools and platforms you use.
Keep your messaging clear and constructive
Whether you’re talking about policy change, allyship or team culture, everyone should leave the conversation knowing what comes next. Avoid jargon, lead with clear questions and make sure conversations end with actions.
Maintain respect
Respect should sit at the heart of every conversation. Even when opinions differ, it’s possible to challenge constructively and keep doors open. Communication that focuses on shared goals, solutions and unity is far more effective than blame or defensiveness.
Communication shapes inclusion
Words matter, so when language is restricted or policed, the impact can be exclusion, disconnection, and fractured identities. In many workplaces, race is still seen as too complex or risky to talk about – leading to silence, self-censorship, and missed opportunities to understand each other.
Communication done well, though, can flip that script. It can become a tool for liberation – making space for lived experiences, validating identity, and giving employees permission to bring their full selves to work. Inclusion doesn’t come from silence, it comes from stories, language, and meaningful dialogue.
Telling isn’t enough
Workplace communication often defaults to telling – issuing updates, sharing top-down messaging, or rolling out policies. But simply telling people what to do or believe isn’t enough to create change. It can even do more harm than good if it overlooks how people are really feeling.
To make a real impact, communication needs to do more than inform. It needs to listen, educate, inspire, and reassure. It needs to raise awareness in a way that connects with people’s emotions – not just their inboxes. It needs to make space for difficult conversations, reflection, and vulnerability.
Say the thing. Don’t dodge it.
One of the biggest communication challenges in DEI is avoiding “the elephant in the room.” Whether it’s a disbanded ERG, a delayed strategy, or an external event that’s affecting your teams, silence creates space for mistrust and disengagement.
Filling that silence with open, honest, human communication – even when the message is tough – builds credibility and trust. Employees are adults. Treating them as such by being transparent about decisions, even when there’s no perfect solution, goes a long way.
Surface the human library
Your organisation is full of unseen stories. These lived experiences are powerful, personal, and valuable. When people share them, they create connection, understanding, and culture change. But those stories don’t surface on their own. You need to make space for them, and ensure people feel safe and supported to speak up.
Culture and communication go hand in hand
If you want honest conversations, you need a culture that supports them. That means:
- Being clear on the purpose of conversations
- Making sure the right people are in the room – especially those with decision-making power
- Building psychological safety so people feel confident to speak up
- Leading with questions, not assumptions
- Ending with action, so people know what’s changing and why
When we use communication intentionally, we create momentum. When we pair that communication with inclusive culture, we create change.
We’d like to thank Ann and Gifford from Race Excellence for sharing their insight. Race Excellence partners with organisations to embed diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging into the heart of their business – supporting CEOs, Boards, employee networks and HR leaders to take a sustainable and innovative approach to inclusion. Learn more about Race Excellence.
If you’re looking for support with harnessing the power of communication to create a more equitable workplace, then talk to us.
Watch the webinar: Communications – a catalyst for inclusion and racial equity
The key trends shaping happy and high-performing teams
By Sally Pritchett
CEO
To celebrate B Corp Month, our CEO, Sally Pritchett, joined a panel of B Corp leaders and industry experts at Uncommon Holborn to explore just that. In conversation with Bleddyn Harris, Head of People and Culture at B Lab, the discussion revealed key trends shaping the future of work and what businesses can do to create thriving, engaged teams.
Rethinking workplace culture
Too many businesses are still stuck in an outdated industrial mindset – viewing employees as cogs in a machine that need to be optimised and replaced when they break. But workplaces are ever-evolving living ecosystems, filled with diverse identities, ideas and experiences.
To create a culture where employees thrive, businesses must:
- Listen deeply – go beyond surveys to understand the real undercurrents shaping employee experience.
- Make change an engaging process – design change communications to be creative, inspiring and participatory.
- Enable flow states – consider how workspace design, communication styles and celebrations contribute to culture.
- Embrace conscious leadership – leaders should create a positive and collaborative environment where everyone can thrive.
Tackling loneliness
Loneliness has become a big and unfortunate trending topic, but it is important to know that it is not caused by remote work – it’s caused by fractured cultures. Return to office mandates are part of the loneliness problem; what could be lonelier than feeling disconnected from your colleagues while sitting in a buzzy office? Communication plays a vital role in bridging that gap.
Valuing feedback
Surveys, suggestion boxes and employee groups may seem like standard tools – but they only work when they are inclusive and transparent.
Key principles of effective feedback include:
- Providing multiple ways to contribute – recognising potential language and other barriers, offering different ways to feedback.
- Appointing spokespeople – ensuring non-native speakers and those not comfortable with speaking up can have a voice.
- Creating a genuine feedback loop – sharing all survey results, addressing difficult feedback and being honest when changes aren’t possible.
- Targeting disengagement – where you are seeing signs of disengagement, for example low survey response rates, investigate the cause. Would tailored training or perhaps surveys in multiple languages or formats help?
Communicating through change
During times of change, clarity and consistency are everything. Strong leadership voices, regular updates and a visible presence – with an example given of a CEO spending time working from reception – can create a sense of stability.
Humans are natural storytellers. If leaders don’t shape the narrative, employees will create their own – and that’s where misinformation can spread. Tapping into the stories that drive purpose fuels both innovation and productivity.
Creating human-centric work environments
A desk and chair are no longer enough. The spaces we work in play a crucial role in collaboration, focus and connection. The venue itself, Uncommon’s Holborn location, is a perfect example of how human-centric design, greenery and calming aesthetics can enhance workplace wellbeing.
Modern workplaces need to provide flexibility, offering spaces that support both deep work and collaboration. Thoughtful design can create an environment that facilitates productivity and meaningful interactions.
Supporting volunteering programmes
Businesses offering paid volunteering days is on the rise, but offering the benefit doesn’t automatically result in take-up – businesses need to actively encourage participation.
Volunteering isn’t just good for the individual – it strengthens engagement, productivity and workplace culture. It tackles loneliness, builds community and enhances wellbeing. The key is making it easy for employees to get involved.
Want to see how we helped a client inspire over 120,000 employees to volunteer? Find out more here.
Overcoming communication overload
Communication tools like video calls and instant messaging were meant to streamline work. Instead, they’ve created a culture of constant communication – where employees are drowning in notifications, meetings and distractions. The workplace is now like a crowded room where everyone is talking at once. It’s affecting productivity, wellbeing and relationships. To fix this, businesses must:
- Set clear communication guidelines – establish expectations for response times and message urgency.
- Encourage mindful communication – leaders should model concise, purposeful messaging.
- Reduce unnecessary noise – assess which platforms are essential and eliminate redundant ones.
Communication: the key to workplace happiness and performance
At the heart of all these trends lies communication. Getting it right means understanding what, when and how to communicate – ensuring efficiency without overload. Talk to your teams, listen to what they need and create a workplace where communication fuels success rather than hinders it.
A happy, high-performing team isn’t built overnight. But with purposeful communication, inclusive culture and thoughtful leadership, businesses can create environments where people truly thrive.
At Something Big, we help businesses communicate with clarity, creativity and inclusivity – making workplaces fairer, healthier and happier. From shaping strategy and change programmes to fostering wellbeing and inclusion, we work with some of the world’s best workplaces to engage leaders, managers and frontline teams through impactful communication.
Ready to build a thriving workplace? Let’s talk.