This blog follows up on my blog about where to start when making a climate pledge and how aspirational it should be. When it comes to the actual announcement itself, there’s no real magic to making a climate pledge announcement just like any other press release that your company pushes out.
Here are a few tires you might want to kick before you do so:
1. Don’t blindside employees – Your employees matter, and your climate pledge could be cause for concern, particularly in certain industries. Your pledge could mean a different way of doing business that alters the makeup of your workforce, whether immediately or in the long term. Consider the reaction from employees and from any labor unions.
2. Remember your other stakeholders – Your customers, suppliers, investors – the communities in which you operate – will all be keenly interested.
3. Check with securities law counsel – You will want to make sure that your climate pledge announcement is consistent with your SEC filing stream, and that it doesn’t contradict other content that you’ve put out there on any of the company’s other channels.
4. Anticipate questions – To help include everyone, consider developing a white paper or other report with greater detail – and scrubbed by securities law counsel – that backs up the pledge that you’re committing to.