Comment: To win the war on climate change, brands first need to ... - Reuters.com

Comment: To win the war on climate change, brands first need to win over TikTok users | Reuters

Comment: To win the war on climate change, brands first need to win over TikTok users

July 11 - Despite the surge in sustainability discussions, policies and initiatives from corporates, in the view of the public there is a persistent gap between rhetoric and actual progress, which erodes public confidence and hampers corporate progress in addressing the climate crisis effectively.

Businesses need to ensure they are taking their customers on the journey with them if they are to act meaningfully on climate change. This involves effective communication so that customers are on board with initiatives such as new, more circular business models or preferring greener goods and services.

According to Edelman’s special report on Trust and Climate Change last year, businesses are typically seen as the most trusted institutions, but not when it comes to sustainability: only 53% of people trust businesses to do the right thing when it comes to climate change, and nearly two-thirds of respondents believe companies are making mediocre or poor progress on keeping to their climate commitments.

To gain a comprehensive understanding of public discourse on obstacles to climate action, Capgemini recently worked with Dassault Systemes and Bloom, an artificial intelligence platform dedicated to social network analysis. The ultimate goal of this analysis was to understand individuals’ attitudes and expectations, and leverage these insights to help organisations and governments shape achievable and coordinated climate strategies.

The eight-month-long study in 2022 analysed 14 million English-language, climate-related posts and comments on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Bloom identified 330 million unique “actors”, or social-media users engaged with this content, be it through commenting, liking or sharing to their own networks. This provided a base of a mammoth 480 million engagements to parse. The global social media conversation was then mapped to the reference matrix “discourse of climate delay”, which identifies the main obstacles to climate action in public discourse.

The study ranked the five key findings by volume of posts:

1. Disconnected optimism Overly positive climate news in the global social media conversation creates dissonance between the progress communicated by organisations and the actual impact that individuals think the solutions businesses are adopting are having. When the impact is limited, it can be referred to as “greenwashing”.

2. Information gap In the digital age Scepticism can often arise due to a lack of reliable and useful information about climate solutions. The growing presence of contradictory communications and misinformation is contributing to a sense of powerlessness, and fostering mistrust among global citizens.

3. Fear of downsides Online conversations show that individuals are apprehensive about the potential negative social impacts that may arise from climate action. Typically, vulnerable populations are seen as bearing the brunt of drastic lifestyle changes required to limit global warming.

4. Delegation of authority Many individuals regard climate action as the responsibility of someone else. They perceive businesses as having the greatest potential to act effectively in the long run, surpassing both individual and government action.

5. Hopelessness This barrier reflects a pessimistic view in the collective online discourse that it is too late to have a positive impact on the Earth’s climate. Discouragement and overwhelming despair can result in a collective lack of motivation to take action against climate.

These findings were analysed through the lens of the seven United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) where businesses are deemed to have significant impact potential, such as SDG 13 (Climate action) and SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy). For example, it showed that when discussing issues related to the energy transition, concerns about the potential negative social impacts of action were front and centre, and must be addressed in strategies and communications.

Companies must stay away from “greenwashing” and inflating progress and results, instead focusing on accurately measuring and controlling their carbon impacts. They need to transparently demonstrate that they are taking action across all levels, but carefully consider the volume and clarity of information they share, since information overload can lead to indecisiveness and resistance to new technologies.

It is also important to note where these conversations are happening, in particular on TikTok, where 77.5% of users are under the age of 34. Companies that don’t take stock of what younger generations are engaging with and responding to when it comes to climate change risk losing their trust with an integral part of the future economy – resulting in potential impacts on their credibility, reputation and financial performance.

For companies to become beacons for change and drive a sustainable economy, they must adjust their business models. But first they need to actively listen to partners and customers.

By prioritising transparency, credibility, and collaboration organisations can bridge the gap between public expectations and climate action. This unified approach has the potential to achieve transformative change and secure a sustainable future for us all.