Corporate Sustainability Communication: Awareness and Understanding of Urban

Indian Consumers
By: Neha Banerjee
Visiting Faculty (Corporate Communications) & Research Scholar (Amity School of
Communications, Amity University, Noida)

Abstract
Resource use has always been point of discussion in economic history of mankind. With
dwindling amount of useable resources available for use in near future, concept of
sustainability is taking centre stage. Sustainability broadly encompasses responsible use
of resources. It entails minimising the negative externality of resource-use while at same
time maintaining the inter-generational parity. Various stakeholders have stepped up
initiatives on the sustainability front in the recent past including the corporate sector.
Communication of such initiatives to the stakeholders by corporate has also gone up.
This paper aims to understand how successful have these initiatives of sustainability by
the corporate sector been in reaching out to the Urban Indian consumers. What sense do
Indian consumers derive out of such campaigns? How do they understand and perceive
this communication? In-depth interviews are conducted to gain valuable insights into the
consumer’s thought process. Target group for the study is taken as urban professionals
working in Delhi NCR in the age group of 30-51years. Effort has been made to have a
group with diverse professional background. The research implication provides a
feedback for the corporate sector with regards to the communication practices and can be
used to devise effective communication strategies for future corporate sustainability
campaigns.
Keywords: Corporate Sustainability, CSR, Corporate Sustainability communication,
Sustainable Development
Purpose
This paper seeks to explore urban Indian consumer’s awareness and understanding of the
communication on corporate sustainability
Background:
Since the 1970s, the concept of sustainability has been more commonly linked back to human
sustainability on planet. World Commission on Environment and Development of the United
Nations has defined sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The
definition of sustainability development relates to three interlocking goals: environmental,
economic, and social.
On September 2015, UN announced The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global
Goals thus bringing sustainability to the forefront. SDGs are a collection of 17 interlinked
goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The
SDGs set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly are intended to be achieved by
the year 2030. The progress of the world to meet the SDGs largely depends
on India's progress. India has played a prominent role right from the formulation of the
United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 and much of the country's National
Development Agenda is mirrored in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).To achieve
this objective, India is following a “whole-of-society” approach involving all stakeholders’
i.e. sub-national and local governments, civil society organizations, local communities,
people in vulnerable situations and the corporate sector.
CSR, Corporate Sustainability and SDG
The Indian corporate sector that had already been contributing to the society through several
initiatives under CSR and sustainability has further integrated its objectives to meet the SDG.
Several companies have aligned their CSR projects towards SDGs and even made disclosures
regarding the same in their annual reports. With the statutory obligation under Section 135 of
the Companies Act, 2015 that was passed in 2014 and now meeting the 2030 global agenda,
the corporates have expedited the adoption and implementation of initiatives. Latest data with
the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) shows expenditure on CSR activities has
increased from Rs 10,066 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 13,624 crore in 2017-18.
However, for any corporate to meet the CSR and sustainability objectives and thus contribute
to the global goals calls for not just implementation of initiatives in isolation but to create a
long term positive impact in the minds of the stakeholders across the value chain, to
influence their perceptions so that they value CSR and sustainability initiatives as vital
components for a collective, inclusive and sustained growth of the society as a whole and not
just for the corporates and finally mobilize them by making them equal participants in such
initiatives so as to bring about a behaviour change.
Connecting with the stakeholders has thus become imperative for corporates to deliver on the
sustainability ambitions. An effective and targeted communication strategy thus holds the
key to success. In a recent announcement KPMG in India and MyyTake announced a
strategic collaboration to jointly develop and deliver service for corporates on sustainability
and communication strategy thus further reiterating the importance of communication. But
for corporates to able to effectively carve an effective sustainability communication strategy a
data-driven understanding of the stakeholders is crucial, it is important to map stakeholder
awareness, motivations and perceptions so that a proper mix of medium and messaging which
resonates with the stakeholder can be derived.
Several researches have already been carried in the past with clear conclusion that CSR
communication directed towards stakeholders plays a significant role in enhancing corporate
reputation, positive brand image, corporate positive perception and brand equity. All the
mentioned variables are found to be positively correlated with CSR communication. While
analysing CSR communication most of the researches have focussed on the social and
philanthropic aspect of CSR and derived how the messaging of corporate serving their
communities through social initiatives impacts the reputation of the organization as perceived
by the stakeholders. There is limited research on the communication of sustainability aspect
of CSR which is linked to how a business uses resources. In a sustainability perspective, CSR
communication research needs to focus on communication initiatives supporting corporations
in their efforts to meet “the need of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs” (Porter and Kraner, 2006, p81). Most of the Research
on corporate sustainability communication has been limited to a content analysis of the
sustainability reports as a part of the disclosure of sustainability performance.
A fresh research is thus needed to understand are the stakeholders aware of what corporate
sustainability is , are they aware of any communication on corporate sustainability, how do
they perceive this communication and has it played any role in influencing their behaviour
towards the organization or the cause.
This paper attempts to gauge how corporates have been communicating sustainability by
analysing the awareness and understanding of such initiatives from the point of view of one
of the most important external stakeholders i.e. the consumers.

Literature Review
Corporate Sustainability
Corporate sustainability is derived from the concept of sustainable development which is
defined by the Brundtland Commission as “development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Research on
corporate sustainability has come a long way during the past two decades. After an early and
fundamental debate on the relevance and meaning of sustainability for corporates, there is
now an increasing convergence around the concept that corporate sustainability goes beyond
corporate growth and profitability and also includes a firm’s contribution to societal goals of
environmental protection, social justice and equity, and economic development (Schwartz &
Carroll, 2008; van Marrewijk, 2003; Wilson, 2003). Corporate sustainability can also be
referred to as an intentional strategy to create long-term financial value through measurable
societal impact. Key issues within this domain include climate change, resource efficiency,
employee welfare, inclusion and diversity, product safety and quality and anticorruption,
among others. (Grewal, Jody & Serafeim, George. 2020). The concept of corporate
sustainability thus rests on the concept of sustainable development with the objective of
positively contributing and maximising the value of all stakeholders along the value chain
and not just shareholders which is also referred to as the Triple Bottom Line approach.
CSR and Corporate Sustainability
CSR is an extremely fluid term with varied definitions and understanding. There are at least
two ideas shared by most conceptualisations of CSR in academia. First is the assumption that
the firm has responsibilities beyond maximising profits (Carroll 1979; Davis 1960) and the
second is linked to the first and maintains that the firm is not only accountable to its owners,
but also to other stakeholders (Frederick 1960; Jones 1980; van Marrewijk 2003). The most
acceptable concept and definition of CSR is one that was developed by Archie Carroll: He
describes CSR as a multilayered concept that can be differentiated into four interrelated
aspects, namely, economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility and
philanthropic responsibility. At the bottom of the pyramid is the economic responsibility,
followed by legal and ethical responsibility. At the top of the pyramid is philanthropic
responsibility. With this as the accepted framework of CSR, the terms CSR and Corporate
sustainability are very closely entwined. CSR tends to focus on what is done with profits after
they are made. On the other hand, corporate sustainability is about factoring the social and
environmental impacts of conducting business, that is, how profits are made. The notion of
CSR and corporate sustainability is however converging, as is evident from the various
definitions of CSR put forth by researchers and global organisations. Since corporate social
responsibility and corporate sustainability are so closely entwined, it can be said that
corporate social responsibility and sustainability is a company’s commitment to its
stakeholders to conduct business in an economically, socially and environmentally
sustainable manner that is transparent and ethical. All theories and research on CSR thus will
converge with the research on corporate sustainability also.

Communication of Corporate Sustainability

Communicating corporate sustainability is a complex task. Since the corporate stakeholders
are many and are varied, the expectations from corporates also are of many types. Further
communication strategies need to make sure that all different stakeholders are involved
(Morsing & Schultz, 2006:109). These stakeholders are identified by the recent
models on CSR, namely Triple Bottom Line and Stakeholder Theory of CSR.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL)

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach emphasizes the need to evaluate companies’
performance not just by their financial performance, but also the actions affecting the
ethical/social and environmental (Norman & MacDonald, 2004:252). Given such a broad
responsibility, there is diverse range of stakeholders. These stakeholders have to be
communicated through CSR activities as well as suitable communication, so as to generate a
favourable attitude of stakeholders and enable support of them (Du et al., 2010:12). TBL
identifies Customers, Suppliers, Employees, Community and Investors as stakeholders
(Henrique’s & Richardson, 2013:140).

Stakeholder Theory

The CSR communication strategy proposed by Morsing and Schultz (2006), is based on the
stakeholder approach and harps upon stakeholders in the communication process in the form
of stakeholder information, stakeholder response and stakeholder involvement. This model
expects companies to perform according to “triple bottom line” approach explained earlier..
Empirical evidence suggests it is important that communication managers should try and
involve stakeholders in the process of CSR communication as a step towards proactive CSR
endorsement.

Both the theories validate the need to communicate effectively to the stakeholders and
identify consumers as an important stakeholder. Apart from communicating to the
stakeholders it is also important how sustainability is communicated, it, involves more than
sender oriented communication to persuade others, it also embraces processes of dialogue
and discourse. In their article Communication Regarding Sustainability: Conceptual
Perspectives and Exploration of Societal Subsystems, Newig et al. (2013) developed a
framework that consists of two components addressing the way in which sustainability is
communicated. These components, which are separated as process-centered and content-
centered, reflect on the differences between communication of sustainability and
communication about sustainability.
Communication of sustainability
With respect to communication of sustainability, the direction of communication is
transmissive in nature and focuses on a one directional pathway of sender of information to
the receiver of that information and is typically characterized as communication from one to
many. As the demands of society for sustainable action grow, actors may see the need for
communication of sustainability as a measure to defend or legitimize their behaviour.
Corporate sustainability reporting is one example of this type of communication. The
function of communication of sustainability seeks to transmit information and knowledge
about a particular objective that has already been defined by the information transmitter

Communication About sustainability

Communication about sustainability is deliberative, horizontal, and features and
information flow from many providers to many receivers. The function of communication
about sustainability is the production of inter subjective knowledge or information, as well as
the development of shared concepts and frameworks and is deliberative in nature. Objectives,
therefore would be defined through the deliberative process and not necessarily be set by
anyone information transmitter as is the case in communication of sustainability. The
research study uses the concepts of communication of and about sustainability to identify
how do Indian Urban consumers perceive the sustainability communication of corporate.

Gap in Literature and Need for Research

Several studies have previously tried to understand how consumers perceive CSR and
sustainability communication but most of the studies have been conducted outside India.
Cultural factors play an important role in shaping understanding and perceptions and thus it
cannot be said with certainty that with the conclusions from the studies can be found
applicable in the Indian context.

Further, the CSR literature that is available is highly fragmented and scattered across various
sub-disciplines of management research and exhibits considerable heterogeneity in its core
assumptions, approaches and goals. In the domain of research on corporate sustainability and
CSR communication, reputation is the most common variable explored. Most of the studies
explore if sustainability and CSR communication directed at consumers influences corporate
reputation and enhances brand image. However the underlying mechanism on how the
communication influences reputation and image has hardly been explored. The few studies
that have tried to explore the mechanism have relied on empirical research and quantitative
techniques thus no efforts have been made to dwell into the thought process of consumers to
gain deep insights and understanding to analyze how the communication is perceived by
them or what kind of messaging resonates with them.

Lastly the studies focus on CSR or sustainability have focussed on the concepts as a whole,
there is no study that has tried to break the various elements of i.e. philanthropy, social,
environmental responsibility and study the perceptions and understanding of consumers on
each of them.

The objective of this study is derived from the gap in the previous literature and focuses on
studying the relationship between three important variables, corporate sustainability
communication focussing on environmental and social responsibility is the independent
variable and Urban Indian consumer’s awareness and understanding constitute the dependent
variable.

Research Objective
The study seeks answer to the following research questions:
R1: Are Indian urban consumers aware of any communication that has been initiated by
corporates to communicate their sustainability initiatives?
R2: How do Indian consumers understand and perceive this communication?
Research methodology
The objectives of this study were to explore the thought process of consumers so as to obtain
a deeper understanding on how do they understand communication on sustainability by
corporates. Therefore, qualitative research deemed appropriate.
Data Collection Techniques: Semi Structured Interviews
Considering the exploratory nature of the study, face to face in-depth interviews deemed the
most appropriate data collection technique (Lincoln &Denzin, 1994) The face to face in-
depth interviews facilitate respondents‟ to reflect and express their emotions and thoughts
without any inhibitions. But due to the current pandemic it was not possible to conduct
interviews in person hence a similar technique was used but over digital platform using tools
like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Semi-structured interview protocol was employed
which enabled the researcher to follow a consistent process throughout the interview yet
being flexible.

Sample Size and Sampling Technique

The population for this research was defined as the urban professionals of Delhi NCR.
Participants were chosen purposively (on the basis of a number of key characteristics such as
gender, age, educational standards and, economic backgrounds) to maximize structural
variation with an explicit purpose of obtaining a rich source of information (Glaser & Strauss,
1967; Huberman& Miles, 2002). A total of 18 interviews were conducted over a period of
one month. Out of 18 respondents, 60 % were female and 40 % were male. The respondents
ranged from 30 to 51 years of age. The respondents were interviewed for 35-40 minutes. The
data collection phase was concluded at the point of theoretical saturation. According to
Glaser & Strauss (1967) theoretical saturation is a scenario where no additional information
is emerging through the data collection and when only repetitive patterns started to emerge
Data Analysis Technique Used: Thematic Analysis
Thematic analysis was used for identifying, analyzing and reporting themes/patterns within
the data (Braun & Clarke, 2006) To do this, a six-stage process (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was
followed, which involved familiarization with the data, generating initial codes, searching for
patterns, reviewing them, defining and naming them. The patterns were reconstructed after
scrutinizing the interview transcripts, carefully examining not only the relevant connections
but also the contradictions, as well as discarding themes that were of little relevance to the
research objectives. The resulting patterns were then categorized under 3 broad themes of
Awareness, Message and Medium and organized, and reported in the research.
Theme 1: Awareness and Recall
On the parameter of awareness, the analysis revealed that 100% of respondents are aware of
the concept of corporate sustainability and all respondents portrayed a positive attitude
towards communication on sustainability. This analysis is in line with the recent survey
conducted by Capgemini Research Institute which concluded that sustainability has raised up
the consumers agenda and moreover Covid 2019 has increased the awareness of consumers
on sustainability.

Campaign Recall
When it came to recall of any sustainability communication by organizations only 5 of the 18
respondents could recall communication or campaigns initiated by corporate. From the
respondentans who did recall the initiatives mostly they focussed on campaigns on how
corporate are serving the marginalized communities. Only 1 respondent highlighted the role
of a corporate on environmental sustainability. 15 of the 18 respondents were aware of
sustainability reports. A far as high octane media campaigns to communicate sustainability
14 of the 18 respondents did not remember having seen any on traditional media. 8
respondents recalled a few initiatives on the social media handles and brand pages of firms.
Theme 2: Messaging
1. Perceived as one directional
Unanimously, all respondents during the course of the interview mentioned that they
found the communication as been imposed by the corporate and found it one directional.
From the literature review we could analyse that corporates are following communication
of sustainability and not communication about sustainability.
“I have analysed some corporate websites and there I stumbled upon content on
sustainability. Barring a few exceptional firms most of the content on sustainability is
uni-directional, the content is neither dynamic, nor engaging. Content is not even
updated often”.
2. Perceived to lack engagement
Unanimously, it could be interpreted from interviews that respondents don’t find the
communication engaging enough. While all respondents spoke positively about
sustainability and strongly believed that corporate should engage in sustainability. They
felt the communication to communicate sustainability was not engaging enough to
involve them as consumers. They felt it was merely to inform.
“I have tried looking at some sustainability reports as I am in the consulting business, I
honestly feel the corporates are merely reporting their initiatives , looks like a checklist
in their to do list”
3. Perceived as forced or mandatory
One of the themes that emerged after analysing the interviews was that consumers felt
that sustainability communication was not directed towards them and was more from the
point of meeting the mandatory disclosure norms or to influence the shareholders and the
Government.
4. Lacks clarity on perceived benefits
Respondents felt that communication appears vague and the key benefits of sustainability
a d how it affects everyone is not communicated well.
 “ When corporates communicate about advertising their products, we are made to
hear again and again how great the product is and how could it just be the best and
most beneficial product I ever bought !” But why don’t they use the same zing to tell
us how important it is to reduce carbon footprint, to reduce emissions and how all
these initiatives are not important for all of us’’
Theme 3: Medium
5. Limited tools to communicate
Sustainability reports and websites emerged as the most common tools used by corporates
to communicate sustainability. It emerged from the interviews that corporates do not
leverage all tools to communicate sustainability.
“I feel sustainability communication is not been leveraged by the corporate well. Now
look at the medium most often I see communication on CSR or sustainability on either
websites or reports at the most packaging. What about leveraging User Generated
Content, what about leveraging AI or creating discussions in online communities.
Somewhere the thread is missing.”
Conclusion and Recommendations:
Urban Indian consumers today are well aware of corporate sustainability. Urban consumers
are also inclined positively to the concept of corporate sustainability and believe that it is of
utmost important. The ongoing pandemic has further reinforced this. Corporate sustainability
communication however falls short in creating a dialogue and engaging the urban Indian
consumers. Communication is mostly perceived as unidirectional by consumers. Channels of
communication are also not leveraged well as perceived by the urban consumers.
To be able to create an impact in the minds of consumers and thus get the desired change
corporate need to relook at the way sustainability is been communicated. Corporates will
have to start communicating about sustainability in a way that engages and involves the
consumers. Some of the recommendations for corporate based on the research are:

 Know the stakeholder

Corporates need to customize the messaging according to the target stakeholders. Uniform
messaging may not be relevant or comprehensive for all stakeholders. For example while the
sustainability reports for Government can focus on how the corporate have utilized budgets
and met the guideline the communication directed towards consumers could focus on how a
corporate has reduced its carbon footprints or what role can the consumers play to help
corporates meet the sustainability objectives.

 A good storytelling
Corporates need to engage in effectively storytelling and create relevant and effective
narratives to engage the consumers. Consumers have to be made equal participants. The
communication should be participatory, conversational and dynamic.
 Leverage the media used to communicate
An optimum use of traditional and digital media can be used to increase the reach of the
message and make it more accessible for consumers. Digital media has made it possible for
corporate and brands in engaging with the consumers and being able to create a dialogue.
Tools like consumer generated content, creating discussions on online communities etc can
be more effectively leveraged by corporate to bring sustainability to the forefront in their
interactions with consumers

Knowledge itself alone does not motivate action. Sustainability Communication needs to
move from communication of sustainability to promoting communication about
sustainability.

Limitation and Scope for further research:

The study has looked at a very small sample of respondents and concentrates on only the
urban professionals of Delhi NCR. There is a need to look at a wider sample of urban, semi-
urban and rural audiences in different regions this would help in gaining deeper insights into
the consumers as an external stakeholder. These insights will pave the way towards
empowering all stake-holders to contribute to the larger ecosystem, transform society,
thereby being the catalyst of social change and transformation.

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