Communicators’ roles in Earth Day can sometimes get a bad rap – terms like “greenwashing” and “green sheen” come to mind – for creating misleading spin about the critical issue of our planet’s health and a brand’s relationship to it. Putting a green leaf on packaging does not make a product earth friendly. But as we approach Earth Day on April 20, let’s rethink the role of public relations in this awareness-raising moment and remember its roots.
The first Earth Day activities were staged in New York City in 1970. One of the five organizers who led the events did so with a public relations lens and her later work became a model for how public relations can change hearts and minds – and shape public policy. (Marilyn Laurie went on to have a 27-year career in PR and was the first woman named to AT&T’s executive policy committee in the 1980s).
Just like any good communications strategy, Earth Day campaigns must start with the “so what?” Making clear to reporters, readers, and all audiences why an organization’s work matters in the context of Earth Day is step one. For example, the answer to “so what?” for international nonprofit Health In Harmony is that stopping deforestation in the Amazon rainforest helps protect the lungs of the Earth and therefore serves us all. And for an organization like OEKO-TEX, which tests products for toxic chemicals, one of the answers to the “so what?” question might be that empowering consumers to make safer and more sustainable shopping decisions ultimately protects people and the planet.
Lead with that “why” whenever possible, and especially when tying your organization’s work to a larger cause like climate change or sustainability. The ability to share how a brand’s mission and work aligns with environmental causes every day – not only on Earth Day – lends authenticity and validity.
Once that authenticity is established, rely on the “show don’t tell” method of storytelling. Share real-life examples of how your company or client is making good on their claims about being eco-conscious and actively working to address the climate crisis. Feature people in your organization who are making a difference for the environment through their actions, too. That helps media see the personal connection to the purpose. Doing so aligns with the original intent of Earth Day, and awareness days more broadly.
When a company is truly sustainable, all a PR practitioner needs to do is share its story, rather than “shape the narrative.” Take Little Leaf Farms, for example, which grows flavorful, crisp, leafy baby green lettuce in a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient, sustainable greenhouse. The company grows its fresh lettuce hydroponically without harmful chemical pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides and delivers it within 24 hours of harvesting. By innovating greenhouse growing, capturing rainwater, and using sunlight, Little Leaf Farms is an industry leader in controlled environment agriculture.
For PR pros, it’s amazing when a company’s story is perfect in its own right. Then the job is simply to share it far and wide. The late Marilyn Laurie understood the importance of using communications as a strategic tool to make positive change. Creating a day to celebrate the earth was an important first step in getting the public to appreciate and pay attention to the source of all of our precious, life-sustaining, natural resources. In doing so, she underscored the core of what is best about public relations: its ability to leverage communications to move people and polity for good.
