subject: Cleantech Pr: More Than Lip Service [print this page] Not long ago, companies engaging cleantech PR activities would schedule a clean-up day in which its employees would volunteer to clean up a local area or, perhaps, plant trees or engage in some other civic-minded activity (of course, the media was invited out and the CEO would deliver some remarks). That typically represented the entire corporate commitment.
Of course thats all changed given the importance of corporate stewardship and the environment, an area in which investors are scrutinizing companies track records prior to investing.
Todays cleantech PR professional must be skilled to deal with a wide range of options and with an increasing number of regulatory requirements within the environmental management. The cleantech PR pro must also have the communication tools to handle environmental communication as a strategic process that relates corporate environmental objectives with the publics expectations.
There are many aspects of cleantech PR that the practitioner must be skilled in, such as:
*Understanding scientific and technical elements related to the company and its products, so as to translate specific expressions into clear and comprehensive language for all publics;
*Getting employees, consumers, and the media to understand the meaning and the importance of the cleantech PR activities undertaken by the company;
*Acting with the knowledge that the companys Cleantech PR efforts being undertaken are somewhat risky, because knowing, evaluating and deciding on the basis of elements that may be viewed differently by the companys various constituencies.
Journalists and other constituents can outline the environmental issues, and help define the environmental impact of enterprises policies and decisions. The cleantech PR function must be capable of assessing the environmental impact and all related concerns defined by the actual values of the community within the given enterprise, product or service.
An cleantech PR pro should be able to develop plans with the following components:
*An analysis of the impact of the companys decisions and situations with respect to the environment, relating such impact to the internal and external publics;
*Providing information on the companys measures adopted within the manufacturing process, the products and services;
*Defining and managing programs to develop environmental protection with educational objectives to demonstrate the companys proactive role on environmental issues within the community;
*Producing reports on a timely basis in order to identify the trends on environment protection issues generated by groups and associations;
*Representing the companys opinions and positions on issues having specific impact on the environment in the media and other places;
*Suggesting and adopting internal measures, involving employees and external staff in significant actions for the environment safeguard, such as, for example, materials recovering and recycling;
*Supporting the management and all companys functions in their compliance with the environmental activities.
To handle these activities, the cleantech PR professional must have a deep knowledge of all the companys technical and production processes that may somehow be related to the environment protection issues, together with an appropriate information on all possible kinds of external publics and, mainly at local level, of associations, groups and, of course, the media.
