Joel Makower of Trellis, formerly Green Biz, writes about how coverage of corporate sustainability has evolved.
Makower writes, “2000-2005: Shallow but earnest. Early reporting focused on mostly small, self-reported activities: a company phasing out polystyrene foam packaging ‘peanuts’ from its shipping department, for instance. A name-brand company publishing its first-ever environmental report could become a headline-grabbing moment.
There was relatively little effort by reporters to peel back the covers to understand what was behind these stories. Sustainable business (it wasn’t even called that yet) was sufficiently novel that nearly everything seemed worthy of covering, if not cheerleading.
“2005-2015: Less shallow, more serious. Reporting grew deeper, with more-experienced journalists examining meaningful changes in companies’ products, processes and operations. We started to focus not just on the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of company initiatives.
“There was more effort taken to explain the nuts and bolts of what’s needed to nudge a company in a more sustainable direction: how increased transparency and disclosure, for example, could improve company operations; the challenges of accurately measuring and reporting a firm’s carbon footprint; the use of biotechnology and biomimicry to find less-problematic ingredients for everything from biofuels to blue jeans.”
Read more here.
