Metsä Group recently launched a national media campaign “Growth, with a future”. It comes at a time when the requirements for sustainability communication are becoming increasingly strict due to stricter regulation and critical attitudes.
As things stand, many marketing professionals may consider a campaign communication strategy known as greenhushing. It means that companies opt to remain silent about sustainability themes to avoid critical attention. This approach may be adopted accidentally, or it may stem from not knowing how to communicate about sustainability, with our world and its regulations in a continuous flux.
Greenhushing may also be a conscious choice. Things that just a few years ago were considered typical marketing measures can easily be labelled as greenwashing today. What may seem like minor miscalculations can quickly blow up into a media storm and lead to reputational damage.
It’s positive that people today are more conscious, and that greenwashing is recognised more easily. This encourages businesses to pursue genuine sustainability efforts and prevents communication becoming empty words. It also means that businesses operate more transparently, which strengthens consumers’, investors’ and other stakeholders’ trust in companies that are committed to sustainability and strive to promote it.
We did not choose greenhushing as the marketing strategy for our “Growth, with a future” media campaign. We want to invest in broad and open communication and transparently talk about the regenerative forestry principles improving the state of forest nature to which we are committed, and which we implement daily through tangible, measurable actions.
Our way of working is characterised by cooperation, and we also believe in dialogue when it comes to difficult topics. With this campaign, we want to invite a variety of people, from the forest sector to scientific communities, to participate in an open and constructive dialogue. Our idea is to engage people in discussion about how to develop the forest sector sustainably so that Finnish forests can be transferred in a more vibrant condition from one generation to the next – not just a decade but centuries from now.
We have now taken the first steps towards regenerative forestry. I hope you will share your development ideas and join the dialogue. Engaging in open dialogue and challenging different views will move us towards our common goal – a better future. Let’s be in touch!