Tying it to something bigger
"A good story is about something the audience decides is interesting or important. A great story often does both by using storytelling to make important news interesting." The American Press Institute
Last week, we discussed the importance of storytelling. If you missed that article, you could find it here: (storytelling). While storytelling, tying a message to a more comprehensive or significant cause can assist in amplifying the message. In the world of Corporate Social Responsibility, one tool to consider is the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted in September 2015, the SDGs form a global strategy for governments and businesses alike to unite around a common strategy to help end poverty, fight inequality, and address climate change by the year 2030.
In total, 17 goals define the goal which is shared by all nations, sectors of society, and business. Each of these goals outlines the important role we all play and has sub-goals that help define the steps needed to reach the overarching goal. As the SDGs are, by definition, comprehensive, some goals may not align with every sector. When it comes to helping understand which goals align more with real estate, we can be glean insight from GRESB responses. In research conducted by GRESB amongst 25 real estate companies achieving at least one five-star GRESB rated fund, 13 of the 17 SDGs were addressed to some extent. Specifically, the 13 addressed are:
Within those broad goals are over 169 sub-goals, so determining what you should be focusing on is essential. This is where a materiality assessment can provide some clarity. More detail on exactly what a materiality assessment encompasses can be found in this previous post: (Materiality Post). Once you understand what is important to your organization, you can line up which SDG subgoals align best with what is important to your stakeholders.
Let’s take the most commonly included SDG, #13, “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” This specific goal includes subgoals such as:
Improving resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters
Integration of climate change measures into policies, strategies, and planning
Improving education and awareness of climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning.
For each of these sub-goals, an organization may have a tactical plan developed to address the issue. For example, the first sub-goal focuses on resiliency (for a deeper dive, check out this past post: Resiliency Basics). Perhaps an organization has taken steps to identify physical climate risk exposure for its real estate portfolio. This could include following the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures (TCFD) framework. In our example, the organization uses a climate risk score associated with the geographic location to rate the asset's vulnerability to physical climate risks.
Now flashback to last week’s post (Storytelling), when we spoke of the importance of storytelling. When we discuss the challenge posed by climate change to our physical real estate assets, we can leverage the SDG #13 Goal to demonstrate the relevance of the challenge.
Tying your story to a more significant cause essentially demonstrates that the story itself is significant and can help keep your reader engaged. You are pulling in the audience and helping them feel invested in the story.
In today’s two-minute news cycle, you are competing with a lot of competition for your audience's attention. Once you have that attention, tying your story to something the audience can identify as important can be the difference in the message resonating.
You can help reduce the impact of the built environment by sharing this blog with your peers. Together we can impact the 39% of greenhouse gasses attributed to the built environment. It starts with awareness, and we succeed with teamwork.
Stay well!
Chris Laughman is the ThirtyNine Blog author, a blog dedicated to reducing the impact of the built environment. When not blogging, Chris is helping the real estate industry reduce energy and water impact as the Vice President of Sustainability for Conservice, the Utility Experts. Whether Multifamily, Single Family, Student Housing, Commercial, or Military, we simplify utility billing and expense management by doing it for you. Our insight into your utility consumption provides an opportunity to identify risks. Leveraging innovation and experience, we ignite solutions with real impacts and track performance to ensure the trendline stays laser-focused on the goal. To get there, we must build relationships within our organizations and outside of our organizations building the critical mass needed to truly make a difference. We have before us a tremendous opportunity. Standing shoulder to shoulder, we will get this done. Contact me at claughman@conservice.com for more information.
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