Take control of SRI/ESG investor communications
A ten-step guide to effective (mainstream-IR-aligned) investor communications on sustainability.
Following this should enable companies to halve the amount of time they spend on SRI/ESG communications and double their reach and effectiveness.
Most companies develop, each year, a basic plan for their investor communications. This is called, as one might expect: an IR Plan.
Although these can vary in their level of detail and sophistication, they usually contain:
- the salient points of the investor communications process for the year
- (including dates of results presentations, target markets, roadshow plans etc.)
- the key messages to be communicated
Very few companies, however, have a parallel plan (an SR-IR plan) to cover their activity with SRI investors. Such activity therefore tends to be ad hoc, reactive and inefficient.
An SR-IR plan
An SR-IR plan should dovetail with the IR plan and it should include:
- Policy on SRI communication
- Objectives of SRI engagement
- Resources allocated
- Engagement levels planned
- Team deployed
- Activity schedule
- Key messages on sustainability (see Shape the messages)
The plan should take account of Key SRI dates and Sector roadshow periods and, very importantly, the plan should be published.
To help companies visualise this, we publish a sample SRI activity schedule.
