Ep. 23: The peaks and valleys of sustainability communication

Welcome to The Sustainability Communicator podcast, where we explore the challenges and opportunities in corporate sustainability storytelling. In this episode, host Mike Hower sits down with Dan Strechay, a seasoned sustainability communications professional who has worked across private companies, public organizations, and NGOs. They discuss the evolution of sustainability communications, how to navigate difficult topics like palm oil and climate change, and the balance between transparency and greenwashing. Dan shares insights from his career journey and offers practical advice for companies looking to communicate authentically about their sustainability efforts.

You can also listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

TRANSCRIPT

Mike: Sustainability communication has its highs and lows, and right now certainly could qualify as the nadir, but we've got to keep climbing.

Hey everybody. And welcome to the Sustainability Communicator. The podcast that dives deep into how companies can better tell their sustainability stories and drive real impact. I'm your host Mike Hower, and I've spent the last 15 years living and breathing sustainability communications first as a journalist for GreenBiz and other outlets, and then in the corporate world, helping global companies craft and share their sustainability journeys. Each episode, we cut through the jargon and greenwashing to explore the real challenges, risks, and opportunities in sustainability communications.

We'll hear from leaders who are walking the talk and learn how they're navigating this complex landscape. Whether you're a sustainability professional, communications expert, or just someone who cares about how businesses are addressing our world's biggest challenges, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

In today's episode, I'm joined by Dan Stretcher, a sustainability communications veteran who brings unique insights from working across both private and public companies, as well as NGOs. We'll discuss the evolution of sustainability storytelling, how to navigate complex topics like palm oil and climate change, and the delicate balance between transparency and greenwashing.

Dan shares his journey from public affairs to becoming a sustainability communication specialist and offers practical advice on how companies can communicate authentically about their sustainability efforts, even when facing challenges or setbacks. We'll also explore the growing pressures of sustainability reporting requirements and what the future holds for professionals in this field.

Keep in mind that this interview took place at the end of 2024, and Dan has since moved from his role at Mars to leading sustainability communication at PepsiCo. And while a lot has changed in the sustainability communication world in 2025 so far, to say the least, I think our conversation remains highly relevant.

Whether you're a sustainability expert, comms professional, or simply interested in how businesses are addressing our world's biggest challenges, this conversation offers valuable perspectives on the power of honest sustainability storytelling.

Enjoy.

Thanks for being here today, Dan.

Dan: Thanks for having me, Mike.

Mike: Great. So to kick the interview off, you're one of very few people working in-house that has the words sustainability communications in your title. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about your career journey so far? Why you got into the business of sustainability storytelling, and maybe what you've learned over the years?

Dan: Sure. I think thankfully it's becoming more common. I'm seeing more and more folks with sustainability communications titles, even outside of the consumer goods space, which is great to see.

And the reason I'm encouraged by that is I think there are some specific skills that are helpful to doing it really well. In terms of my career, I have a bit of an odd career. It's not a very linear career, but I started out in public affairs working for a PR firm. I had a public affairs department doing really complex issues, worked on health advocacy, and then I went to a very small boutique firm that was working on environmental issues and social justice issues. So one of those issues was recycling, and it was just something I've always been interested in. Back in the day, I think my senior yearbook, I was class environmentalist.

So it's something that I've always been passionate about. Grew up in scouts, an Eagle scout in the woods. You know, one of our phrases is, leave no trace or leave it better than you found it. And that's kind of driven me over the years. So I ended up actually getting an opportunity to join a recycling company, which I was really excited about.

'Cause now I was working for an industry where sustainability was in their DNA and that's when I started to realize the power of working in-house, and using basically the company's resources to push what was my passion, which is better environmental sustainability. And then from there I ended up seeing another challenge in the pulp and paper industry and I jumped at it. It was a pulp and paper company that did not have a good record.

And at first you asked yourself, why would I work for this company? But then they kind of let on that they were going to be working very closely with a very big, major activist NGO to radically change their supply chain. I was like, that's the kind of challenge I want to work on. So I did that for a bit.

I worked for another very large multinational doing sustainability communications, and then I had the opportunity to work for the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and help start up their secretariat in North America. And that was really exciting to me because now I would have the business perspective, but I'm also going to have the NGO perspective and kind of understand where they're coming from and understand the resource challenges, but also get to work with retailers, cosmetic companies, all kinds of businesses that I hadn't really had exposure to and to work on the issues. Some people would probably run away from that, but to me that was the challenge I wanted to work on.

And that's kind of what's driven me. And I think that passion - being a communicator, using that type of passion - is an opportunity. And at the end of the day, I don't want them to say, "you were really great at selling widgets." I want them to say, "you had a higher calling." And you used the resources of these big companies to help fight climate change or to make people's lives better. And I think that's something that drives me and has driven my decisions of who I work for.

Mike: That's great. Yeah, and I can definitely relate. Don't have kids yet, but I would like to think my future kids would say that he wasn't just selling widgets, he was making the widgets better for the planet and for the people making the widgets too, hopefully.

Dan: Yeah. No, it's definitely good to have that passion.

Mike: I kind of want to hone in on the challenging topics that you've worked on. Like palm oil is challenging. I'm curious, what did you learn about communicating sustainability when dealing with such a contentious topic? Are there any key takeaways from how you approach communicating a difficult topic like that?

Dan: First of all, I love the issue. You know why I love it? Because people's livelihoods depend on it, and at the root of it, it forces you to distill your communication skills because it's such a complex and controversial issue. There's a lot at stake, there's a lot of small holders that grow this. So to me there was an imperative to say, how can I help this situation?

And then also there was a lot of deforestation and human rights issues. So how can I help the situation? So that's the type of issues I love working on, but it forces you to really distill it. Like, and where I kind of landed was, you know, it's a human caused problem. So there is a human solution, and I believe this [00:07:00] for climate, and I believe this for a lot of the human rights issues that exist is that because humans are involved there we do have the ability to fix the problem.

And that gives me hope on a lot of these complex issues. And when you think about Palm, there's nothing wrong with palm, right? It's just a crop. We're planting it perhaps in the wrong place, or we're growing it in the wrong way. So it's finding out and working on those complex issues and then having the challenge of getting people to think differently, to question their preconceived notions.

To me, that's the ultimate kind of challenge of a sustainability communicator. And if you're working for a corporation, a lot of people default to thinking that corporates are evil or they're out to just print money and destroy the planet. And I've worked at a few companies and I can tell you that's not the case.

A lot of people are doing it. They just choose to work from the business side of things. And I've done both. I've worked from the nonprofit side and I've worked from the business side. And I can tell you there's amazing people who are passionate about these ideas and these challenges and how to solve them.

Mike: Yeah. And I know we've worked together, I've been helping you at Mars for the last almost two years now. And I think what's been really great about having somebody with your expertise on the team is that you can really be that translator between the sustainability people and the marketing comms people.

Not a lot of companies have that person, although I've definitely seen more of those roles emerge as companies realize like, oh wow, we need to have that person that really speaks both languages.

Dan: Yeah, I feel blessed that I ended up that way in my career because I know a lot of the same people that the sustainability teams know.

It helps me have a grounding to be one foot in that side and one foot in the other side. The communication side and the sustainability side. And it really does give you a perspective to say are we communicating this in the right way? Is it too technical? Perhaps, or is it actually too simplified? And that can be a challenge too. And I think the other thing is it just gives you the credibility to have that seat at the table, to say like, look, I understand we're being attacked by X, Y, and Z. This shall pass or to say, Hey, they have legitimate claims here.

Let's invite them in and let's have a conversation. Let's engage. Because sometimes particularly not here at Mars, but earlier in my career, there was a like an "us against them" from the NGO kind of activist community and businesses and that luckily has started to erode and that there's a lot more collaboration even with tough critics.

And that's a really good thing, and it's a good development. And I think because like you said, there's more people that do have kind of a foot in both worlds, we're able to say, look, they might have good reason for raising this. Let's hear them out. And we may not agree and we can tell them that, but they might have some wisdom for us to take back into the organization.

Mike: Right. But taking a step back, you've seen a lot of companies over the years, either companies that you've worked for or you've just seen out there. A lot of companies are making mistakes around sustainability communication, particularly with greenwashing, which has become a bigger issue today, now that you can get sued or fined for it.

What are some common mistakes companies make when they're communicating sustainability that leads to greenwashing? And what would be kind of your high level advice on how to avoid that?

Dan: Yeah, I mean, greenwashing is - I think we're on kind of the same speaking circuit - and that's definitely a massive concern for organizations. And now, because as you point out the regulations, there's actual fines and penalties for it. And [00:11:00] I think there was a point where there were a lot of people doing communications around sustainability that perhaps didn't have the background to say like, whoa, we shouldn't be saying this. And I think some of it's founded. I also think that the reaction, the green hushing where companies that are doing fantastic work are stopping saying anything because it's getting too risky to make the claim.

I don't think that's a good thing either. I think the green hushing can become an excuse for a company that's not doing anything to say, well, it's really hard to communicate on these issues. So we just, you know, it's safer to not, but trust us, we're doing it right. And I think that that's where reporting will come in place to keep those people honest.

Hopefully if someone holds them accountable for it. I think that we have to take a long view in terms of sustainability [00:12:00] communications. If you think about it, when Al Gore released his documentary way back in my career, everyone thought, okay, now's the time we're gonna tackle climate change.

And a wave of communication started to come out from companies, and then there was an inevitable backlash. I almost think of sustainability communications in a recession model of kind of like peaks and valleys of communication. And when we make progress, for that example, we kind of went backwards for a bit 'cause there's this huge backlash against it.

And then we've seen another peak where people really got on board, people were making commitments, and more recently, probably we've seen a little bit more of a dip. I know this discourages folks, particularly if they're newer to these topics, but taking the long view, we are so much further advanced than we were 10 or 15, 20 years ago when I started doing this.

And so I'm encouraged by it because one, we should have these tough dialogues and we should be saying like, is that the right way? Should we go that far, that quick? On climate, clearly I have my own opinions. We need to move as fast as possible, but you know, we should be having that conversation.

And I think we also can't lose sight that we're still making progress. Even if it's a little bit of a sustainability communications recession, we still made a lot of progress leading up to that point.

Mike: Yeah, I started my career probably in that era. So this was probably like around the Great Recession. It was when there was a lot of the lofty language around sustainability, like, we're gonna build a flourishing future. We're gonna, you know, we're all gonna live in a utopia. And I think that's probably what initially made me interested in this space. 'Cause I was like, oh that sounds cool.

And then I think not even that far in my career yet, but I'm already like, that's not what we're trying to do. Now we're just trying to make the world better, but it's never gonna be perfect. What I think is happening now that I'm really enjoying is that I think sustainability communications is growing up in the sense that we're no longer going to just make these baseless lofty claims.

Like anything you put out, you have to make sure you could back it up with action. Sometimes that does stifle creative comms a little bit. But I know, if you involve different stakeholders internally, like legal and others who can make sure that you're backing up everything you're saying with evidence, that will make sure that your communications is actually meaningful and you're not just saying stuff that means nothing.

Dan: Yeah. I mean that, I've seen it in my career where there was a lot of commitments being made across industries, on things that you were like, why did they commit to that? Because you have to say like, we have zero control over that issue. And to make a lofty claim before you've actually done the work or the due diligence to figure out if you can actually have an impact on it is really not good business. And it's really the role of the communicators to say, whoa, is this for real? Is this just a press release? Or have we done any of this work?

You know, we need to be as communicators to also be that kind of gut check to say, are we committed to this? Is this a long-term vision? Is this something that we can actually affect real change on the situation? And if the answer is no, then maybe our counsel needs to be back to the folks that we work with to say like, maybe this isn't a press release.

Maybe this is a talk to partners, do it for a year, and then we revisit it to say, once we have a little bit of results to say like, Hey, we've launched this campaign, the first year results are this. And, that's not as exciting sometimes. But in my mind that's a better approach a lot of times.

Mike: I don't know if you can hear my dog sleeping behind me dreaming right now. I'm doing his little "woo" thing. I hope that is, I don't know if that'll pick up on the mic. Okay. All right. So shifting gears a little bit, you know, you've worked at both public and private companies. There's obviously different challenges around communication, different requirements.

I'm curious, since you've been in both, what are the main differences communicating sustainability at public versus private? Are there advantages, disadvantages, and what would you say about that?

Dan: I mean, I think I've done both. I've done nonprofit. At the core it's the same. You have a lot of the same challenges. You have a lot of the stakeholder management. I think the big difference is, public company, a quarterly or half year at least, a requirement to be speaking to things and to update stakeholders, mainly investors and shareholders, and they're talking about their earnings and progress.

There's a natural cadence of releasing information. And I've worked for two private companies, both family owned. I think the difference is without some of that pressure, you can actually invest a little bit longer term. So it's actually more different on the business side.

And you also have the ability when you are doing the communication side of things to speak generationally, or in longer term vision, which is really helpful I think when you're working on tough issues like climate, for example, which is gonna take generations to fix if we can.

I think it's actually the business climate that's really very different where your CSO or your CEO can have a conversation with a much smaller group of shareholders, and say, we need to make these investments. And I think that's where the private companies have a bit of an advantage because they can make those investments and they don't have those kind of pressures like proxy votes and et cetera from the outside that are exerting pressure because let's say they're owned by a pension, for example.

It be a little bit easier in that regard, so you almost have, depending on who you work for and what their belief system is, you can have better storytelling because you can make those long-term investments. You don't have that pressure on quarterly earnings.

Mike: Right. Speaking of private companies. So you've been at Mars for almost four years now. I think you brought me in to help out in kind of a fractional capacity. One of the first things that we worked on together was the Mars Net Zero roadmap, which was a really fun project to collaborate on.

I mean, I could tell everybody what it's about, but I'd love to hear straight from you, why did Mars decide to create this roadmap? And then, you know, what makes it different and as a piece of sustainability communication, what's remarkable about it?

Dan: I mean, first that was a great project, so thanks for all your help on that. I couldn't have done it without you. I'm incredibly proud of that work that we did as a team. I think what stands out for me on the way we approached that is it was an incredibly honest document. I think the communications around it were really well done. We have an amazing team here at Mars, across our small but mighty external communications team.

And then we also partnered with our internal communications team because we have 150,000 associates around the world and you wanna activate them as well. A huge team effort. But I think the document itself, the roadmap is incredibly honest. We didn't come out and say, Hey, we have it all figured out, but at the same time, we still put specific numbers to our emissions and there, so right from the start, there was a, we're gonna be super transparent here, we're gonna put out how we think we can do it. For example, we laid out our five fundamentals of net zero and what those are.

And we also had a clear mindset from the start that this could be a document that would help other companies and other industries move faster on climate. In the document we even offered help to other companies to say like, if you have questions, reach out to us. That goes back to the belief that climate isn't something you want to win. You want everyone to win on climate action and fighting climate change. If we do great and figure it out and everyone else does poorly and doesn't reduce emissions, our supply chains still goes sideways and we still have those supply chain impacts.

From the outset, we wanted to be transparent about how we were going about it, what was the science that we were leaning on, and what was our strategy for doing this? And then hope that other companies would ask questions, pick it up, dig into our accounting and then also dig into how we were able to make reductions.

To this year, Mars has reduced emissions 16% against a 2015 baseline. At the same time, against that 2015 baseline, the company's grown 60%. So the other message that we've been delivering since that roadmap is that you can do good and you don't have to have this trade off. In fact, the doing well part, the business part is really important because that allows you to have the money to invest in sustainability. And I think there's always this feeling that sustainability's free. It's not, you're gonna have to pay for it.

There's a cost. But it's also not gonna be something that you bolt on if you're not a successful business. You first, you've gotta run your business and then you can make those investments on climate or packaging or human rights.

Mike: Right? Yeah. I know when I was helping with some of the content around that project, I was new to Mars at the time and I was just amazed that the company was saying this stuff. Like, it was all stuff that everyone knows, but no company says like, yeah, hey, we all need to do this together.

And it's true. And I think that's been, I think most people that work in sustainability, that's been our biggest, probably, I don't know, fear or thing that's causing us to burn out is like this endless competition means nothing if we don't all succeed. Right? We all need to reduce our carbon emissions. If one company does it and everyone else fails, it really makes no sense to hide these kinds of secrets from each other. Right. So,

Dan: Couldn't agree more. And on the point of burnout, I mean, for sustainability communicators and sustainability professionals, it's a real concern. [00:22:00] We sit here and consume a lot of negative information and we need people to also go out there and tell us the positive, not greenwash it. But not to tell us you have it all figured out, because you don't. No one does. But I think to come out and say like, this is possible, that like, look, here's a company that's doing it, that's trying it, and we're trying new things. We're making progress. Those are really important stories because, going back to my kids, I had my older son at one point told me that, he's like, what's the point? Every article I read is how it's getting worse and worse.

And I'm like, well, do you think I would commit my life to working on it if I didn't think there was a point? Right. And going back to there's a human solution and if we do work on it, but I also think we have to make sure people see some of the positive that's happening, right? Like it can't just all be doom and gloom all the time.

Mike: I love that and I think that's the power of storytelling. If anyone's a Star Wars fan and they're listening to this, you know, the force is neutral, right? There's the dark side and the light side. I think most people tend to think of PR communications as being a negative thing, like you're spinning it or you're being untruthful.

But no, you can tell truthful stories that inspire change. And I think increasingly that's more and more important, for companies in corporate sustainability to talk about that they're not always winning. Sometimes they're dealing with hard challenges, their setbacks, they're missing goals, but that's actually the more interesting story at the end of the day.

Like, no one wants to read a story about someone that's perfect. Like you want to hear about their travails and how they overcame them. So, I think, yeah.

Dan: I mean, that's good storytelling, right? And I think what we have to do as communicators is make sure that we're acknowledging the tough road that we are going, because that's more believable first off. And then second, I think it is good storytelling. It's storytelling of the truth. It should always be truthful of course, but that's super important. Like you have to get people engaged. People are bombarded with their algorithm of specific newsfeed.

Breaking into that can be very hard, particularly if they're not inclined to read about sustainability. But, you know, if you can imagine a world where companies, the companies that are working hard on these issues are being rewarded for this work. That's really exciting. I mean, and I don't think we're there just yet, to be honest.

I think right now companies just need to work on this. And then in the future, hopefully we'll start to get rewarded for it.

Mike: Right. So the next question, I wanna talk a little about reporting. You know, we've worked together on Mars Reports and I work with a lot of other clients on reporting as well, and reporting with all the new regulations like CSRD and other things coming about.

It's kind of starting to take front and center for a lot of sustainability communications, around corporate America in particular. At Climate Week, we were just there a few weeks ago and I saw one of your posts afterward. You coined a term called Fear of Reporting Obligations? FORO.

Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by this? I mean, I think most of us probably get it, but what are you trying to describe with that term?

Dan: Yeah, I think it was my play on the FOMO you sometimes get where you go to one event at Climate Week and you're like, I wish I could go to that other event.

I had been talking to a lot of friends, mentors, former colleagues and others in my network at Climate Week and having a lot of conversations on the side of just, there's a lot of uneasiness with all the new requirements coming up.

And you know, for those of us that have worked on voluntary reporting over the years, adapting to a new framework is never easy, and what's being asked is also changing. We had our frameworks. We have GRI, we had SASB, and now there's all this new stuff kind of coming out all the time.

And it's getting required. So there's new partners to work with, there's new stakeholder engagement and socialization that has to take place. And it's not always easy. What will be next will be a weird patchwork quilt of requirements across the globe for those of us that work at multinationals.

And then I think, again, this is talking to my friends and sustainability communicators. It's a resource thing. There are not a ton of sustainability communicators, so I think there's a bit of a fear, particularly for those that love the creative and communication side of things that could this impact my ability to tell more stories because I'm gonna have to dedicate more resources just to the mandatory disclosures or the voluntary kind of aspect of the mandatory disclosures. A lot of people got into this field because they are creative, because they are excited about telling difficult stories that might have an impact to meet the challenges that are taking place. And I think those are legitimate concerns.

Not a lot of sustainability communications departments or teams, and I think we wanna be rewarded. Companies want to be rewarded for taking action and making progress. And I think some of the feeling amongst many is that reporting, and I think someone commented on my LinkedIn post it's "reporting is the death by a thousand cuts."

It's like, is the reporting gonna translate into people being held accountable for a lack of progress and will they be rewarded for progress if they're making it. And I think that's some of it.

Mike: Yeah, I agree. The good news for consultants like me is there's a lot of demand for my services, but I would say I'm in the same boat. You know, I'll do reporting and I like reporting, but I'd say I love the creative sustainability comms, so I don't want to be doing reports all day either. And I think that's a real challenge for sustainability communications professionals now. It's like, do you really wanna spend all this time figuring out CSRD?

That's not really creative, that's just compliance. So I think a lot of companies in the next couple years are gonna figure this out. Maybe this goes to a different team, maybe finance deals with that, and then investor relations deals with that or whatnot.

I am hopeful that, you know, like you mentioned, we're in this recession of sustainability comms. That means we're gonna come out of it. I do think a lot of companies are waiting to see what happens.

Dan: Yeah. I think obviously there's a lot of geopolitical things going on. And I think for us in sustainability communications, we should just stay focused on what we're doing, what's material to our businesses. And I think we have then a lot of opportunity to continue telling stories because if your business is working diligently on these issues, you have stories.

And I think a good sustainability communicator is always talking to their SMEs, their stakeholders, to find those stories. And they may not think it's exciting, they just think it's their job. But telling the outside world that you're working on novel ingredients that will keep the same great taste of their product, but lower the GHG emissions by 30% - like, even the woman or the man on the street could get excited about that and be like, oh, that's pretty neat. And I don't have to do anything. Ah, okay, cool. That's kind of the magic trick.

Mike: Right. So the last question, just kind of looking forward, I think by the time this airs, it's gonna either be 2025 or almost 2025. You know, we already kind of talked a little bit about the trends that are happening in our space, but where do you see sustainability comms heading into 2025 and beyond?

Dan: I am a little concerned by the role of - I think AI is fantastic, but I'm also a little bit concerned about misinformation and the ease that you can use those tools to create. From a communications perspective, I think we still need a robust set of credibility defining organizations like media.

I think it's super important for us as communicators, we should never lose sight of that. And I think in this period of like, where's this information coming from? They play a super important role, but those platforms excite me because, you know, we all have kind of the attention span of a gnat at this point.

When we're after work sitting on the couch, scrolling our Instagram feed or whatever we tend to do, I think grabbing people's attention and getting them to think about tough issues like climate change and hopefully providing a sense of hope, that to me, excites me.

And really just, again, meeting people where they're at. And I think 2025 we're gonna have new tools constantly coming up. I think we need to use them responsibly, but I think that's gonna be really exciting for us as communicators.

Mike: Awesome. Well, thanks Dan. This was a super insightful conversation.

There's not that many people with as many years experience as sustainability communicators as you, so I definitely have enjoyed learning from you and working with you. And yeah, thanks for just sharing your insights with everybody else.

Dan: No, I appreciate it and it's been a pleasure working with you and hopefully someone listening to this gets something out of it.

Mike: All right. Thanks a lot, Dan.

Dan: Thanks Mike.

Mike: And that brings us to the end of today's episode of the Sustainability Communicator. I really appreciate you spending this time with me today, diving into these crucial conversations about sustainability storytelling. If you'd like to stay connected, you can find me, Mike Hower on LinkedIn, or subscribe to my monthly Engaged newsletter, where I share deeper insights about sustainability communications and what's moving the needle in our field. All the links are right there in the show notes. Speaking of staying connected, if you're finding value in these conversations, I'd be incredibly grateful if you could spread the word. Share this episode with a colleague who might benefit from it, or take a quick moment to leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.

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And as always, wherever you are in your sustainability journey, good luck and keep at it. We need you out there.