They absolutely can and should, given that environmental protection should be one of the priorities for every organization today. On the other hand, talking “green” without a real foundation in concrete actions is nothing but greenwashing.
Of course we feel the changes, we work in one of the most dynamic industries in general. Some changes we monitor, some we detect at an early stage, and some we accelerate. The biggest changes are related to the speed of information dissemination, direct dialogue with consumers and the power that customers have gained with the rise of social networks, as well as changes in the media space and digital transformation. In recent years, environmental and nature protection has become one of the most important topics for almost all the industries we service, but I would not call it environmentally conscious communication, rather management of communication of topics related to environmental protection.
Due to climate change and public pressure, clients feel the need to include measures for environmental protection in their business, products and services, which they want to communicate also. We absolutely support these efforts and are happy to turn every such request, of which there are more and more, into purposeful communication. Among our clients, I would like to highlight Booking.com, Beiersdorf and the European Commission.
The biggest challenge is greenwashing. Positioning in the territory of environmental protection requires real changes, not just marketing. It should be a consequence of implemented changes, instead of a reason for communication.
In recent years, this has become less of a problem, given that consumers are increasingly aware of climate change, which is a trend followed by the media as well. Launching your portal is a good example of this.
We were motivated to establish The Green Hub platform by the awareness of the need to change the situation in terms of environmental protection and the assessment that change will happen the fastest if different companies, organizations and institutions are aware of the circumstances. We believe that these are the entities that have the most resources to encourage change.
The reactions were great. We have seen this with our existing clients, but also with a large number of companies with whom we have not cooperated before, so The Green Hub platform today can boast of a number of partners who invest significant efforts in environmental protection. Among them I can highlight Raiffeisenbank Hrvatska, Franck and Ina.
Anyone who wants to improve their knowledge about environmental protection or act on it can contact us. Among other things, we offer employee training, sustainable team building and the Eco Green Office project, in the framework of which we help companies improve measures in their office spaces related to CO2 reduction, energy savings, reduction of single-use plastics, sorting and disposal of waste, etc.
Yes, at Dialog we have indeed introduced a number of sustainable practices. Among other things, we properly separate and dispose waste, we use ecological cleaning agents, toners and paper, we have reduced the use of single-use plastics, we encourage transportation to, from and outside the office by public transport, bicycles and on foot or through carpooling options. We conserve resources such as electricity and water, which was helped by the introduction of a three-day office week. We recently launched the Green Challenge and the Green Bonus. The green challenge refers to encouraging employees to walk to the office through awards for the most active employees. The green bonus is subsidizing the purchase of bicycles for all employees who want to make that move. We also organize regular education on various topics related to environmental protection, nature clean-up campaigns, and we are the first office in Croatia to receive the Eco Green Office recognition.
Employee feedback is excellent. In principle, we do not do anything that our employees have not agreed to. We regularly measure their satisfaction with the introduced measures, upgrade and modify them in accordance with feedback.
I think that as an industry we will deal more and more with purpose, and less and less with short-term communication, the most important goal of which is sales. The world is turning faster than ever before, the challenges are getting bigger and we have to stay in the control tower, position ourselves as consultants for sensitive issues that will help organizations to communicate their visions in the right way to their target audiences.
You can read the original interview on the Green.hr portal.