Sustainability is an important topic for the hospitality industry at the moment. The sector contributes significantly to ecological damage, producing around 1% of global carbon emissions and often disrupting biodiversity. Change is necessary and urgent. Did you know the airline industry has been moving toward green technology in an effort to make flying more sustainable?

What if you’ve already begun to make changes? This is great for the planet but it can also be useful for your business in various ways. Crafting an engaging sustainability narrative for your business is key to communicating your efforts to your target audience. Let’s dive deeper into how you can approach this effectively.

Why Craft Your Eco Narrative?

Why should sustainability be the narrative you focus on, rather than perhaps your business’ unique style or excellent location? There are a few key benefits to environmental storytelling that are worth bearing in mind.

Consumer engagement

It’s becoming increasingly clear that consumers are concerned about sustainability in various areas of their lives. A lot of customers consider environmental friendliness a priority when making purchasing decisions. Hospitality businesses need to adopt eco-friendly practices to stay competitive. These might include opting for sustainable sources for the items in your hotels, to powering your buildings with solar.  Crafting your sustainability narrative in a clear and engaging way can help you more effectively communicate to your customers that you share their priorities, potentially influencing bookings.

Employee connection

It’s not just customers that are interested in sustainability, it’s hospitality workers, too. One recent study found that more than 70% of employees and job seekers find sustainable businesses more attractive. By building a narrative about your business that centers on its green actions, you can reflect why workers choose to continue being a part of your business. Demonstrating these shared values may also encourage them to be effective advocates for your brand.

Adopting a Range of Storytelling Media

The digital landscape offers a multitude of marketing storytelling platforms that you can use to communicate your sustainability commitments. You need to get to know what narrative tools you have at your disposal and how to use them.

Some of the tools you can utilize include:

• Blogs: Writing blogs for your business’ website is a great way to provide deeper dives into your sustainability initiatives. These can also be useful for placing links to other pages on your site related to sustainability or leading toward online booking. When you’re writing blog posts, it’s essential to be authoritative. Cite research papers and environmental organizations when talking about why you take certain steps to achieve sustainability. This shows that you have put real consideration into the adjustments you make.
• Videos: Video content can be an entertaining and highly consumable storytelling medium for your sustainability narrative. You pair information with engaging visuals hosted by representatives of your organization that inject personality into your brand. These videos could include behind-the-scenes looks at how you achieve sustainability in ways that guests don’t always see during their time with you. These don’t just have to be long-form YouTube videos, either. You can post short clips on Instagram and TikTok.
• Podcasts: Podcasts are increasingly popular, with around 1 in 4 internet users You can create your own proprietary podcast that focuses on your company, telling the stories of its development, including your sustainability journey. You could also reach out to popular travel and environmentally-focused podcasts to guest on these. This gives you a chance to talk about how you’re making a difference and expose your brand to a wider audience.

There are a couple of additional things to consider here. It’s wise to perform some market research into what types of media your target demographic likes to consume. This allows you to focus on formats that are most likely to engage consumers. Additionally, try not to treat each media form as an isolated tool. By linking aspects of each together, you can unify your narrative and extend the value of each piece. For instance, if you mention sustainable ingredients in a video, you can refer viewers to a blog post about your brand’s sustainable recipes.

Acting Authentically

Crafting a narrative about your company’s sustainability isn’t just about using various media to engage your audience. The story you tell also needs to be authentic. Greenwashing — in which businesses use marketing to appear green when their actions are anything but — is all too common. Customers are vigilant of this. By incorporating elements into your narrative to show your efforts are authentic, you can create greater trust.

Online reviews are an important resource here. They’re the main way that customers get independent information from people like them that your company delivers on its promises. Good reviews can result in more customers while too many negative reviews can sink your company. Ideally, you can encourage consumers to leave reviews — particularly related to your sustainability — by following up on their visit with emails that have links to review sites.

This doesn’t mean that negative reviews can’t be useful, too. When you get complaints about service or environmental actions, openly respond to these customers and thank them for their insights. You can then make the changes you make part of your sustainability narrative. After seeking permission from the reviewer, you can create a blog post about how the review highlighted the issue, followed by details on your plans for changes. This is an example of your brand’s transparency alongside demonstrating an authentic commitment to the planet.

Conclusion

Crafting an engaging sustainability narrative can help attract more eco-conscious consumers and workers to your business. You can use a range of media to achieve this, but your story needs to be underpinned by authentic commitment to positive change. It can also be useful to collaborate with the local hospitality community in your area on making content together. This can boost your business while highlighting the location as a mecca for environmentally-friendly tourism.