Here’s what it will take to live up to your DE&I and ESG commitments in 2024

As matters of racial equity, sustainability and more have become politicized, and more businesses continue to scale back their work ahead of what’s sure to be a contentious election year, how can comms ensure that their organization lives up to its commitments?

During Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference last month, SAIC Senior Director of Change Management and ESG Communications Sarah Wright Plaster moderated a conversation with Sean Greenwood, grand poobah of PR at Ben & Jerry’s, Emily Graham, chief equity and impact officer at Omnicom, and Alicia C. Aebersold, CCO at the American Psychological Association, to find out.

[RELATED: Enhance, Advance, and Unify a DE&I Comms Strategy with Ragan’s DE&I Certificate Course]

Here’s what we learned.

Graham began by laying out how the nature of purpose work intersects with business.

“I think people have thought DE&I was just good for business,” she said, “but DE&I is the business, ya’al. It is everything we do It’s how we show up It’s how we speak.”