Activating business strategy: Inside sustainability communications

Bladonmore’s David Willans talks about how sustainability communications supports business strategy, and navigating greenwash and systemic constraints with Monica Molesag. Monica leads sustainability communications globally for the international software company, SAP. She directs communications strategies that promote SAP’s sustainability solutions externally, supports the company’s progress toward carbon neutrality and circular economy goals internally.

Monica, thank you for the time. Sustainability communications have changed a lot in recent years. How would you describe that shift?

It’s moved from the sidelines to the center. A few years ago, it was more about the external optics of glossy reports, big announcements and elegant messaging. Now, it goes deeper than this surface level. The real work of sustainability communications is about enabling operational change. Communications need to do more than explain, they need to activate.

Internally, we’re building capability, not just awareness. That means helping teams see how sustainability links to their goals, whether that’s risk management, product innovation, or market access. It’s this that drives action.

Externally, the bar’s been raised. Investors, customers, and regulators want evidence of outcomes. Storytelling needs to be grounded in verified results, transparency, and consistency. The best external narratives are those that reflect internal truths. When it’s real inside, communications make it show on the outside.

So internal engagement is key to your role?

It’s where credibility begins. When the transformation is real and visible inside, the external story writes itself. Strong internal buy-in creates momentum, which builds trust that then amplifies market positioning.

We’re working on integrated comms that support real change. This might be tailored guidance for product designers, or hands-on engagement with finance teams linking emissions reduction to capital allocation. In a tech company, where the goal is often to help others become more sustainable, internal alignment has to be rock solid.

What’s your approach to tackling systemic constraints? Many of the challenges you face aren’t within one company’s control.

This tension is one of the hardest parts of the job. Whether it’s energy, food, finance or logistics, we’re often trying to drive progress inside structures that weren’t built for sustainability.

But there’s opportunity here too, because constraints are signals of opportunity. Supply chain emissions are hard to tackle, but that difficulty creates competitive advantage for early movers. Regulatory gaps can feel like headwinds, but they’re also signals for future direction. When we’re honest about those tensions and show where we’re pushing through them, we build credibility.

Greenwashing is a concern for any communicator. How do you approach it?

This is where two of my favorite things come in: substance and scrutiny.

I start every comms process by asking: What’s the evidence? What’s the boundary of this claim? What context is needed to interpret it fairly?

I work closely with teams across the business to make sure we’re aligned. If something sounds too good to be true, we double-check the evidence. If there’s nuance, like partial coverage, or trade-offs, we include it. The goal isn’t to spin the story, but to tell it clearly and credibly.

Tone matters too. There’s a big difference between, “We’ve solved this,” and “We’re working on this, here’s what we’ve done so far.” Audiences can tell the difference, and they reward honesty far more than perfection.

The landscape keeps changing. What helps you stay ahead?

Agility is everything. I set aside time every week to stay curious – reading regulatory updates, reviewing investor insights, speaking with peers. But the most valuable intel often comes from inside the business. I stay close to the business because often, frontline teams spot changes before the strategy decks catch up.

To keep up, our messaging architecture has become much more modular. Instead of campaign-style communications, we have core narrative frameworks that can accommodate new data points, regulatory changes, or stakeholder priorities, without losing coherence. It’s like having a flexible template rather than fixed scripts.

There’s also a big trend towards localization. What works for EU stakeholders doesn’t work for US investors or APAC supply chain partners. Even within the same region, countries massively differ, too. We’re moving toward models where core messages get localized for different regulatory and cultural contexts.

The role of the sustainability communicator is evolving from translator to strategic advisor. It’s more than simplifying complex topics now. It’s about helping leaders understand how sustainability positioning affects every aspect of business strategy. That, in turn, affects how business shows up in the world and the impact it makes on it.

If you’d like help communicating your sustainability work, goals or strategy, please get in touch.