Communicating Corporate Sustainability Research

Research is complicated, specific and narrow and probably intends on contributing to society in its unique ways. My research area is the same. I research corporate sustainability, an area of business and management that specifically focuses on firms’ efforts to contribute towards sustainable development goals. Since I started the PhD in 2016, I have been communicating about it. Though I think explaining the idea ‘corporate sustainability’ to the man in the street or other researchers can be complex for several reasons.

1. So, are they sustainable?

Some time back, I was asked what my PhD was about. My easy answer to the question was “I study sustainability in business”. Then, the guy asked the simplest yet the most important question: “So, what did you find? are they sustainable?”. Easy to ask, difficult to answer. The intention is clear; the person who asks the question wants to make it clear that they are very sceptical that this is useful research. I understand.

Though, what they don't probably know is that there is no single type of business. There are those organisations that make a lot of progress. Some that lie about their progress and others that genuinely take some steps, however slow. There are also some that we consider as start-ups that are designed from the beginning to respond to many societal…