Crafting a crisis communications plan.

• Author: Seymour, Mike
• Position: Environmental awareness; Chairman's Agenda: Managing Environmental Responsibility - Includes related article

Crafting a Crisis Communications Plan

Environmental awareness and care are the watchwords of the decade. But all business leaders are finding that mere words and mission statements will not suffice. Suddenly, compliance with the law and regulations is the floor, not the ceiling, of acceptable behavior. Alex Krauer, chairman of Ciba-Geigy International AG, one of the world's largest chemical companies, put the situation into context when he said, "Doing business efficiently and effectively in a mere technocratic sense is no longer sufficient to preserve the acceptability of business by society."

Concerns extend beyond the industrial process. They now include the sustainability of source materials and the acceptability of the environmental impact of product use and disposal. Judgments about a company's environmental performance no longer are made solely on rational ground but are based on more fundamental and elusive notions of trust - that a company not only shares the public's concern about the environment but has integrated that concern into its business activities.

Business organizations cannot just plan for day-to-day problems. They must consider what could happen when crisis hits and the spotlight of public interest is turned upon management. Corporations have known for decades that they must develop and test the systems and people who will handle an emergency at a facility. Few are equally aware that the systems and techniques of environmental communications also must be developed and tested.

Communications is a central function of crisis management, particularly when the crisis could involve environmental damage. Far too many corporations develop emergency planning systems but neglect to include communications. In doing so, they overlook the incalculable damage that can occur to a company's reputation, financial valuation, or liability exposure because the public does not feel that the corporation has handled the problem properly, as happened with the Exxon Valdez spill.

A well-coordinated environmental preparedness plan can help a corporation minimize its vulnerability to crises by identifying potential weaknesses and correcting them. Such a plan, which begins with an environmental audit, must go beyond the technical issues. The new environmentalism includes more than plant pollution; thus, preparedness must look at all the environmental aspects of a product's life - from original resource extraction and transportation to...