The Rio+20 Earth Summit is only weeks away.  Not that you’d notice.  Apart from specialist media it doesn’t seem to have registered with anyone.  Politician aren’t talking about it, Cameron is unlikely to go, business isn’t discussing it and the media are simply ignoring it.  So as communicators how are we going to break through?  How are we going to get readers, consumers, citizens to engage and to realise this is, by far, the most important event of 2012.  An event that should aim to shape the future of our very planet and our lives upon it.

From a UK perspective this isn’t going to be easy.  As I’ve mentioned, Cameron isn’t going, immediately sending the clear signal – this isn’t important.  At the same time competition for our attention is great.  What with the travails of the coalition, the forth coming Olympics, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, austerity and the continued trouble in Greece, and Syria.  The media agenda is crowded and busy.  Added to that the marketing space is fully taken up with business communications aimed at getting brands in front of people and making sales (mostly still through offers and discounts).

It would be difficult to find anyone who doesn’t think 2011 has been challenging for sustainability.  The global economy is at best fragile, hugely unstable and we teeter on the brink of another global recession.  In Europe, not only is the Euro under strain, the whole European project is being called into question.  And in the UK our government has embarked on a seeming all out assault on the environment, with the forests debacle, the ripping up of planning laws and most recently their attempts to undermine the central wildlife and habitat protection measures.  One glimmer of hope was the climate talks in Durban.  But even that is all about jam tomorrow, with promises and fine talk.  But we all know the action needed will be a lot harder to deliver.

2012 looks as if it will be more of the same.  The economy will continue to struggle and the big sustainability moment of the year – the Rio+20 Earth Summit – already looks like it will be a non-event.  More worrying is that our current crop of politicians don’t seem to be up to the task.  All spouting rhetoric essentially wanting to get back to “business as usual”, and only disagreeing on the tactics.

In February 2010 the leading Sustainable Business and CSR thinker, Fabian Pattburg, wrote a blog entitled, Facebook – A useful Sustainability and CSR platform?  In it he concluded that Facebook wasn’t a great platform for sustainability. 

February 2010.  In the world of social media that’s a lifetime ago.  Or even two.  So I want to suggest that in 2012 Facebook will become the central place for communications, information sharing and discussion about sustainability.  And that will be true for NGO’s, businesses, the media and journalist.  In fact anyone who is interested in the issues and wants to further their impact and profile.  So if you’ve not got a presence on Facebook you’d better get one; and fast.

In the past few days I have been involved in two starkly different but strangely related events.  The Unilever and Guardian Sustainable Business’ Sustainable Living Debate: Mainstream or pipedream? And Sony and Forum for the Future’s Futurescapes workshop. I found both events to be inspiring and yet limiting at the same time.  To bring optimism and despair.

The Unilever event looked at the question of how in relation to changing consumer behaviour.  Can and will consumers change their behaviour?  How can businesses and brands enable and encourage them to do so?  Of course the one overriding imperative here is that we as society and business as the creators and wealth and profit are finally beginning to wake up to the reality of a severely resourced constrained world.  Though like any addict; we’ve taken the first step of finally admitting we have a habit but are yet to kick that habit.  And if we understand that imperative I’m not sure we have yet grasped the second imperative.  That we are now talking about the need for radical and sustained action in years and not decades.

It’s been a good couple of weeks for communicators who happen to be fans of The Archers on BBC Radio 4.  Hasn’t the on-going story line of Pat and Tony Archers’ business falling off the cliff and almost taking Tom’s – their son – sausage business with it been fascinating?

For those of you who are not quite up to speed on this here is a short résumé.   Thanks to Clarrie Grundy returning to work in the dairy too soon after an illness, some of Pat and Tony’s customers picked up an e-coli infection from eating Bridge Farm yoghurt.  Two children ended up seriously ill in hospital.  It was big news.  Sales dropped, customers deserted them and supermarket contracts were cancelled.  The Bridge Farm brand became toxic, and infected their veg business and Tom’s sausages.

I found myself reading the latest report from the St Paul’s Institute, Value and Values: Perception of Ethics in the City Today.  It has attracted some media coverage, much more than it probably expected.  But I think for the wrong reasons.  We all know the media thrive on controversy.  So the controversy surrounding the handling of the Occupy LSX encampment on the steps of the cathedral has provided them with a great deal of fodder to pontificate, to condemn, to speculate, to completely misunderstand, and to feed upon.  And it was in this context that the report (publication of which was delayed for a couple of weeks) landed.

I was recently the guest of a local Fairtrade group.  The subject under discussion was ethical consumption.  It was brought about because of the understanding by the group that a simple answer, such as buy Fairtrade, is no longer a good enough response (other independent certification systems are available – he says in a BBC kind of way).  What does “buy Fairtrade” actually mean for today’s consumer?  And with more and more big brands using the Fairtrade label is all Fairtrade the same?

Today sees another report confirming a rise in global mean surface temperatures.  It is yet another report completely unable to disprove the impact that humans are having on that temperature rise (natural fluctuations accepted).  Yet our government dithers. Worse, the recent speech by George Osborne, addressing the Tory faithful, and the subsequent about face by his junior energy ministers, shows that not only are elements of this Coalition Government beginning to see the need to take action as being too expense, many are now openly hostile to any action on climate change and the requisite planned transition to a low carbon economy that must follow.  Ideology trumping evidence once more.

When do you reach the limits of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?  There are a number of leading companies in the UK who are building a strong reputation and leadership credentials in the CSR and business sustainability debate.  Many of them are doing some great things and delivering real impact.  This leadership comes from across different sectors of the UK economy and includes some of the UK’s most familiar companies; M&S and Unilever to name but two.

Another company who has been showing leadership is BSkyB.  Today (Wednesday) they have announced a 32 per cent rise in operating profits for the three months to 30th September.  A recession busting performance.  But it’s not their financial performance that concerns me.  It’s their governance.

What a week it’s been.  From a story that has bubbled around for a couple of year and stayed in the realms of politicians and celebrities to an explosion of industry rocking proportions.  At the end of which the 168 year old title which was the News of the World is closed.  And hasn’t it been exciting with so much of the drama being played out on Twitter.  From tracking the news as it broke – even before it broke – to seeing the speed and impact of the campaigns against advertisers as they started, gained traction and had impact within a matter of hours.  But to claim it was “Twitter what won it”, as so many have, over plays its role and in a small way shows that while Twitter is a serious news tool, it is also ephemeral and prone to over blown hyperbole.