Championing WBCSD as a sustainability leader

Leadership Voice

Case study: WBCSD

Introduction

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) brings together transformational organizations to form a global community that shifts the systems they work within towards a better future. With a relatively new presence in Asia Pacific, there leadership had goals of increasing membership and develop a marketing and communications strategy that provides a roadmap to building WBCSD’s brand profile in Asia Pacific.

Spurwing was engaged for a retainer with WBCSD, to develop a holistic communications plan, leveraging media, amplifying the APAC leader’s thought leadership on LinkedIn and events, and work towards growing WBCSD’s presence in the region.

Challenge

WBCSD worked with Spurwing and of the main criteria for considering the agency was its deep-rooted experience in sustainability, as well as an understanding of the regional media landscape to boost WBCSD’s share of voice in the APAC region.

Spurwing also has a portfolio of LinkedIn profiling and thought leadership, which was an important factor considered to build WBCSD’s APAC leader’s LinkedIn presence.

Services

Strategic Counsel & Reputation Management
Leadership Voice
Stakeholder Engagement
Media Relations
LinkedIn Strategy & Execution
Sustainability
Performance-Drive Content
Events Support

Approach

Upon alignment with WBCSD’s communications team and member relations team, we helped identify some communications objectives that align with their business goals, including increasing APAC membership as well as brand presence in the region. The client also wanted to champion a few topics including nature-positivity, net-zero, decarbonization, etc. These goals were achieved through a few workstreams including:

Building media relationships and strategic media engagements: Leveraging our extensive regional media network, we established a series of discussions over coffee with influential publications such as SCMP, Business Times, and Eco-Business. This strategic initiative not only bolstered WBCSD’s brand visibility but also resulted in interviews and media coverage spanning a wide array of topics and featuring WBCSD representatives from around the world.
LinkedIn thought leadership: We conducted an audit for Joe Phelan, Executive Director, WBCSD APAC, on his LinkedIn page, and identified content pillars under sustainability that he could provide his expert perspectives on. We also introduced multimedia formats to diversify Joe’s message delivery to his target audience.
Events support: We wanted to elevate sustainability conversations among top regional businesses in APAC through supporting WBCSD’s speaking engagements as well as help setting up regional events to attract more member companies, through planning, outreach and amplification.

Impact

20 LinkedIn thought leadership content pieces to establish WBCSD’s APAC leadership as a thought leader in relevant key pillars
10 Media coverages and coffee chats with key publications like SCMP, Eco-Business, Business Times and more in the pipeline.