Rethinking ESG Communications Starts With Embracing Complexity (Part 1)

By Prof. Ioannis Ioannou

For a brief moment, the ESG narrative seemed to hold.

Climate pledges made headlines. Social equity appeared on investor decks. Governance reform was no longer relegated to the fine print. It felt like we had reached a fragile consensus: sustainability wasn’t just desirable, it was necessary. And business had a role to play.

But the consensus was thinner than we thought.

Under pressure, it’s fragmenting.
The acronym itself, ESG, has become a target. Companies are relabelling, reframing or retracting on ESG commitments altogether. Some in response to real challenges, others out of a desire to reduce their exposure. ESG, once a symbol of forward-thinking strategy, in some cases, now sits uncomfortably close to reputational risk.

So, what went wrong?

The issue lies not in the intent but in the way the story was told. In what was left out. The real risk wasn’t the backlash, it was the fragility that backlash exposed.

Today’s communications landscape demands more than narrative agility. It calls for something harder: structural credibility. That means embracing complexity, not avoiding it. At stake is the trustworthiness of ESG itself and its standing in public discourse. ‍

To Manage Complexity, You Must Embrace It.

Much of the current unease around sustainability communications today stems from a fundamental misunderstanding: that complexity is something to be managed, smoothed over, or kept out of sight. It isn’t.

Complexity defines the terrain. It reflects competing priorities, interdependent systems, and uneven progress. Trying to simplify that for the sake of a clean narrative doesn’t build trust, it erodes it.

Too often, ESG messaging emerged as a communications construct rather than strategic truth. Declarations were made without clarity on ownership or implementation. Disclosures were published, but without depth. When trade-offs surfaced, as they always do, they were framed as unfortunate side-effects, rather than essential features of transformation.

This gap between words and reality is visible.

In We. Communications' 2025 Brands in Motion study, 61% of communicators believe they perform well when communicating complexity. Only 39% of their audiences agree. That 22-point gap is more than just a perception issue. It's a credibility crisis.

When the Narrative Doesn’t Match the Reality, People Notice

People don’t dismiss complexity, they recognize it is a part of life and they live it every day

What breaks trust is the sense that a company is using language to obscure reality rather than clarify it. When communications try to appear too certain, too optimistic, or too perfect, they ring false. The audience doesn’t need gloss, they need honesty.

When complexity is acknowledged, it can be a powerful source of credibility. It signals that the organisation understands what it’s up against. That it is making trade-offs intentionally. That it’s willing to be transparent even when outcomes are uncertain.

Toward a New Standard for ESG Communications

The challenge now is clear: communicators must move beyond comfort. They must embed themselves in the complexity of strategy, rather than trying to translate it into a neater form after the fact.

This requires new skills. New instincts. And a shift in mindset from managing perception to earning trust.

In Part 2, we’ll explore what that looks like in practice: How communicators can build trust through transparency, how silence creates its own risks, and why the future of ESG leadership depends on courage, not certainty.

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