Siloed, Structured or Strategic?

An article I read in In.Comms recently stopped me in my tracks.

Written by Amanda Powell-Smith, CEO of Forster Communications, it describes something I have been seeing — and writing about — for months.

The gap between sustainability teams and corporate affairs teams is not just an organisational inconvenience. It is one of the most significant reputational risks in the market right now.

Powell-Smith identifies three models of how the two functions interact: Siloed, Structured, and Strategic.

In the Siloed model, sustainability and corporate affairs operate independently. The result is fragmented messaging, inconsistent claims, and a heightened risk of either under-claiming progress out of caution — or over-claiming and facing greenwashing accusations because communications have moved ahead of the evidence.

In the Structured model, the two teams coordinate. Better — but sustainability can still feel like a separate workstream rather than an integral part of the business story.

In the Strategic model, the two are genuinely integrated. Sustainability is embedded in corporate strategy, brand positioning and public affairs. Claims are supported by evidence and governance. Organisations can communicate with confidence — and with honesty about challenges as well as achievements.

The article makes an important point: the shift from technical sustainability language to business language — resilience, competitiveness, innovation, efficiency — is already underway. Boards, investors, and policymakers are driving it.

And yet most organisations are still operating in the Siloed or Structured model.

Here is what I would add.

The urgency of this shift has just increased significantly. UK Sustainability Reporting Standards arrive in 2027. What companies disclose formally to investors will be held to a higher standard of rigour, consistency, and evidence than ever before. And the gap between those disclosures and what gets said publicly — in press releases, CEO speeches, annual reports, stakeholder communications — will become more visible, more scrutinised, and more consequential. Especially in the age of AI.

The question for communications professionals is not whether to move toward the Strategic model. It is how quickly you can benefit from upcoming regulatory developments to build a source of commercial advantage.

That is exactly the work that needs to happen: helping communications teams move from fragmented to coherent — and from reactive to strategically aligned.