Why ESG has become the most exciting brief in PR & Marketing

By Sarah Firth, Creative Director

Many moons ago, campaigns that had environmental or social driven goals were assigned to a well-meaning but slightly dry corner of marketing. But with the need to encourage mass public and corporate adoption of sustainable and equitable behaviours, ESG campaigns have become a trailblazer for some of the best creative work out there. Sometimes shocking us, at other times nudging us into behaviour change for the good of the planet and society at large. But one thing they all have in common is brilliantly simple creative ideas to redefine the ESG narrative landscape.

I Came By Train

This campaign from Trainline highlighted the importance of switching from your car to the train to cut down on emissions.  Train travel is approximately 70% less polluting than driving. The message was clear and consistent – if everyone swapped one car journey for a train journey it would help keep the nation on track to reach its sustainability goals.

But instead of lecturing, Trainline turned the action of going by train into a brag and a sense of pride.

Since the campaign launched, Trainline has tapped into a number of cultural moments to enhance the relevancy of train transport.  In 2024 it encouraged the 250,000 attendees of Glastonbury to take the train instead, with a 225% uplift seen with travel to stations close to Worthy Farm. In 2025 it signed up 20 acts performing at the festival to get there by train to demonstrate that train travel is for everyone.

Sounds Right

The challenge in changing people’s behaviour around climate change is to get people to value nature and natural resources more.

This campaign from Spotify, in conjunction with UN Live, set out to do that – make nature a tangible entity.

The first step was to recognise how much nature had contributed to creating music, from the ambient sounds of birds, waves and so on to the materials used to make instruments. Nature was registered on Spotify as an official recording artist. Human artists then collaborated with Nature, using those natural sounds that were the most meaningful to them, to create their tracks. Every time one of the artist’s tracks was streamed, it automatically generated royalties for conservation efforts. Nature is now a top 1% artist on Spotify. The creative beauty of this campaign is that it was able to position nature as a real and viable asset to the world; the global population weren’t asked to interrupt their normal habits and routines and it’s a constant fund-raising initiative.

Renault Cars to Work

At the heart of the Renault Cars to Work campaign was a simple notion – that one of the biggest barriers to getting and securing work for low-income individuals was their access to a car.

Four out of 10 French people live in mobility deserts – areas with no public transport, meaning access to car ownership is not only a nice to have, it is fundamental to getting to work.  Without a stable income, it’s hard to get a loan, without a loan, you can’t get a car and so the problem becomes a vicious cycle. So, Renault created a campaign that went to the heart of the problem.

Cars to Work offered the free use of cars to unemployed people, living in mobility deserts in France, during their job trial periods. The cars remained free for people to use throughout their probationary period, and once a job was secured, customers could start paying for the vehicles under affordable conditions.  The campaign became famous in France, driving huge amounts of online traffic and increasing traffic to the website by 50%.