Responsibility in Strategic Communication: Truth or Trap? A New Book Unveils the Dilemmas of Corporate Sustainability Promises

You're standing in a store, wondering: is this brand truly responsible, or just good at marketing? Is it genuinely striving to make the world a better place, or merely capitalizing on trends while avoiding inconvenient truths? At a time when companies promise responsibility at every turn, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between genuine efforts and manipulation.

The new book Responsibility in Strategic Communication: Truth or Trap? examines how companies and institutions communicate their commitments and where strategic communication shifts between transparency and embellishment.

The book is authored by a team of experts from Charles University—Denisa Hejlová, Petra Koudelková, and Hana Moravcová—along with Chiara Valentini from Jyväskylä University School of Business & Economics (JSBE) and Stefania Romenti from IULM in Milan. Denisa Hejlová contributed a chapter titled The Evolution and Controversy of ESG: Communicating Responsibility or Responsible Communication?, which exposes the paradoxes of corporate ESG strategies and their real impact.

The acronym ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) represents a set of rules and principles for responsible business practices, but it is also a communication tool that can either foster genuine responsibility or create an illusion of sustainability and ethical conduct. ESG reporting has recently become mandatory in the Czech Republic under the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The obligation applies to large companies starting in 2025 and medium-sized enterprises from 2026, while small publicly listed companies can apply for an extension until 2028.

"The book shows that responsible communication is a complex discipline. Companies must balance the need to be authentic while also appealing to the public. Sometimes, responsibility becomes just an illusion, where one hand of the company supports environmental initiatives while the other silently ignores its own waste or ethical issues," explains Hana Moravcová.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions—and the same goes for ESG. Many companies have incorporated responsibility into their branding, but in reality, it is often a strategy to obscure uncomfortable truths. Take, for example, the tobacco industry, which claims it will help people quit smoking. Yet one in five elementary school children is already consuming their new products, supposedly intended only for adult smokers. Or the European Investment Bank, which refused to finance the arms industry because weapons manufacturing does not align with ESG values. Critical thinking, transparency, and honesty are key to ensuring that responsibility does not become just another empty marketing slogan," says co-author Denisa Hejlová.

The publication builds on insights from the EUPRERA (European Public Relations Education and Research Association) conference, hosted by the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in 2023. It offers a critical reflection on responsibility in the context of ESG, revealing that some companies may not be interested in changing the world—they just want to look like they are.