In the present-day society there are few values that may be considered as universally common to everyone in the world.

An analysis of this kind is very hard to make and any conclusions reached may not find universal agreement.

But there is one value that everyone feels: the environment, its safeguard under every different aspect, a value that expresses a search for a better quality of life, and that, for this reason, involves social and economic aspects, the life of enterprises and organisations.

The environmental issue is a value to which people in every country refer, on which public opinion expresses judgements and opinions and which requires decisions and attitudes from all social classes, governments, enterprises, unions, and so on.

There is valuable proof of the environment being one of the most universally recognised values.

One proof is given by the United Nations’ Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where 178 nations, 118 of which represented by Head of States, could discuss these issues; where international agreements could be signed.

Another proof is given by the many Green Directives originated by the European Union, in most cases already converted into national laws and regulations by the European countries.

These considerations lead us to look at the environment issue as a strategic reference in the planning and decision making processes of every company and enterprise.

We are therefore bound to analyse the nature of the environmental requirements to which companies must refer towards the community and we must develop a "green" communication, capable of using all opportunities in the dialogue with public opinion.

The public opinion believes that companies must "be green" because this is right, because society demands it, because public authorities, governments require so.

Environmental issues and public relations

The area of public relations on public environmental issues shows characteristics of its own, highly differentiated for its concerns in the different European countries. Firstly owing to the different impact that these issues have locally in every community and for the higher or lower influence of the environmentalist groups in the media system and politics.

On the whole, the environmental issues are seen as real "values", identified and accepted by the public opinion all over Europe, even though to a different extent and with a different impact, because they represent the search of quality to every society in all European countries.

Today, all enterprises must consider the environmental issues in their communication processes owing to the impact that these issues have in each community, involving public opinion, prompting judgements and views.

The public relations function constantly analyses the public opinion’s views and judgements and for this reason is requested to define the evaluation criteria able to assess the environmental impact of the company’s choices while establishing plans and taking decisions.

There is a great number of laws and regulations which define behaviours and procedures for the safeguard of the environment in each European country. Also numerous are the directives and other initiatives of the European Commission and Parliament which rule production activities in the different sectors with specific reference to environment protection.

Altogether, these "rules" and what emerges from the public opinion on the environmental issues allow the PR professional to identify the publics and the specific interests to which the enterprise must refer.

Internal and external publics are thereafter identified, both carrying "concerns" on environmental issues, which are expressed through different contents and in different ways. As for the internal publics, employees, workers and their families show concerns mainly linked to the environmental safeguard at their working places, to "noise", to manufacturing processes of harmful substances and so on.

But, at the same time, the internal publics are part of a community, they perceive judgements and opinions on the company and the environment from the external publics, and thereafter establish "values".

If we consider as external publics those who live close to the manufacturing plants, the quality of the environment is given by what they physically feel as "sound" pollution, air pollution, street traffic and so on.

But other external publics add to these concerns judgements and opinions linked to industrial waste disposal, other consider the impact of products and goods’ packages and wrappings, other discuss on the raw materials used in the manufacturing process.

In many countries the value of raw materials’ recycling is very popular for its environmental meaning and for its economic advantages.

Basic contents of environmental public relations

Environmental relations develop through activities and programs with the following contents:

• analysing and defining the useful "scenario" to assess the impact of the enterprises decisions and situations with respect to the environment safeguard, relating such impact to the internal and external publics;
• gathering and giving out information on the enterprises measures adopted within the manufacturing process, the products and services;
• defining and managing programs to develop environmental protection with "educational" objectives, able to show the enterprise’ s proactive role on environmental issues within the community;
• producing reports on a timely basis in order to identify the trends on environment protection issues generated by groups and associations;
• representing the enterprise’s opinions and positions on issues having specific impact on the environment in specialised organisations and trade associations;
• suggesting and adopting internal measures, involving employees and external staff in significant actions for the environment safeguard, such as, for example, materials recovering and recycling, and similar;
• supporting the management and all company’s functions in their acting with adequate awareness of the environmental issues.

To handle these activities, the public relations professional must have a deep knowledge of all the enterprise’s technical and production concerns that may somehow be related to the environment protection issues, together with an appropriate information on all possible kinds of external publics and, mainly at local level, of associations, groups and specialised press.

Profile of the environmental public relations professional

The PR professional, having assessed the environmental impact, defines possible concerns and publics involved, shows interactions with other publics, with the media and politics.

Journalists and public managers, who also outline the environmental issues, help define the environmental impact of enterprises’ policies and decisions.

The public relations function must be capable of assessing the environmental impact and all related concerns defined by the actual "values" of the community within the given enterprise, product or service.

The PR professional must be skilled to deal with a wide range of options and with an increasing number of regulatory requirements within the environmental management.

He must also have the communication tools to handle environmental communication as a strategic process that relates corporate environmental objectives with the publics’ expectations.

Many are the aspects of environmental public relations that the PR professional must be skilled in, such as:

• understanding scientific and technical elements related to the company and its products, so as to translate specific expressions into clear and comprehensive language for all publics;
• getting employees, consumers and customers, media to understand the meaning and the importance of the environmental public relations handled by the company;
• acting with the total awareness of the environmental public relations being in fact risky communications, because knowing, evaluating and deciding on the basis of elements that are differently considered by the publics means acting with lack of certainty;
• exercising a strong sense of responsibility because it is very difficult to strictly define priorities.