Forbes Launches Sustainability Channel Amid Media’s Climate Crisis Wake-Up Call

Forbes has launched a new channel dedicated to covering sustainability, as the mainstream media landscape begins to sound the alarm on the climate crisis. The channel, Forbes Sustainability, comes in response to “rising global interest in environmental reporting” and is part of the business media giant’s “commitment to social responsibility”. 

Last month, Forbes decided to introduce a brand new vertical focusing exclusively on sustainability and climate issues to “bolster” the media brand’s “commitment to environmental journalism” and “driving conversations around social responsibility”. The channel, first announced ahead of Earth Day, covers sustainability topics across a spectrum of industries, from retail to investment and is being helmed by assistant editor Sofia Lotto Persio and executive editors Caroline Howard and Luisa Kroll. 

“Our new Sustainability channel provides a holistic view of this ongoing conversation, tracing developments across industries as they set out plans to reach net zero, and explains how business leaders and governments are navigating opportunities and risks as they tackle the global climate challenge,” wrote Persio. 

Forbes Sustainability will be supported by Hitachi ABB Power Grids, a provider of renewable energy grids that was acquired by Hitachi last year from the Swiss-Swedish engineering firm ABB. 

In the announcement, Forbes said the launch of the new channel comes in response to “rising global interest in environmental reporting” and is part of the firm’s renewed initiative to bring on more editorial coverage of the climate crisis. According to a commissioned survey conducted by Quantcast, Forbes’ readers are “highly engaged” with environmental issues and are on average 1.53-times more likely to be “green consumers”. 

The business media major, whose audience spans 140 million monthly readers, also plans to publish a Net Zero Heroes list to feature planet-forward companies and start a weekly newsletter to showcase its sustainability-related articles. 

Our new Sustainability channel provides a holistic view of this ongoing conversation, tracing developments across industries as they set out plans to reach net zero, and explains how business leaders and governments are navigating opportunities and risks as they tackle the global climate challenge.

Sofia Lotto Persio, Assistant Editor, Forbes

“Forbes will continue to help the world’s leading brands drive meaningful systemic change through mission-aligned partnerships that spur critical conversations on sustainability and social responsibility, setting businesses, people, and the planet on a better path forward,” it stated. 

The news comes amid a string of pledges from mainstream media platforms to boost their reporting on climate issues. 

Last year, fellow business and market news giant Bloomberg also began rolling out climate coverage, launching its Bloomberg Green editorial brand dedicated to the topic. The platform’s partners include multinational tech giant Amazon, real estate firm JLL and jewellery brand Tiffany & Co. 

The latest to make a similar move is Euronews, who has rebranded their Living vertical into Euronews Green to “better reflect its positioning and content”. In addition to covering climate, nature, living and eco-innovation, the platform said it’ll add a separate sustainability-focused opinion section to “allow existing and new voices to advocate for a greener future”. 

American magazine group Condé Nast has also taken steps in this direction, with its beauty brand Allure banning buzzwords like “recyclable”, “green”, “biodegradable” and “compostable” without being “extremely specific about what we mean” and verifying with companies to ensure the integrity of such claims. 

Also under the Condé Nast group, food and cooking platform Epicurious has decided to end beef-related recipes, articles and social media posts as part of its campaign to become “pro-planet” and “encourage more sustainable cooking”. 

Lead image courtesy of Unsplash.