Sustainability is a Full Circle
By: Anna Englebert, Former Corporate Sustainability Intern
For my Organic Agriculture certificate course 499 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, I was required to pursue a project in a professional career that interested me in the organic agriculture world. Although it took me some time to figure out, the answer was in front of me all along; my internship at Evolution Marketing was a perfect intersection of what I wanted to do. By combining my Environmental Studies, Organic Agriculture, and Consulting studies, I developed and moderated a two-part webinar series focused on sustainability communication and stakeholder engagement within agriculture. Evolution Marketing is a Wisconsin-based sustainability consulting and communications firm, and President Lisa Geason-Bauer chose to help me closely with this project using her network and experience growing up on a farm. Our overall intention for this series was to help farmers better understand how to communicate their sustainability efforts in authentic, transparent, and strategic ways.
The first webinar, Farm Communication 101: How to Talk to Your Stakeholders, explored the importance of stakeholder relationships in modern agriculture, including communication with customers, employees, communities, buyers, and regulators. The webinar highlighted how transparency, trust, and authentic storytelling can strengthen long-term relationships and improve resilience within agricultural businesses. Speakers from Evolution Marketing, Vitruvian Farms, and Zero Zero Handmade Pasta shared real-world examples of stakeholder engagement and communication strategies.
The second webinar, Growing Impact: Sustainability & Storytelling On Your Farm, focused on sustainability metrics, materiality assessments, ESG concepts, and how farms can effectively share their sustainability stories without greenwashing. Through partnerships with the Sustainable Business Council and B Local Wisconsin, the webinar introduced attendees to tools such as the Green Masters Program and discussed how sustainability communication can support business growth, stakeholder trust, and long-term environmental stewardship. Evolution Marketing played a major role in supporting the project by providing mentorship, industry expertise, speaker connections, promotional support, and access to professional sustainability communication frameworks. Working alongside sustainability professionals and local agricultural leaders allowed me to bridge concepts from environmental studies, organic agriculture, consulting, and communications into a real-world educational project.
The impact I hoped to make through this project was to empower farmers and agricultural businesses to feel more confident discussing sustainability in ways that are transparent and stakeholder-centered. I wanted to show that sustainability is more than only the environment, but also about communication, stakeholder relationships, transparency, and resilience. From this series, I learned a lot about how it’s always possible to create a project as long as you’re passionate about it. This taught me to trust the process and maintain a strong network to call in favors. Thank you to my advisors at the UW Organic Collaborative for encouraging me to pursue something new to the program and for everyone at Evolution Marketing for making this possible.
I am now a recent graduate from UW–Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Environmental Studies with Certificates in Organic Agriculture and Consulting. I have wrapped up my year long internship at Evolution Marketing, where I spent my tenure growing so much in the sustainability world and expanding my network. While I am still figuring out my next steps in post-grad, I am leading with my passion for a future in sustainability. I am forever grateful for the opportunities UW and Evolution Marketing have given me, and how I was able to bring all my different studies together through this job.