Decoding Sustainable Storytelling: The Brewing ESG Framework of Coffee Brands on Digital Platforms

Abstract

This study aims to decode the digital Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategies of leading coffee brands in Thailand by analyzing their content structures, persuasive mechanisms, and sustainability storytelling. As digital platforms become the primary medium for sustainability communication, brands face consumer skepticism and accusations of greenwashing. To understand how organizations construct brand authenticity to mitigate this skepticism, a qualitative deductive content analysis was conducted on 219 digital footprints across official websites, public relations news, Facebook, and Instagram from three major coffee chains: Café Amazon, Starbucks, and Punthai Coffee. The findings unveil the Brewing ESG storytelling framework, comprising three distinct strategic typologies. First, the planet-focused global standard pattern (Starbucks) utilizes the central route of persuasion and journey stories on official platforms to build systematic authenticity through international certifications. Second, the planet-people integrated engagement pattern (Café Amazon) relies on the peripheral route and impact stories on social media to empower marginalized groups, constructing relational authenticity. Third, the profit-local origin pattern (Punthai Coffee) leverages origin stories and local ingredients to foster identity-based authenticity, proving that localness is a powerful signaling mechanism. The study concludes that effective digital ESG communication requires a sophisticated media segmentation strategy. By partitioning logical evidence on official channels and emotional storytelling on social media, organizations have the potential to support perceived credibility and cultivate genuine sustainability communication.