Authentic LGBTQIA+ Inclusion Strategies Beyond Pride Month

Authentic LGBTQIA+ Inclusion Strategies Beyond Pride Month

June 2026

Pride month, held each June, is now a regular feature of ESG activity, workplace culture and corporate communications, with many organisations using it to show their support for LGBTQIA+ communities through campaigns and public-facing messaging. 

However, as ESG expectations continue to develop, there’s also greater scrutiny on whether an organisation’s external messaging accurately aligns with what’s really going on inside it…  

WHAT IS “RAINBOW WASHING”? 

“Rainbow washing” has become a term to describe when companies pay homage to Pride in a superficial way, often for financial gain. And while it’s typically used to call out ill-advised marketing campaigns, LGBTQIA+ workers and their allies are also taking issue with companies rainbow washing internally. 

 

WHY DOES WORKPLACE INCLUSION MATTER FOR ESG? 

Workplace inclusion is a core part of ESG because it directly affects employee experience, trust, and organisational reputation. When inclusion is only surface level, it can undermine credibility, reduce engagement, and weaken confidence in leadership commitments. 

Increasingly, customers, employees, investors and regulators are scrutinising the marketing claims of businesses against their actions. Just as this is true for environmental claims, such as through the implementation of the Green Claims Code and more recently the FCA anti-greenwashing rule, it is also increasingly true to social claims. 

 

HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS SUPPORT LGBTQIA+ EMPLOYEES YEAR-ROUND? 

Of course, real inclusion is not created through campaigns or annual activity but how an organisation operates day to day. Organisations can support LGBTQIA+ employees through consistent policy enforcement, leadership accountability, safe reporting environments, and ongoing use of employee feedback to improve workplace culture. 

 

WHY RAINBOW WASHING IS A GROWING ESG CONCERN IN BUSINESS 

Rainbow washing often appears during Pride campaigns or awareness activity, where some organisations show support publicly but don’t make long-term internal changes. One of the clearest indicators of this gap is whether employees feel able to be open about their true selves, and disappointingly, research by Stonewall shows that 39% of LGBTQIA+ employees still feel the need to hide their identity at work (Stonewall, 2025). Some employees also continue to report or witness discriminatory behaviour, showing that progress remains uneven across organisations. 

This evidence highlights how work-based inclusion policies do not always translate into everyday workplace experience, as explored in ESGmark® thinking on authenticity in the workplace.  

 

THE REPUTATIONAL IMPACT OF RAINBOW WASHING 

As ESG performance is increasingly linked to trust, both internally and externally, when external messaging does not match internal experience, it can affect how organisations are perceived. We already know that around two-thirds of consumers say they choose, buy or avoid brands based on their beliefs about social issues (Edelman Trust Barometer, 2025).  

Where this gap exists, organisations may see reduced trust in messaging, weaker employee engagement, and lower confidence in leadership commitments. This shows that over time, inclusion that appears to be only surface level can affect reputation as well as culture. 

Possibly because of this, while the previous decade was defined by brands "slapping rainbows on everything", 2025 became the year of "Quiet Pride”. A major media analysis tracked the social media activity of the UK's biggest multinational companies that had historically relied on public Pride marketing to build a progressive brand image, and discovered that public "Pride" posts from them had plummeted by 85% in 2025 (The Guardian, 2025). 

This created a new kind of rainbow washing: “selective allyship”, where brands quietly stripped away public support while continuing to claim they were inclusive internally.  

  

THE ESGMARK® PERSPECTIVE ON WORKPLACE INCLUSION

ESGmark® Certification supports organisations in credibly demonstrating and improving environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance in a meaningful way. Inclusion sits within this approach and is most credible when embedded into systems, processes and behaviour, not just communications. For organisations building structured ESG approaches, inclusion also links closely with wider diversity and inclusion frameworks. 

In essence, we believe that inclusion must be operational, rather than promotional. 

 

Practical steps for organisations 

Looking to strengthen your organisation’s inclusion policies? Focus on: 

  • Embedding inclusion into your HR and governance systems, making sure that rather than sitting as a standalone policy, it’s reflected in your recruitment processes, progression frameworks, and internal decision-making  

  • Ensuring policies are reflected day-to-day, so that expectations around behaviour, language and culture are consistently applied across teams and locations.  

  • Strengthening leadership accountability, with clear ownership of inclusion goals and visibility over whether commitments are being delivered in practice.  

  • Using employee feedback to guide decisions and improvements, so lived experience informs how policies are implemented and evolve.  

  • Checking your external messaging aligns with what’s actually going on inside the workplace.  

  • Rather than creating more initiatives, try to deliver those that you already have in place more consistently. 

 

MOVE FROM VISIBILITY TO INCLUSION

Today, organisations are increasingly judged on what they do, not simply what they say or how visibly they participate in awareness campaigns. 

Those making the best progress tend to focus on: 

  • Building strong and supportive workplace systems 

  • Accountability rather than messaging alone 

  • Evidence and action rather than claims 

  • Long-term cultural change rather than seasonal visibility 

 

In short, employers that ensure that all of their employee programming is inclusive of all marginalised employees, no matter what month it is, are far more likely to build employee trust, strengthen stakeholder confidence and create more inclusive workplaces in the long term. 

  

Sources

Edelman (2025) Edelman Trust Barometer 2025: UK Report. Available at: https://www.edelman.com/uk/trust/2025/trust-barometer  

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (2024) FG24/3: Finalised non-handbook guidance on the Anti-Greenwashing Rule. Available at: https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/finalised-guidance/fg24-3.pdf  

Stonewall (2025) New research shows almost 40% of LGBTQ+ employees still hide their identity at work. Available at: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/news/new-research-shows-almost-40-of-lgbtq-employees-still-hide-their-identity-at-work  

The Guardian (2025) Revealed: how big businesses are rolling back public support for Pride. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/22/revealed-how-big-businesses-are-rolling-back-public-support-for-pride 

Wilson & Ward Creative