What is your first criterion when you choose a product in a shop or look for a service? Do you go for a good price, give priority to the highest quality, are you receptive to the ‘brand’ and how desirable a label is? These are all common criteria. In recent years, however, another important attribute has joined them: sustainability.
Even the sparrows on the rooftops have started chirping the news that buyers are increasingly choosing brands with a clear environmental and socially responsible strategy.
Sustainability isn’t only about products and services that are friendly to the environment. It is about a company’s whole image, its production and organisational processes, and its human relationships.
How can a company approach sustainability and, by extension, sustainable marketing? And how can it do this in a way that is authentic, effective, and stands out? Let’s look at a few examples.
Patagonia, as a maker of products for leisure and sport, is one of the most recognisable sustainable brands in the world. Not only does it produce environmentally friendly clothing, it also actively encourages longer use and even repairs of products through its ‘Worn Wear’ programme. It is worth taking a look at their ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign, another example that hyper-shopping consumerism, fuelled by low prices and lower quality, isn’t the only path in the world of outdoor products.
Mitsubishi Electric puts energy efficiency into practice. Their air-conditioning units, for example, use advanced technologies developed in-house, which means significantly lower energy use compared with traditional systems. Beyond proving that there is a lot to be saved in a field still labelled with the stereotype of being ‘energy-hungry’, the company also shows its commitment through circular economy initiatives, offering, for instance, programmes for recycling and the reuse of components from its devices.
Unilever, one of the world’s largest companies in the field of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), manages more than 400 brands of food, drinks, personal care and household items. The sector carries a suspicious ‘reputation’ for polluting the environment and generating endless quantities of packaging waste and other rubbish. Unilever has therefore strategically tackled changes to its image (which most observers acknowledge) and to how it actually operates (where there are still quite a few critics). The conglomerate claims that in recent years it has cut its CO2 by half (although environmental organisations have warned that some of its supply chains are still linked to non-sustainable practices, such as deforestation), it is more intensively introducing recycled packaging even where this isn’t explicitly required by law, and it can point to a series of further steps it has integrated into its business strategy through the ‘Sustainable Living Plan’ initiative.
This last example, which raises the most contradictory questions and opinions, probably leads us best to the key question.
How can a company communicate sustainability effectively?
Here are five points to remember when you think about your company’s sustainability image.
- Honesty and transparency. Customers aren’t naive. They quickly recognise misleading claims that a marketing department puts out just ‘for the optics’. If the market decides you are doing ‘greenwashing’, you will have a much bigger communication challenge than if you didn’t talk about sustainability at all. But if you do have something to show in this area, communicate the facts, numbers and goals clearly.
- Simple and clear messages. Present complex information in an understandable way that guides consumers toward sustainable decisions.
- A connection to the community. Companies that actively work with consumers on environmental initiatives connect more successfully with the wider community, gain credibility, and build a more loyal audience.
- Innovation and the circular economy. Solutions that support reuse, recycling and waste reduction are becoming key competitive advantages. Ask yourself what you can do in this area.
- A long-term sustainability strategy. Effective sustainability initiatives aren’t just short-term campaigns. They are long-term plans that involve thinking about the entire business.
Key warnings: what doesn’t work?Examples of unsuccessful communication of (insincere) sustainability are sadly more than plentiful. The culprits most often offer only empty promises (and as a result a company that talks about sustainability but doesn’t change its business practices behind the scenes loses far more). They get lost in unclear messages too, never mind that often, even through the thickest cloak of high-flying words about sustainability, a very clear desire to use sustainable marketing only as a strategy for higher sales seeps through. |
Sustainability isn’t just words
Customers expect more from companies than just words. They expect actions. Companies that introduce sustainable practices in a credible, clear and verifiable way and effectively communicate them will gain greater customer loyalty in the long run. How can you adapt your brand to your audience’s sustainability expectations?
