Some of the youdo team are 2/3 of the way through the University of Cambridge Business Sustainability Management. This week, they’ve been looking at the importance of marketing and communications in the sustainability space. Unfortunately a lot of what has gone before falls under the heading of greenwashing, i.e. where a company has overstated - usually deliberately - the environmental benefits of their products and services and/or internal corporate initiative. More recently, we've seen regulation in Europe - the Green Claims Directive - which penalises companies for making marketing claims which they are unable to substantiate.
The sustainability credentials of a company are important to their business success; consumers are backing up stated preferences for sustainable products with purchasing decisions and this is especially true of the Gen Z and Millennial demographics who represent ~30% of total household spend in the US. And availability of capital, whether from investors or banks or both, will increasingly come down to whether companies can convincingly represents themselves as sustainable brand.
So how to best approach sustainability from a marketing and communications perspective? How do you tell your best sustainability story?
The answer is TRANSPARENCY. Data shows that transparency = business success;
So what might that mean for your company? Here are some ideas;
Publish your current data for carbon emissions, energy and water usage and waste disposal
Set, and publish, annual reduction targets in each of those categories
Identify the key milestones for you to hit those targets and share your progress on a quarterly basis
And mostly importantly involve your employees, customers and partners in the journey. Create conversations with them, ask for their feedback and they’ll reward you in the long run.
