Sustainable marketing is the promotion of environmental and socially responsible products, practices, and brand values.
Companies are ever keener to announce environmental and social initiatives. It helps impress green-conscious customers and challenges others to make (morally) “better” decisions.
Sustainability marketing needs careful planning. A great number of marketers are currently interested in sustainability.
But why?
LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) defines a particular market segment related to sustainable living, "green" ecological initiatives, and is generally composed of a relatively upscale and well-educated population segment.
Unsurprisingly, companies are veeeery interested in catering to this segment.
The World Watch Institute reports that LOHAS market segment could be worth as much as $300 Billion US Dollars. The Natural Marketing Institute estimates that in the United States there are 41 million LOHAS consumers while Japan harbors about 17 Million of them. That would mean that about 10-15% of these market’s populations are adamant eco-consumers.
The numbers leave little doubt as to why companies would want a piece of the action. In the past 20 years we have seen products and services trying to boast eco credentials.
And it’s not a bad thing. It’s fantastic! But it needs to be done right. There’s no point in repackaging a product to look, feel and confuse consumers into thinking they are green.
Enter the marketer…
Marketers are great at rolling with the punches. When companies approach marketing agencies for help to develop sustainable messaging and branding what is their intention?
Do most marketing agencies have in-house sustainability experts or fast thinking strategists able to adapt to client requirements?
There simply are not enough sustainability experts working at marketing agencies. As a result, we are left with marketers that have limited sustainability background knowledge leading the most important paradigm shift of our time.
The results are clear; an overuse of green pantones flood CSR reports covers, green leaves are too often stamped across plastic packaging and numerous misplaced recycle signs.
Greenwash campaigns are not uncommon and heavy scrutiny from the sustainability experts have lashed out.
You might be reading this and thinking, yeah - that might have been true before, but marketers have evolved. We don't do Green Wash anymore. We've learned our lessons.
So, I disagree. There's still a lack of knowledge about sustainable development and where it comes from. Too many marketing people have learned about sustainability because of their client's needs to communicate their green credentials.
But really. Do marketers dig deep enough to understand why our clients need sustainability marketing? Do marketers question the pressure clients have to be green? Or do we side with our client's green practices (little as they may be) and rush to champion their efforts?
As marketers we are still treating sustainability like a bitch.
And here is The Greenwash Wall of Shame. Especially created to prove how marketers in the 2020's are using green Pantones and buzz words to cover up for the most fickle of green efforts.
The Starbucks strawless lids. In 2018, Starbucks introduced strawless lids that were supposed to cost less plastic. However, these lids actually contained more weight in plastic than the conventional straw-lid combination.
The H&M Conscious Collection. In 2019, H&M was accused of greenwashing because they launched a ‘Conscious Collection’ (the first collection was launched in 2010), which is supposed to be more sustainable. Nonetheless, it didn’t provide a lot of information regarding the sustainability of the collection. Moreover, H&M burned $4,3 billion worth of never-worn-clothing, their clothing is still not designed to be durable, and their workers at the company are underpaid. Can fast fashion can ever be sustainable?
The colors of the McDonald’s logo turned yellow and green instead of yellow and red in 2009, while not actually taking steps towards becoming a more sustainable company.
In 2021, FrieslandCampina introduced paper straws on their Chocomel packaging. However, the straws are still wrapped in plastic.
Bo-Rent Rent A Car uses an image on their cars that says ‘renting a car is good for the environment’. But how good for the environment is renting a car anyway?
KLM claimed that they mixed biofuels with traditional fossil-fuel-based kerosene up to a maximum of 50% and that the airline was “the first to fly biofuel on a daily basis”. However, biofuel only accounted for 0.18% of its total fuel consumption in 2019.
Shell has been trying to improve their image by pretending to become more sustainable over the past few years. In 2019, they released the YouTube series The Great Non-Travel Hack, where famous people must travel with electric cars as much as possible. But in the end, Shell remains one of the most polluting companies on the planet. Therefore, any kind of campaign of Shell to ‘go green’ is questionable. Don’t believe me? Check out the landmark lawsuit case they were ordered to limit their CO2 emissions by 45% for threatening “the right to life”.
Another attempt by Shell (that's right, you guys get two mentions for being extra A-holes) to obtain a “greener” image: they claimed to be more sustainable by planting 5 million trees. But given the fact that Ethiopia planted 350 million trees in one day last year, Shell’s action is relative.In 2020,
Burger King announced in a campaign that they are going to put their cows on a lemongrass diet, to make their cows emit less greenhouse gasses. However, the meat industry remains responsible for a large part of the greenhouse gas emissions and water shortage. Also, greenhouse gas emissions are only reduced by one third, and the “green” burger is still a temporary option at their restaurants.
In 2020, Lime released electric scooters to be freely used by people in cities. Their website claims: “Through the equitable distribution of shared scooters, bikes and transit vehicles, we aim to reduce dependence on personal automobiles for short distance transportation and leave future generations with a cleaner, healthier planet.”
Cool, using an electric scooter to travel in a city is better than doing it by car. But most Lime users are people that would otherwise just walk, take a bicycle or use public transport.
...how about Coca-Cola? And Coca-Cola Life… seriously?
The essence of sustainable marketing is that you position your brand as an active figure in an environmental or societal issue. Taking the moral high ground if you wish. it is about humanising your brand messages and creating reasons why customers should choose you over less responsible competition.
The problem is marketers with no or little experience in sustainable development tend to underestimate the commitment needed to participate in sustainable initiatives. Most will convince themselves they are sustainable simply because the client said so.
They are in no position to advise clients on the true value of sustainability of their products. Much less find solutions for them… apart from painting it green.
Marketing people work with whatever they are given. They (we) do an amazing job at finding creative solutions to difficult communicational contexts. What they do not do well is solving the world’s problems. But then again, who does?
“Sustainability”, “green”, “climate change” are buzzwords that resonate well when sustainability campaign messaging is being defined. However, reducing carbon emissions, increasing recyclable materials, and improving prospects for the next generation is more complicated than expressing an intention.
More marketers with sustainable backgrounds are needed.
People who studied the 1987: Bruntland Report at school and know communications should be the one’s advising companies about our common futures.
Not the other way around.
Sustainability has become prostituted by shrewd marketing campaigns and funded by companies trying carve out more LOHAS market share. If marketing professionals are so damn interested in making a contribution to the world through sustainability, why are not more of us studying sustainable development, understanding the importance of sustainability and dedicating our careers to advising organisations on how to really be green?
For many it's just too late. Others are interested by the job opportunity, the trend. Few are truly passionate enough to really specialise. Bottom line, too many are given the opportunity to change the world without understanding why and how.
One thing is certain.
Being green is not as easy as you think.
:P
