For those of us seeking to re-balance the impact of commerce on ecology, we must present solutions that transcend profitable growth and ecological collapse. The easier we can make it to profit in harmony with nature, the quicker we can affect material change. 

Three key challenges, and opportunities await:

Many of us who care deeply about the natural world act in dissonance at work, necessitated by immediate needs surrounding personal and family wellbeing. First and foremost, earning a salary and making ends meet.

Acting in harmony with social norms, embedded hierarchies and expectations, consumes less energy, carries less social risk and solicits greater tangible reward, even if it means not vocalising, exploring, or acting on what we truly believe in.

When products present a false reality, trust is often diminished:

‘False efficiency claims threaten carmaker collapse’.

‘Evidence grows of forced labour and slavery in production of solar panels, wind turbines’

Honest conversations depend upon robust data, insight, targets, and transparency. Though, integrity must run deeper into the core of brand identity, both in front of and behind the camera. Authentic narratives transpire from placing societal and employee obligation alongside profit, at the heart of shareholder and organisational culture.  Doing so can fuel innovation, reduce supply and demand-side reputational risk, create new markets and fuel long term brand and customer value.  After all, a sustainable ecosystem is a pre-requisite to sustainable returns.

Furthermore, positive and material social and environmental change coincides with employee recruitment, ambassadorship and morale. For example, 82% of employees seek purpose beyond profit (McKinsey) and are more likely to endorse an employer that delivers it. This is not about ideology, but about delivering social good as a core brand promise, in a way that correlates with business success.

My strong belief is that a brand strategy without authenticity is one that’s doomed to fail. Greenwashing is an archetype of all that is inauthentic. And, whilst it represents an attempt to embody the best version of a brand, it will be unlikely to resonate among those to whom it matters most.

As a marketer, I’ve spent many a year developing products and aligning them with human wants, needs, and impulses.  However, the parameters that guide consumption – e.g., scarcity / abundance of supply and the perception of quality vs. cost, carry deep yet often intangible trade-offs with the natural world.

Consequentially, ecology and profit can have a difficult relationship and may appear weakly correlated, calling for economic incentive, market regulation, behaviour change, or technological revolution. Though, we cannot wait for external conditions to arise before seeking change. To do so is to surrender our part of the solution, is somewhat fatalistic, and risks brand obsolescence.  Instead, we must seek to fulfil our own role in good faith and in alignment with our values and unique sense of enterprise and opportunity. Failure to act, is failure to hope.

Though, the difficult truth is, many of the materials and ingredients that protect our health and environment simply cost more. Over time, products have been ‘value engineered’ and trade-offs made that give us a quick fix to the detriment of long-term human and ecological wellbeing.

While most of us are concerned about our degrading environment, we often feel disempowered to channel our sentiments into positive purchase decisions, largely due to our own economic realities, our short-term needs, our declining belief in brand promises and through lack of belief in our existential influence.

Our language must also adapt.

For example, the term ‘consumer’ encapsulates only the profit-centric side of the profit-social-environmental dynamic. This occurs only at the end of the supply chain, often leading to devolved accountability among suppliers. For example, it is easy to blame food waste on consumers. However, the cause is more about commerce than consumption.

‘Consumer’, as the primary descriptor of a people, denigrates our status to a fraction of our being.  In doing so, it casts focus on our response to brand stimuli, rather than lived experience and natural physiological needs.

Does a person live to love, experience, contribute, inform, share and belong; or do they simply exist to consume?

Firstly, we must acknowledge that the addressable market for ‘climate premium’ products is not mass market and probably never will be.

Rather than make bolt-on ‘eco’ alternatives at higher price points, brands must re-invent and re-imagine their core markets, with products and markets that enhance functional and emotive experience, whilst corresponding to improved societal / planetary outcomes.

For example:

Lego have committed to making half of its bricks from renewable materials by 2026, despite a significant increase in material costs.

Sainsbury’s recently replaced much of its plastic meat packaging with vacuum packs, reducing the use of harmful materials and extending product shelf life. In doing so, they’re unlikely to please all existing customers, though most will adapt, whilst others are won.

Climate credentials are fast becoming ‘hygiene factors’, the absence of which hinders investment and support at all tiers of the value chain. Therefore, we must seek co-benefits and middle-ground, meeting people and businesses where they’re at. This could be deemed a ‘minimum underlying product’ – one that meets basic social, environmental, profit-centric, and shareholder needs.

Though, thinking systemically, the slow pace of changing demand is unlikely to prove sufficient.  The rules of the game must change, for example, through tighter regulation and targeted taxation. Sadly, this is political kryptonite.

Thinking back to language, brands must also re-imagine how they address ‘consumers’, using more positive terms, such as ‘enablers’, or simply ‘people’. To do so is of great benefit to marketers, as to see people as consumers narrows their beliefs and behaviours to a just a few short moments, taken from a far richer and more illustrative dataset. Indeed, psychographic data remains elusive to many brand marketers, though offers a significant source of competitive advantage.

Challenge

This phenomenon, known as temporal discounting, upweights immediate threats, such as cost of living, and down-weights gradual emerging threats such as global heating and biodiversity loss. However, the Covid-19 pandemic proved that dramatic cultural shifts are possible if the perceived threat is imminent.

Global heating is unique in its status as a certain phenomenon with uncertain rewards.  Furthermore, the effects and rewards of the climate crisis are less imminent and tangible among regions with the highest emissions.  This would be a great deal simpler if human reward systems were predisposed to long-term outcomes.  However, almost all bias the near-term, whether performance bonuses, elections, or enjoying a sugar filled treat.

Whilst we talk of the climate crisis as a naturally existing meteorological phenomenon, climate incrementality is non-natural and of human / anthropological causation, manifested through short-term self-interest, made possible by devolved markets.

We know transformation is essential; however, global power dynamics determine inaction through fear of lost influence and restricted access to scare resources.  Again, short-term certainty supersedes long-term uncertainty.

The true causation of the climate crisis has more to do with human physiology, needs and behaviours than it does emissions.  Yet, human and geological sciences have only recently started to align.

By aligning long-term necessity with short-term reward, we can empower greater employee and customer engagement, toward a culture that profits in balance with people and planet.

Statements like ‘our climate ambition’ and terms such as ‘net zero’ have little meaning without short-term tangible value.  So, we must translate our industry definitions into lived experiences, both for our employees and customers.

Offsetting may seem to offer a simple and positive example, though seldom offers real-world benefit, or compelling stories.

‘We planted x trees’.   But who planted them?  Were they the right trees?  In the right place?  For what purpose?  Sustained for how many years?  With what level of additionality?  Many of us have lost faith in this failing and often exploited process.

Better, more authentic, stories are likely to exist within our own supply chains, where we are closer to the change and get hands-on in ways that transpire in greater efficiency, lower costs, and some great marketing claims to boot.

Crucially, in terms of greenwashing, we must abandon all attempts to be or to be perceived as perfect.  Perfect is as unnatural as it is unachievable in its delivery, diminishing our ability to learn, adapt and build authentic brand dialogue.

More important than where we are, or where we’ve been, is who we are, and where we’re going.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! I’d love to get your thoughts, whether you agree, or disagree with the ideas above (see comments section below).