5. The Sustainability Challenge
One major challenge marketers must overcome relates to the warming climate. Last year was characterised by extreme weather events, political hesitation around climate action, and figures suggesting the world was not moving fast enough if it wished to avert climate disaster. The year finished as the hottest on record. Businesses are seen to play an outsize role in this conversation, and face the challenge of taking the right action and then communicating well around it.
In this respect, many are struggling. A Business Matters report from summer last year revealed that one in five businesses had admitted to greenwashing, with half of those polled saying their sustainability efforts were failing. One notes the use of ‘admit’ in the headline: the real figure could be much higher. With the introduction of worldwide climate legislation, such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which has extra-territorial scope, mis-reporting or under-reporting one’s sustainability successes will be out in the open. More and more, this legislation has teeth: businesses face not just a blow to their reputation but hefty fines.
‘I would say that there are best practices around greenwashing, how to write content and so on and so forth,’ says Aline Lemone. But there are really two questions: not just about how to write and promote content but what the company is actually doing.’
Some companies have an advantage in this area. Others are sticking with practices brought on by the pandemic to keep their carbon footprint small. ‘We are a software company so we are not producing hardware assets that need to be scrapped,’ says Ian Ferguson. We are a “remote-first” company so we are sizing office resources to accommodate this shift and prioritising accommodation that is energy efficient. Unlike other companies that seem to be on a return-to-office path, we remain steadfast in the belief that remote work is the most effective approach for customers, the company and our employees.’
Increasingly, younger customers are driving the green agenda and pushing businesses to take action and report the effects honestly. ‘I think there's gonna be increasingly a problem with a much more tuned-in younger population who are getting more and more active in this area,’ Omer says. Marketers are going to need to show what they’re doing and prove it.’ After numerous scandals and instances of ‘greenwashing’ scepticism, especially among the young, abounds. ‘We need to give concrete examples,’ he says. ‘What are your numbers? What are your stats? We need to give examples and demonstrate that we’re doing the stuff we’re talking about, rather than just commenting on general ESG-related issues, or saying “We want renewable energy”, or “We'd like to do this.”’
Are marketers doing enough? Scott Horn thinks the current discussions have got it backwards. ‘I may be unusual here, but I think most marketing teams go overboard on ESG, including sustainability. A customer has never called me up and said, Yeah, I'm gonna go buy your product because I think you do such a good job on sustainability.’ But the commercial context matters. ‘In consumer goods, sustainability can be a potential differentiator,’ he says. ‘Gen Z and Millennials want to know that the sneakers they’re buying are produced sustainably. I think in the tech space, you've got to be aligned with sustainability, not egregiously bad at it. But I don't think it's a differentiator.’
