Moving Beyond Knee-Jerk Green

There’s no bigger story emerging in marketing right now than the sustainability story. As consumers and brands alike are becoming more attuned to it, there’s a very important insight that no brand or marketing professional can afford to miss: for consumers, sustainability isn’t just "green."

What we’re seeing right now is a lot of what I call "knee-jerk green marketing" and it’s a big mistake. Companies are jumping on the green bandwagon because they think that’s the only way to get on the sustainability wave. What’s dangerous is that it’s leading to a lack of authenticity because it’s often done indiscriminately and without rigor. When brands make vague, philosophical claims about their pro-environment values, but don’t support them with specific, observable actions, it diminishes the eco story for everyone and begins to spark a backlash. Consumers are seeing the same colors, fonts, language, and imagery (lots of Earth images, smiling babies, trees, and so on) used across multiple categories, from hotels to food to packaged goods to fashion, and it’s not ringing true.

They’re hearing warm and fuzzy statements about how much a company cares—and occasionally, misleading claims about what steps they’re taking to be planet protectors—and their b.s. detectors are on alert.  In fact, magazine recently reported on a survey that showed four out of five Britons suspect companies are getting away with "green murder"—exploiting environmental concerns to make them look good, and the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK is receiving an increasing number of complaints about it.

The Bigger Picture

What’s happening is simple: brands that haven’t taken an in-depth look at what sustainability actually means think that "green" is the sustainability story they need to be talking about, and they are rushing into something that isn’t right for them. Often, they are totally missing their own, brand-specific sustainability story, one that can powerfully express real actions and real values around other facets of sustainability.

Helping brands to understand this is what our company, Ci, specializes in. A year and a half ago we set out to conduct our own in-depth primary research into mainstream North Americans’ attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs around sustainability, and specifically the impact that had on lifestyle choices, brand relationships, and purchase decisions. What we discovered, and subsequently revealed in Ci’s proprietary market intelligence tool — The SHIFT Report™ — is that the conversations going on in boardrooms and NGOs, heavily weighted toward the green angle of environmental sustainability, didn’t capture the full picture. There is, in fact, a much broader relationship at the mainstream level to the concept of sustainability — a term that we at Ci sum up as "meeting our current needs without screwing up the potential for the future generations to meet theirs."

First Me, then the Planet

When asked about their lives in deliberately open-ended ways, North Americans expressed concern about feeling disconnected from their community, missing out on quality time with their families, not being healthy, feeling stressed by their lifestyles, noticing themselves and the world at large tipping out of balance. Whilst voicing worries for Mother Earth, they are also defining new categories of concern under the umbrella of sustainability that were more personal and social in nature. "How can we look after the environment if we can’t look after

ourselves?" they asked. They had concerns about the way workers at companies were treated, and thought about the impact of the goods and services they used on other people. And they were starting to redefine success.

After talking to mainstream Americans and Canadians, we found that green or eco-related concerns fill up just one quarter of the sustainability matrix. Our research showed there were four areas where people articulated their ideas and ideals around social responsibility and sustainability: personal, social, environmental, and spiritual sustainability. We call them the Four Pillars of Sustainability™. Whilst this insight may seem to complicate the challenge of marketing sustainability, it actually opens the door for much more opportunity to communicate, when properly understood in relation to a brand.

Right now, the emphasis is on the green story. But in twelve months or so, we’re going to see much more communication around personal and social sustainability. This incorporates subjects like buying local, supporting small businesses, and navigating the desire for nurtured relationships—tending to our own health and to the best interests of our families, friends, and communities—while also purchasing both necessary and luxury material possessions. There’s a tremendous opening for conversation because people are actually asking companies, "Help me to be a better consumer." They want to co-create their experience with products and services. The challenge for brands that engage in this will be, "How can we represent nurturing relationships and also sell the things we need to sell?"

The four pillars are all connected, of course. You can’t separate them, but just as you can choose to shine a spotlight on one pillar of four that hold up a building, you can spotlight the sustainability pillar that’s most appropriate to your brand. You do need to have your ducks in a row to some extent—promoting a message of spiritual sustainability whilst abusing workers in the Indian subcontinent is not going to fly. But what’s important to know is that consumers aren’t expecting companies to be perfect angels. They want to see they’re making effort, taking steps, and if that’s communicated honestly—this may be sharing what you want to improve about your brand next in specific and truthful language—then that’s the key.

Opportunity for Thought Leadership

Thought leaders are already emerging in this personal and social sustainability field. Our client KEEN footwear has created a "hybrid life" message that targets other areas of sustainability.

Dwell magazine is establishing itself as a brand that unmistakably has green interests as a foundational pillar, but is heavily committed to the idea of community, inter-personal connection, and building a purposeful life. Nike, another Ci client, believes that being a thought leader in this field serves them in many ways, not least by reflecting their commitment to innovation. Which highlights the fact that this cultural shift toward sustainability as a broad and multi-dimensional concern is raising the bar for creativity and innovation in marketing. It’s asking, "Are you a leader or are you a follower?" ‘Are you going to reflect true consumer and cultural insight, or are you just greenwashing?’

We have just wrapped our latest round of research —a segmentation study of 5,000 people across North America that allows us to determine the specific relationship different segments of the general population have with sustainability, social responsibility, and retail and media brands. The findings are extraordinary. People care about the environment — 58.37 percent of respondents ranked global warming as an important issue — but more people care about personal and social issues. As many as 88.75 percent of North Americans polled ranked a balanced life as an important sustainability issue.

"Organic products" is a sustainability issue, but only 29 percent ranked it as an important sustainability issue. In contrast, "Contributing to one’s real world community" ranked far higher, as did as "Supporting local businesses". Seventy-two percent of people said they wanted to know about the socially responsible behavior of brands; 71 percent of North Americans are looking for companies to exceed expectations and go beyond what is required of companies by law and governmental regulations.  - Source - The Shift Report 2008.

When faced with a massive sea of green and pressure from all sides to craft a sustainability message, it’s pivotal that a brand examines its relationship to these four pillars in order to understand what sustainability is to their organization, rather than simply responding or reacting to what everyone else is putting out there. "Public opinion", as Warren Buffett said, "is no substitute for thought." We’ve worked with U.S. and Canadian brands of all sizes to help them do this thinking and we are sticklers for this process. Brands who engage in the knee-jerk green reaction are taking a risk of alienating or turning off consumers over the long term in order to grab a short-term spike in sales. What we tell them is that with a little introspection and strategic thinking, they could be cultivating something far richer and, yes, far more sustainable, for themselves.

*Footnotes