In recent years, consumers have been increasingly prioritizing environmental and natural ecosystem conservation. Several industries, including agriculture, transportation, and energy, have made it a top priority. But sustainability also plays a huge role in marketing. This is referred to as sustainable marketing. To be precise, marketing takes into consideration the three key pillars of sustainable development: society, the environment, and the economy.
So, let us spend some time on understanding sustainable marketing. What is sustainable marketing, and why is it important? What are the advantages of implementing sustainable marketing strategies? We will also look at various examples of sustainable marketing implementation.
Table of Contents
What is Sustainable Marketing?
Sustainability in marketing initiatives has more or less been absent for the previous 50 years. Although this may a bit exaggerated, we can definitely say that sustainability has not played a leading role in marketing strategies in the past. Therefore, the term “sustainable marketing” appears counter-intuitive to many practitioners. As a (recent) example, we are all aware of “greenwashing” and its negative impact on customer behavior as well as the reputation of the firms that engage in it.
Sustainable Marketing is attempts to change this with the goal of promoting socially responsible products, services, and practices – in short, making the world a better place.
Another goal of sustainable marketing is to provide full and clear information to consumers, instead of luring them into marketing lies. Clearly, it is best not to hide information in the age of the Internet. Indeed, the volume of news is so dense that it is riskier to try to mislead than to disclose the truth about a product’s flaws. In the communication and economic world, this style of communication via honesty and openness is likely to be enforced more by need than conviction.
To break it down, we can say that sustainable marketing has four primary goals:
- More ethical marketing
- More responsible marketing
- More environmentally conscious marketing or promotion of more environmentally responsible products
- More truthful and honest marketing
Companies should use all of these environmental measures to establish sustainable marketing plans. There are also ecological professions that provide training in sustainable marketing.
Why Sustainable Marketing?
Consumers are more and more inclined to pay attention to their consumption, both in terms of energy consumption and the environmental footprint of products they use every day. Implementing a sustainable marketing campaign allows to follow this trend and at the same time fulfill consumer demands.
Furthermore, society and the economic sector have (finally) acknowledged environment as a critical component of success. Nearly all enterprises, like during the digital transformation of the 2000s, are on their way to a green revolution. The growing importance of ecology raises complicated challenges that must be thoroughly investigated.
As a result of this shift, “green occupations” are no longer restricted to “horticulturist” or “forest ranger”, but include a wide spectrum of new professions that value ecology.
Advantages of Using Sustainable Marketing
Implementing sustainable marketing strategies in your firm is usually in your best interests. There is a number of advantages to using sustainable marketing practices – let’s go through some of them in more detail.
Differentiate yourself from the rest. One of the most powerful ways to set yourself apart from your key rivals is to implement a social and environmental marketing strategy. Focus on the labels and certifications you have to to demonstrate your sustainable marketing techniques to customers. With the ever growing attention of consumers to sustainability, this strategy will ensure that you can meet consumer demands now and in the future.
Improve your company’s reputation. Implementing a sustainability-focused long-term marketing plan is a great way to improve your company’s reputation. Consumers value environmentally conscious practices – a trend which is going to continue. Try to achieve a positioning in consumers’ minds as a company that pays attention to the environment to benefit.
Ensure the survival of your company. Maintaining a sustainable strategy is a growth lever for your organization. This is true on all levels, financial as well as economic. Your may safeguard the life of your organization by emphasizing ideals connected to the planet’s sustainable growth. Set up an effective CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policy to keep your organization in the limelight.
Challenges of Sustainable Marketing
Adopting sustainability, like many other projects, comes with risks. Some of these are applicable to any organization or group. Here are a few issues that marketers frequently face.
Lack of appreciation or knowledge of the benefits of sustainability by corporate executives, customers, and other stakeholders. Marketers must understand their positions as sustainability pioneers in this scenario. Sustainability education should not be a one-time event; rather, it should be an ongoing effort. Data on sustainable marketing strategies and projects should be constantly examined, simplified, and communicated.
Significant initial losses can arise, particularly when organizations push headfirst into green projects without sufficient testing. This happens from time to time in an attempt to attract customers. Marketers are frequently forced to cope with the consequences of such losses. A solution: Just like conventional marketing efforts, sustainable marketing ideas should be tested before they are implemented. Because of the delicate nature of sustainability, testing is even more crucial. People may have negative connotations with sustainability, assuming that if a corporation focuses on sustainability, quality might suffer. Companies may address this by highlighting that quality and sustainability do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Reputational damage may result from carelessly implementing sustainable marketing. You may recall Volkswagen’s Clean Diesel. Volkswagen had launched an ad campaign to disprove the notion that diesel was terrible for the environment; the business claimed to employ a technology that allowed diesel engines to produce less pollutants. The German automaker was found to have used extremely sophisticated software to cheat in emissions testing, resulting in a $14.7 billion penalty — and significant reputational damage. The lesson: Make sure your assertions have a solid foundation. Everything else is Greenwashing.
How Can Marketers implement Sustainable Marketing Strategies?
To an outsider, implementing sustainable marketing may appear easy. However, charging a marketer with implementing sustainable practices is much more cumbersome than you might expect. If you’ve ever been in an executive meeting with managers and CEOs eager to hear how much money you made in the previous quarter, you’ll understand that practicing sustainable marketing often takes a second seat.
As a result, sustainable marketing should be implemented in small increments. Marketers can’t always entirely shift an organization’s course in one single swoop, but there are methods we can use to lead businesses toward sustainable marketing. Let’s examine a few examples of sustainable marketing implementation.
Product Development
Marketers may collaborate with product developers and other key decision-makers to achieve long-term viability and profitability in the new product development process (NPD). Sustainability can be addressed at every level of the product development process, from the initial idea through the procurement of raw materials to packaging concerns.
The challenges aren’t always straightforward. Some measurements may make a product appear “green”, but it may not be genuinely required or sustainable. Consumption of food in recycled plastic clamshells rather than without any packaging is one example. The product life cycle must be considered in terms of both environmental and social implications.
The Overarching Strategy
The focus of the overarching marketing strategy becomes crucial when a firm is ready to adopt sustainability. Planned obsolescence, unsustainable packaging, and rapid fashion are all direct results of marketing practices that are purely focused on capitalism and profit.
The use of nudges, or subtle behavioral cues, is a tried-and-true marketing tactic. For example, researches discovered that hotel restaurants that used “simple and nonintrusive ‘nudges’” like lowering dish size and displaying trash notices decreased food waste by roughly 20%.
Marketers may assist create a win-win situation for businesses and customers by developing strategies that minimize waste and operating expenses while also embracing sustainability.
Advertisement and Branding
One of the most effective tools a marketer has is branding or brand messaging. Consider a future in which marketers use their superpowers as consumption influencers to develop branding and messaging that encourages customers to make more sustainable purchasing decisions.
One of the most interesting aspects of being a marketer is observing how the marketing techniques in which you were involved affect user behavior and build new consuming cultures. Exploring strategies to encourage more sustainable cultural behaviors through marketing communications is a great location to start practicing sustainable marketing.
Establishing Partnerships
Businesses are realizing that sustainability is not a one-size-fits-all problem.
Businesses must build sustainability-focused partnerships in order to have a noticeable effect. One of the most notable collaborations is between the superstore chains Target and Walmart, as well as 16 other merchants, to discover a solution to sustainable personal care. They worked on developing a uniform product rating system to evaluate sustainability in order to solve issues such as the absence of a clear definition or any regulation. Similarly, the Sustainable Apparel Coalition created the Higg Index as a systematic approach to quantify fashion sustainability.
Businesses are also interested in the possibility of collaboration on a smaller scale – at the departmental level. Collaboration between marketing divisions inside firms should be promoted in terms of sustainability. It’s past time to move beyond the greenwashing race of whose business employs the most “green phrases” in their advertisements to create genuine effect.
Public Awareness & Education
Marketers educate people about sustainability. Every meeting with managers/CEOs, as well as every marketing communications planning session, is a chance to educate on sustainability. We need to be more deliberate about our involvement in environmental education.
We play a crucial role in changing branding and advertising toward more sustainable messages for customers. We may use research to highlight how being a sustainable firm benefits the bottoms line. Given that most business leaders and stakeholders are primarily concerned with profit, it is our responsibility as marketers to demonstrate how applying sustainable practices may boost corporate revenues and result in a longer product and business life cycle.
Final Thoughts
The core of sustainable marketing is to present your company as an active participant in a societal or environmental issue. It may personalize your brand communications and provide consumers with another incentive to select you over your competitors. However, do not underestimate the effort and time required to implement sustainable marketing strategies. These aren’t just ‘buzzwords’ or ‘hot subjects’; they’re initiatives aimed at lowering carbon emissions, boosting recyclable materials, and creating opportunities for future generations. Is your company prepared to put its money where its mouth is?
