The marketing industry can play a key role in averting the climate crisis according to a report from the World Federation of Advertisers.
It has produced a report, Sustainable Marketing 2030, in collaboration with the Kantar Sustainable Transformation Practice, calling for marketers to place sustainability at the heart of what they do both for the good of the planet and the brands that they work for.
It outlines five key levers to achieving a core sustainable approach to marketing: putting sustainability first; striving for radical innovation by seeing sustainability as a strategic transformation opportunity rather than a tactical move; fostering transformative partnerships rather than transaction based relationships; use creativity to deliver action and redefine the value that can be delivered away from a purely financial measure.
“Marketing needs to take bolder more transformative actions if it is to realise its role and responsibility in helping to solve the climate crisis,” the report states. Marketing in any organisation is well placed to drive the action that needs to be taken it explains, either through internal communication or by telling the sustainability story for a brand.
The report points out how sustainability is becoming more important, if not yet at the highest priority, compared to a previous report in 2021. Sustainability is now a KPI for 43% of brands compared to 26% in 2021 and 40% say their company has a good sustainability story to communicate, compared to 25% previously. More importantly, 47% say that their business are ready to stop buying products or services that have a negative impact on the environment.
The brands, it says, need to adopt sustainability across all areas of business avoiding placing it in a silo; marketing needs to commit to a transformational innovation of how it operates; collaboration internally and with external suppliers is key to this; greenwash needs to be avoided with sustainable behaviour made the norm and measures to assess value not profit should be in place.
Brands need to respond and adopt circular economy principles starting from the top and not just in the production phase. As an example the report looks at packaging. The path starts with the material choice, the design, the manufacturing shipping and use and then after use, collection and recycling. Each point needs to be considered fully. The aim is to change traditional mindsets and to design out waste with any claims made on the full lifecycle of a product whenever possible to guard against allegations of greenwash.
There are no stated goals for carbon reduction, this being left to individual companies and brands, but the report concludes: “By equipping readers with the knowledge in this report, we hope to empower marketers within and beyond WFA membership to engage in meaningful internal and external conversations to drive positive change for both their business and the planet.”
