 The webinar will begin shortly. Please remain on the line. The webinar will begin shortly. Please remain on the line. The broadcast is now starting. All attendees are in listen-only mode. Thank you for joining this live Q&A session on sustainable marketing. Today we will be asking Gemma Butler, author of Sustainable Marketing, How to Drive Profits with Purpose, founder of Can Marketing, Save the Planet and CIM course director, your top questions around sustainable marketing. We've already had some fantastic questions submitted, so I'll start by asking these, but please do continue to send those in using the questions tab on your control panel, and we will try to get through as many as we can in 30 minutes. So, Gemma, to kick us off, can you please give some specific examples of companies that have successfully implemented sustainable marketing strategies? So I think, to start with, there's definitely the social impact companies, which is my go-to, so the likes of Tony's Chocoloni, who gives a crap, Olio, too good to go, all of those ones swell in the USA. They have the benefit of starting out with a do-no-harm ethos, so that is absolutely, they're not reverse engineering everything, but they're definitely leading the charge, and I think they are the place that I always go to when looking at the language they use, how they set things out, the tone of voice they use, they seem to focus on one thing, or two things, and do it really, really well. And then from a big brand perspective, you've got organizations like Natura, who own Avon and Body Shop, who have really strong sustainable agendas, and I think your communication naturally will flow from having a strong and transparent and real sustainable agenda. And then there's IKEA, who are always innovating, but I think it's important to note that given the breadth and the complexity of sustainability, you can't do everything right. And a lot of brands are not talking about it because they feel like they should be doing everything, and a lot of brands aren't talking about it because they're doing nothing. So I think, you know, right now if we're going to make progress, then we need to start talking about it, and that's about talking about the good and the bad, and the successes and the failures and the progress we're making. So I think there's a real mix out there. I don't think anybody's nailed it completely utterly, but then there is no 100% way of being sustainable. It's not possible. Right, some really good examples there. Thank you. And how do you think some of those companies or how can marketers balance the need for profits with the need for sustainability? That's the million dollar question. One I ask all our podcast guests is how do you balance it? And I think, you know, first thing I'd say here is we don't have a choice. Given where we're heading, we actually, we don't have a choice in terms of needing to create that balance between people, planet and profit. So, you know, I think sustainable marketing is about sort of rethinking marketing. It's about looking at what we do instead of just selling people stuff. And, you know, how do you use your voice to inform and educate and tell that bigger, broader story. And I think, you know, people want to engage with brands with serious sustainable agendas. There is evidence everywhere around that, you know, the external pressures are growing from investors, from consumers and from people who want to work for these organisations who are taking it seriously. So, we need to look outside of selling things to areas such as the circular economy, wrapping services around our products. Sustainability doesn't mean we can't grow, you know, it's just we have to grow in a different way and I think that's really exciting. So, you know, I would say we do have to balance it and if you think about it until now, the focus has purely been a profit but profit at any cost and that is a real tell tell sign. Certainly in the global North countries because the levels of waste are so incredibly high. So, we are overselling, we are over consuming and, you know, and we're losing resources as a result. So, there is absolutely an opportunity to have that balance and still grow and create sustainable markets that continue long into the future, which are currently at the base we're going, they're not going to. Great. And what do you think are some of the common misconceptions around sustainable marketing? It's about telling people that they're not allowed to do something or they can't have something and I don't, you know, that isn't the case at all. I personally think that sustainability is making marketing exciting again. You know, we've all been chucked into this void of digital where, you know, we focus on features and benefits and we break up all of our story into tiny bite-sized messages and throw them onto platforms and, you know, hope and pray that somebody sees them whereas sustainable marketing is, you know, telling a different story. It's about, you know, the circular economy has four and a half trillion dollars according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation of Opportunity behind it and that's about getting people to change their behaviors and to get people to change their mindset and behaviors you have to tell a story and you can bring in social marketing and cause marketing and then there's partnerships and collaboration around it and that's really exciting stuff if, you know, if you're a marketer who wants to be able to do that and be innovative and build those stories and communicate, you know, we have a massive communication challenge when it comes to sustainability probably the biggest challenge around it and so, yeah, I think it's definitely not about having less people telling people that they can't do something. I think we really need to shift that mindset away from that and move to working as an industry together if industries work together we will drive change faster as well think about, you know, electric e-vehicles and the green economy so, yeah, I think collaborative advantage over competitive advantage as well moving forward. Great, thank you and obviously you mentioned some sort of bigger names in sustainability and examples earlier but how could you recommend that smaller companies with perhaps limited resource or start-ups still make meaningful strides towards sustainability? So, I think, you know, a lot of small organisations are looking at it as they're probably very overwhelmed with the sheer breadth and complexity of the subject I think just starting making a decision to start is that first step I would say my advice would be to go out and look at how you can work out your scope one, two and three emissions. If you don't know those baseline numbers then how are you ever going to move forward from that. There's a great website called Small99 which is run by a guy called Adam Bastock he specialises in helping SMEs start that journey. There's some brilliant resources on there I would say do some carbon literacy training you know, we train on carbon literacy with the CIM and that gives you a real base foundation to understand what is actually happening and why we do need to move that forward and I think all that base knowledge means that you can absolutely move forward from there. It doesn't have to be expensive and resource heavy and I think, again, don't think you have to change absolutely everything start with your emissions, start with a plan on how you're going to take your emissions down or how you're going to manage your emissions and then go from there and just keep reading it, you know you'll see things and once you see them you can't unsee them. The Beacore website has some great resources on there about the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how you can align your business to that. There's a free impact assessment tool on there so there's lots and lots of resources out there that are free and open source, a camera we've got our learning zone with you can do that for free, it's all free open source content on there. I'd say just start taking an interest in understanding it and your journey will naturally evolve from there. Really great tips there, thank you. On the other side, what role do consumers play in driving sustainable marketing efforts? Massive role. We're all people aren't we? We're all consumers as well as marketers and we have to change our behaviours and we have to engage and be open to engage. How we eat, how we heat our homes, our energy and how we travel are three huge areas where we need to make change and I think in the grand scheme of things we do need governments, we do need policy and systems change but governments aren't going to be able to they're not going to do this, in my view they're not going to change this for us, they're not going to get us on the right track business plays a huge role and being a catalyst but then you have this have society and communities and consumers and citizens or whatever you want to call people and they have a huge role to play because it's only by it's like any marketing it's only by people engaging with it that it's deemed as successful and I think we need to look at you know how we measure social impact as marketers and that is you know instead of moving instead of looking at how many things you can sell and the growth and the revenue that come from that which are all very important we also need to be looking at you know what are our audience doing, what are our communities doing, how are we building communities how are we measuring the success within the communities and if you take an example like Olio which was started as a food sharing app over lockdown it's part of now one of the biggest drives of the sharing economy that then moved into beyond food into other things that people share and you know it created big communities in lockdown and when we interviewed Tessa Clark the founder of Olio she was talking about the fact that whilst they started out as solving a food waste problem they ended up solving a loneliness problem over 2021 during the pandemic so you know in 2020 so it really was something that has grown and then they have advocates within and then a lot of their communities do the work for them you know and that whole piece around word of mouth marketing as people talk about it and share it I think is really really important so yeah we absolutely have to get this isn't about transactional relationships where people come in by something and go away you may not hear from them for a long time this is about constant ongoing conversation as opposed to broadcast and I think we really need to change our mindsets and start thinking about that broadcast piece and saying right what do we need to have a conversation about and what do we want to hear from people back so I think they play a huge role great thank you and how would you say a company could start sharing their you know sustainable practices or achievements you know on their website or on social and what's the best place to start doing that so I think so there's a couple of things from it for an internal perspective as marketers as a marketing function we do need to be mindful of our own carbon footprints so you know I think there will come a time where there will be carbon budgets some organisations are really running on carbon budgets exactly like finance budgets so you know each each function is allocated a carbon budget and if it goes over how does it does it borrow from another function does it move it into next year so all of that is starting to we're starting to see that in some organisations and I think so marketers need to be aware of their carbon footprints generally but also in terms of sharing it I think you can use all of the channels you use today I think there's some great examples all birds which is the shoe manufacturer you know go and have a look at their Instagram page and how they mix talking about their products with talking about their carbon footprint with how they're talking about how their sustainable progress how they're talking about their sustainable agenda and how they bring their customers back in to talk about using focus groups to find out what they're thinking and all birds did they recently launched the first net zero shoe carbon neutral shoe the moonshot and you know they created an online brochure within that and on every single page in everything on every single section sorry at the end of every section they have a what we need you to do which was pulled out from there and you know so that took their consumers through an absolute journey of sustainability probably without them thinking oh god this is about sustainability and it goes way over my head and I can't you know I don't understand it it's a really really great example and also their social channel so I think it's about having not just you know product services we sell this you buy this do that you know you can build that storyboard and everything is just is a story that you're gonna tell and it's how you tell it so I would say you know you can use all of your all of your current channels that you use today we need to start thinking about how we talk about them on what we say and purpose disruptors for anyone who hasn't heard go and look at the Purpose Disruptors website they talk about advertised emissions and they really focus on advertising and the carbon footprint around that but also what's being said and you know they're raising some massive challenges to things like the car industry the vehicle industry where you know saying they shouldn't just be talking about selling e-vehicles because if we just sell green products at the same rate we're selling other products it's substitution you know we do have to consume less so they're really driving that as an industry they start talking about mobility as a whole you know other types of e-vehicles let's talk about public transport let's talk about walking and I think that big industry voice behind things as well is really really critical for driving change Fantastic thank you and you briefly mentioned B Corp earlier but for those who might be watching you might not be aware of B Corp what it is how important it is for companies or how you could sort of get into that and become a B Corp and could you just give us an explanation on that Yeah sure so B Corp is a is a movement and it's really setting the standards for how businesses need to operate moving forward and they place a real focus on people, planet and profit and I believe from people I know that have been through the B Corp journey it currently takes around up to two years to do I don't know what it costs but they do have a free assessment on their website that you can go in and you can put in some initial information I think it takes about half an hour and it will give you some results of some areas that you need to look at and consider before you go into the process it's a lengthy process it's a process that really opens your eyes I think just going through it the organisations and the people I know who have done it said it's probably one of the biggest and most interesting learning curves that they've been on and you know B Corp is in the UK it's the fastest growing movement so B Corp has been most successful in the UK even though it originated in the US but it has a kind of stamp of approval and you know Brew Dog were a B Corp they had their B Corp removed when that open letter and everything came out about them there's been some controversy about some of the organisations they've let in there is always going to be but I think you know from a perspective of a recognised organisation with that stamp of approval on it and you have to redo it and prove it every year I think you know that is a great way to signal to people that you are serious about this and that you are doing what you say you're doing which is you know unfortunately there's a lot of businesses who aren't doing what they say they're doing which is where greenwashing has become such a prolific issue but in 2024 onwards you know we're going to see mandatory reporting around sustainability the regulations and guidelines are only getting to get tighter and tighter and so you know these regulations and reporting changes are happening at pace where it takes like 5-10 years to get these things through they're moving at like 18 months to shift the dial and you know usually as marketers we think well that's for the legal department to deal with sustainability department or the finance department it's not you know how we talk about things can have huge impacts as well so there's a lot of changes in the horizon that businesses will be forced down certain roads and I think you know the more awareness out there of that is that people will start to make decisions based on that as well so yeah I'd say everyone needs to take it very seriously yeah absolutely and what are some of the you know the biggest regulations that are coming up you know soon new ones that marketers might need to be aware of or do some research on which I still talk to to go into organisations and talk to rooms from the CMOs who have not yet heard of the green claims code which is I get I speak from a place where I live and breathe this stuff every day you know it's that whole knowledge is a curse type thing but you know you don't know CIM from when I was there has done quite a lot around the green claims coding and highlighting it but you know there is a green claims code there is the digital bill coming the new digital and consumer bill evolution coming they're expecting it to be in play and we'll talk more about this on the webinar in the end of this year but the biggest change there is going to be currently the competition markets authority have to take organisations to call which can take you know up to two years to get cases seeing this bill is suggesting that they give them the power to make consistent decisions pretty much they don't have to go through the courts and the ability to find directly and you know that's a massive step change and whilst greenwashing isn't explicitly part of that bill that bill is around protecting consumers on what they see from an advertising marketing perspective anything that would sway a consumer's decision to make a purchase if that's not going to be that much pushback on that and then from a European perspective there's the EU green claims directive which is currently being supported by all 27 member states and you know that's going to come into play in the next 18 months as those member states adopt that and take that into law and again that is really tightening up those essentially those six key principles of the green claims code from studying most European countries and the USA and Australia and everything the principles are the principles around greenwashing and avoiding it and making sure you can substantiate your claims and again it's not green it's not regulation for marketers it's regulation for business but the onus is everywhere I look is on marketers you know most of the guidelines are guidelines for marketers as the primary communicators of organisations so you know we have to be aware of what's happening we have to I'd say if you take the six principles of the green claims code if you go on the CMAs website you'll find the 13 point checklist that you need to go through that's a really really strong guide moving forward for what you should be aware of you know it's now no longer the legal department's role to do that because you're going to waste a lot of energy and efficiency if you just bought you know I speak of a lot of chief sustainability officers who say they've almost become a bottleneck in their organisation they've almost become a legal department for saying you can't do that and I'm working with quite a few of them at the moment saying that you know everybody needs to know this stuff so that you can keep generating and working as a business and not slowing things down great thank you so obviously we've mentioned greenwashing but there is a word that's been sort of floating around at the moment greenhushing what greenhushing is and yeah sure well there's a couple of say Planet Tracker describe greenhushing as how do they describe it they describe it as kind of hiding away green crowd there's so many terms right green crowding so hiding within a group and making sure that you stay hidden okay so you're not actually doing it greenhushing I think in this traditional sense and the organisations I'm working with that come to me to talk about how do we talk about our sustainability without being accused of greenwashing because we're hushing is a lot of organisations have retracted back into themselves and thought as regulations come in as fines start to become very real I'm just not going to talk about it which is a massive massive problem because when I interviewed Seth Godin he said the biggest thing we need to do to change it is to talk about it and to talk about it we have to understand it and I think that has really stayed with me because the knowledge levels are incredibly low around sustainability as a whole so organisations choosing not to talk about it for fear of being fined or being caught out for greenwashing absolutely I'm just going to keep that knowledge completely within and society won't understand it and then those that do talk about it it will be misconstrued as you're telling me not to do something or I don't understand why we're having to change what we're changing and I think we need that conversation out there we need that awareness out there so greenhushing if everybody stops talking about it is an issue and this is why transparency is so key don't just highlight the good you're doing if you know there's a lot of high impact stuff so talk about both of them and then at least you're being transparent about the whole thing and there's nothing wrong with saying we made mistakes or we're working on that over there Tony's Chocoloni they caught their whole ethos around stopping child labour within the cocoa industry they reviewed their supply chains and called themselves out for I think 1200 instances of child labour they found and then they corrected it and they put an entire process in place and published that process on how they were going to change that and rectify it moving forward as though it didn't happen again because these things are going to happen and we see this all over the place I think it's those organisations that pretend it's not happening and try and wrap it up in something else that will lead them into problems so yeah greenhushing there's so many terms out there I think it's just don't lie and be transparent about what you're doing and if you have an understanding you can raise the right questions and ask the right questions back to and greenwashing can come from anywhere it can come from your business it can come from investment if you're taking investment for all organisations that are essentially involved in things like deforestation it can come from hiding data in your reports and then leaving them out it can come from it manifests itself and again we talked about that in more detail moving forward at the webinar but it absolutely manifests in so many different ways it's just about being aware of it and I think that's the key for me the greenwashing piece and do you think it's possible to adopt sustainability at marketing level or does it need to come from the core of the organisation 100% the core otherwise if you don't have it built into your core then talking about it as a marketers you will be done for greenwashing because you'll be torn apart in terms of what sits the heart of your business there's also that huge piece around has to be the leaders of organisations have to believe in it and support it otherwise that direction isn't going to come through internally and your internal communications are just as important as your external communications so we have to put it in I totally accept working with big corporates they have to reverse into purpose into purpose and sustainability to a degree there's this whole element of processes will have to be changed mindsets will have to it feels like a massive all encompassing just can't deal with this right now but we don't have a choice and it all sounds incredibly dramatic but we're all seeing the effects of the weather anybody who looks at the weather across the world right now can see the wildfires in Canada and this is all the effects of climate change and there's some great podcasts out there a series called Outrage and Optimism and they recently had a guy on who is an expert in sustainable communication, sustainable marketing so I can't remember which episode it is but if you go on to Outrage and Optimism's website and just look at that one podcast with John Marshall suddenly you go right marketing has the biggest role of its life moving forward but it's also for me one of the most exciting times to be a marketer 100% I love the positivity and you mentioned Tony's Chocoloni and their issue with their suppliers and they sort of changed and is there a resource where businesses can find the most sustainable providers is there a resource where they can go and they can sort of audit all of their providers their packaging and everything and just I don't think there's a such resource I think this is where the knowledge comes in and we need to ask those questions and it's becoming all the organisations I interviewed for the podcast and the people there it's starting to be built into business so some organisations have processes in place now where they will not work with you if you don't know your scope 1, 2 or 3 emissions they will not work with you if you don't have a sustainable agenda so that domino effect of those processes being in place and you have to meet certain criteria or they'll even work with you is something that needs to keep happening because it will force businesses from the core and from the leadership perspective to make those changes so that's absolutely absolutely happening you won't even be considered for tenders if you don't have meet certain criteria moving forward and scope 1, 2, 3 emissions is coming in to that space and offsetting is something that you can't be considering doing that's a whole different world as well so yeah I think from that perspective there isn't a central place you can go I think it's about pulling that knowledge and then going these are bringing a policy or a process into your organisation that says these are some of the questions we should ask if we're going to be working with certain packaging investors are asking it they're asking to see scope 1, 2, 3 emissions commitments made to decarbonisation they're looking at what your human rights processes and policies are they're looking at what your water processes and policies are and your waste and your pollution and all of that these questions are all starting to being asked now and they're becoming quite business as usual so again all positive and great stuff it just we're going to have to put some effort in to actually start you know moving that that dial great thank you and I think unfortunately that is all we have time for today but as Gemma mentioned there will be a member exclusive webinar presented by Gemma taking place on the 26th of September this year so if you're a CIM member sign up to that and any questions that you sent in that didn't answer today we'll make sure that we answer in this session thank you so much for joining we really hope you found this session useful if you're not a CIM member but you're looking to learn more about sustainable marketing you can head to our website and download a copy of our new sustainability skills gap report which is designed to provide marketers with the latest thinking advice and research to help them with the sustainable marketing strategies and it's just a really useful resource so I definitely recommend going to download that so finally on behalf of CIM a big thank you to Gemma and everyone who attended today thank you Gemma thank you very much