 Welcome to the CIM Marketing Podcast. The contents and views expressed by individuals in the CIM Marketing Podcast are not necessarily those of the companies for which they work. Welcome to the first ever CIM Live Podcast. This is the 62nd episode of the CIM Marketing Podcast which started as pioneered by James Farrow who sat there back three years ago. And it's the final episode of the season. We always break over the summer holiday period and then return in September. So it's been three years. It's the end of the third season. There's some stats I think possibly flash upon there at some point which showed the great numbers we've had. It's been fantastic and we've been looking enough to get some absolutely fantastic guests with us over the three years. Certainly none better than the two we've got today to answer these questions about the secret of sustainable marketing. And with us today is Emily Stevenson, who is Head of Force for Good for Innocent UK, Innocent Drinks, a very big brand. She's going to be answering some interesting questions about the good, the bad and the ugly of sustainable marketing that she's experienced in her career. And Richard Cope, who's Senior Trends Consultant from Mintel. Looking into the nitty-gritty statistics behind sustainable marketing, what works and what doesn't, what do we need to know as marketers about what we need to do to improve consumer behaviour, individual behaviour to get the biggest impact. So Emily and Richard, welcome to you Steven. Thank you. It's great to have you here. Let's start with Paul. We asked our listeners and CIM members, what's your brand's biggest sustainability concern? A wide range of answers. Measuring and reporting got 25% as you may guess, it's never easy. This one probably won't surprise anyone. It's a perennial issue with all marketing, which is limited budgets and resource, 41%. It would be restricted by budget or resource. But 17% said the biggest problem was not knowing where to start sustainable marketing. And 17%, which is another non-trivial figure, said being accused of greenwashing. Emily Stephenson, how have you ever experienced being accused of greenwashing? Straight in. Straight in. I wanted to just explain my title before, but this is not a politician's answer. I will answer your question. But when I say I'm the head of force for goods, people generally look at me with weird eyes. And we say force for goods, the word comes from B Corp. I see lots of nods here. And if you're listening, just have a Google, if you don't know what B Corp is, that tries to have businesses as a force for goods. It does sound like I'm at Star Wars, so I appreciate quite that. But then our CEO's chief squeezer, so this is a bit of a heritage that I have. It encompasses ESG topics, so in the case of innocence, it's nutrition, sustainability, and our community projects. Anyway, that was the intro. I will now answer your question. And yes, I have directly been involved in quite a lot of work on greenwashing. We had an ad, this time last year, actually, that aired. It was an ad with a singing otter. It was a cartoon. The singing otter had a guitar, as I'm mimicking here, so you can imagine what a guitar is. And he sang, and quite naively, he sang, oh, together we're going to fix up the planet. And he used those words, and those words specifically, although it was in a context of aspiration, really led the ASA to say, actually, Innocent, who do you think you are? They didn't say quite like that, but really, how are you going to fix up the planet yourself? You sell lots of plastic bottles, and how can you justify, this is greenwashing. So it was a really interesting one. We worked a lot with them. And actually, on this one, we agreed to put our hand up to say, actually, we were probably quite naive for that ad. We took it down. We immediately worked with them. But all we didn't do is stop talking about it. We have a heritage. We have so much to talk about in sustainability. And I think it was a bit unfortunate that it came across with this otter, who was probably being a bit too wide in his claims. What we did do, straight after it, it's get back on the horse and have a new campaign, which is out at the moment, which is a bigger project called The Big Rewild, where we worked again with the ASA, all the tick boxes of all that you should be doing. So I'm quite happy to say that Innocent is still, sustainability is really at the heart of what we do, and how we execute it now is much more in line with what the principles of green marketing are. No, it was a deliberately provocative question to answer a serious issue for all marketers, which is the second part of this poll. What I was saying is that people don't know where to start. You start with it after you are doing interesting and important sustainability work, perhaps overstretched in that area, but you work back with the ASA to find the solution that did work. So from that learning, you're talking to the sustainability, the marketing industry generally, what is the best way of starting out on this journey? And it's a good point, because actually there's a point on comms, really with Innocent, it starts with the projects themselves and our commitments, whether it's in the areas of packaging, in the areas of climate change, in all the areas that concern our business, having some targets and understanding how you're going to meet them, and then talking about it. If you talk about it in a way that's going to resonate with your consumers, that is legal, not overstating, that's doing the right thing, then really it's not that hard, but you've probably got to start with the clay, then you work with how to make that. The finding from this is it may not be that hard, what she's learned and you know how, but the finding from this suggests that people find it hard, people are making mistakes in all companies who are trying to do this stuff, they're trying to get it right, they're trying to do the right thing, they're trying to make an impact, we'll talk about impact a little bit later on, but people are finding it hard, it's presenting to them as a challenge to see some mistakes when you've been in it. Well, I think building what Emily's talking about, we kind of need new lexicon I think, because we're all bogged down, you hear the phrase environmentally friendly, all of the time, right? How can a product be environmentally friendly? I mean it's obviously using resources to sort of get to that point, so I think we do need a new lexicon to know how we talk about things, I think some of the other mistakes I see a lot in strategies maybe, I think a lot of brands are letting this become a consumer-led issue, and what I mean by that is rather than take the effort or respect their customers enough to educate them on what the real issues are, they're happy to go with the flow sometimes. So if I look at the amount of brands just being completely fixated on plastic-free, whether or not plastic-free might have a lower environment to put print than the alternatives, compared with a brand like Patagonia, which I think 12 years ago now they weren't afraid to sort of act on customer feedback and say why does my Patagonia jacket arrive in a plastic bag and they respected their customers enough to explain why, because if they didn't use a plastic bag that goods was going to get damaged and the environmental impact of that jacket being wasted is starving the plastic, but not enough brands are ready to do that. So this is really interesting is that instead of accepting consumer feedback as red brands have got to challenge it sometimes and say actually the trade-off by doing what you've just suggested is worse than doing what we're currently doing. Yes, so it's about all of these companies, they know where their footprint is, right? They know it's going to be energy rather than just pure and narrow focus on packaging even if we include the energy aspect of packaging. But very rarely brands are sort of having that conversation. I think the low hanging through is to do something which for a lot of brands might be less impactful in terms of their emissions, probably less impactful on their bottom line and that's the easier conversation to have. So I think being brave enough to say no that's not the main issue, the main issue is it and that's where we're at and that's why we're doing this. It's going to be brand led, not consumer led to some degree. It's quite interesting because obviously we want to have our consumers at the heart and we do resonates with them. But if we take the subject of plastic just now people are going to talk about what they see, what they touch, what they feel and that's naturally packaging in our case in any case. We have mapped the carbon footprint of, we say from cradle to grave of our products from the moment the bananas and oranges are grown on the trees to the moment that packaging is disposed of in a recycling bin. And actually a lot of our emissions come from the beginning of the journey which is much more difficult for people to conceive. So we have done quite a lot of work to educate. Yes there is a carbon footprint there's an impact with packaging but actually it's how it's grown, how much water you use, how you work with your farmers what kind of lorries used to transport how you cut the fruit that is also really important but it's harder for people to get the head around because they want to also be able to do something and they feel a bit more powerless with it. It's the beginning of the journey. Can we just build on plastic a little bit? Yeah I think it's interesting I mean when I did the research of Intel Plastic Pollution came out of the number through environmental concern and sometimes colleagues from other countries sneered and said don't they realise that's not that big an issue but I think we have to think about you know why it's such a big issue for consumers it's a lot of what Emily's talking about it's the interface it's where people feel engaged with the issue where they feel there's some responsibility and of course it's so visual we see it all around us so I think the lesson, the insight really for me is you have to make the solutions resonate in the way the problems resonate if possible that's the goal of it And could she just find some of those solutions a bit too esoteric to grasp was that the problem? And it's not a simple yes or no you've got to be aware of all the unintended consequences of for example changing your packaging or having a quick solution I often say sustainability might be green but it's never black or white and people in this world want a yes or no good or bad it's much more complex than that and you need to have their attention for a certain number of seconds and minutes to really explain the complexity around the issues. So what's the key then when you've got a complex sustainable marketing solution and what I mean by that is one that's not immediately obvious the plastic thing is obvious I've got this single used plastic I've just shipped it away I don't know if it's going to be recycled or not I know I can see that as bad but there may be bigger issues or there's a trade somewhere when you've got a complex sustainable distribution your tests, your data you know it works how do you sell that and communicate that to consumers an easy way that they can understand and that's where you bring back the topics which they care about so I'm going to plug in our latest project which is called the big rewild the subject of rewilding is really complicated when you go into deforestation when you talk about carbon carbon however what we know resonates with people is nature and local projects we've taken we've done lots of work working to understand what's important for people and how can we use that as a way to then communicate bigger issues that are impactful for us so we're not going to give us the detail the detail of all our carbon footprint however protecting nature around you and in our cases orchards in the UK where people feel close to you get them in through that and then you talk about more complex topics and going even further sometimes for us you get them in sometimes with jokes and humour a human way of talking and then you can get to more serious because you don't want to be a depression session either I completely agree with that I mean nowadays we show that people do find statistics depressing so the old adage of selling the says or not sausage definitely comes through people don't want to see that I think soft peddling the sustainable element which is seriously considered because everyone here probably understands the kind of maxim what value quality these things are always going to come for sustainability and I think sometimes that gets forgotten I think the brand that's impressed me most in a completely different section last year is Backmarket in terms of their they did their freedom campaign last year which was all about not lining up like sheet by the new Apple or Samsung product instead being individual doing something better with your time like pushing the individuality button really soft peddling the sustainability aspect and they're doing the same thing now you know they're pushing the money you're going to save by getting their product and downplaying the sustainable elements I think that's really important as well well that's an interesting point there isn't it because there is you know at the start we were talking about greenwashing and the sort of attendant risk the occupational hazard if you like of being seen to be greenwashing even though sometimes you're not greenwashing you know you work with brands Richard and you are a brand which has sustainability it's four foot it's part of it it's part of it's brand it's probably part of it's ethos but if you're not one of those brands if you're a brand that has never made any sustainability claims yet you are doing good things how do you say that without risking that you will be accused of greenwashing and that might be a slightly cognitive question what I'm trying to say is if you've never if you've never had sustainability as part of your brand how can you leave it in to your brand without taking a risk of having to be accused of being greenwashing greenwashing even if it is authentic I think a degree of fallibility degree of humanity is okay I mean I'm going to mention a very obvious brand again but you know Patagonia did its footprint chronicles 15 years ago talking about this is the impact of our brand straight off being transparent about that so we work a lot of banks who are looking at green banking products and they're very worried about the credibility factor are we crazy to try and launch something when people are just going to laugh at it out here because we know other parts of our business are doing that but that's your original question I hope so because it's these big brands which have never done anything sustainable your energy companies your investors they're the ones you need to embrace this and I think the thing to try and achieve here it's always in this room but probably trying to lead more responsible lifestyles right we know how difficult it is and if brands communicate it as a journey they've started on and actually don't just put it to this is the target, this is the end goal talk about where you are, what you've achieved be honest if you missed your target by 10% I think that degree of humanity fallibility kind of chimes at us all because you know we're on the same journey so I think it can be done the risk of greenwashing doesn't always have to outplay the reward of being green but often as we were saying it's about having those proof points to prove to everyone and everyone is your consumers your media, your stakeholders, your investors that actually you're doing what it says on the tin, is that the expression? that you've got something to fall back on so for me greenwashing is having is saying something that is just not true, that you can't back up if you can and if you've got your website and the list of all the details of the actions that you're undertaking and to your point about explaining why that target happened and why you missed it, if you've got that detail you won't be accused of greenwashing because it just won't be the case but you've got to be totally on top of those numbers and make sure that you've got them absolutely right but you've got to do that in the first place regardless of what you communicate or not but yeah the number of people walking down the street was it the other day that was a carbon neutral estate agent and I thought okay I gave them the benefit they didn't have much space on that board because they also said sold and everything that you put on an estate agent board so I went on the website googled carbon neutral and the name of the I won't mention estate agent and there was nothing on the website to even explain to people what that carbon neutrality was about which in itself is a great concept but if you're not going to give those people who are interested and the journalists are going to come after you because of course you're an easy target and you have nothing to back it then that's where it falls apart had they had their whole website and everything on the pin behind okay this is why we are carbon neutral this is what it means what does it mean for an estate agent I don't know what have they mapped out but it just fell through at that point How good in the browser you work with how good are Browns preparing that defence and balance do you think in terms of bad practices a lot of people companies are doing this because their competitors are doing it they're doing it for their image which is a valid reason to embrace sustainability you're going to gain from that but they're not doing it it's part of a holistic approach to conserve their future resources they should be doing it to make money it's part of that the worst campaigns I've seen in the last couple of years the simple one was a Maltesers one talking about how they reduced the amount of plastic in their packaging and quantified it as being the equivalent of 28 Tyrannosaurus rexes which my son would have loved but it's those kind of pre-ship metrics which are really harmful to the entire industry what people are trying to do and then the notorious Burger King one where they had a low methane burger said the emissions were down 33% that only accounted for the last three months on the animal's life and then the small print said these five stores by Burger King's global empire were selling this so that's the worst example I've seen never mind the awful country and western song with cute kids dancing around coming out of cows bottoms and things which is part of it so the worst ones are out there there's middle ground isn't there there's walls where people are doing something really good but they slightly over claim as soon as you over claim you walk into trouble we heard of one at CIM a famous airline whom I won't name made some sustainability claims about their carbon emissions per mob when they fill their aircraft and they were nearly right but they weren't quite right and therefore it allowed all these nasty journalists to come and say that's wrong and gave them up for this to where otherwise they could have got some good publicity and rightly so I think it's that small print that's going to come ever bigger because people are going to be interested and not just the journalists who are all evil by the way some of them are okay I was going to say what you said profession but yeah people want more detail and they've got more time and social media you know it's not talking about the elephant in the room the fact that you are now as a company asked to be more transparent you have to have that small print and it has to become big print so what did you find Richard on that little barometer on which I dived into and the thing that really grabbed me about it is that apart from aside from the marketing aspect of this the impact of this can be huge if we can aggregate consumer behavior much less so when we aggregate individual behavior so if we make micro changes to the way we behave and you know we walk and take in the car and so on and so forth we make marginal impact we can't make big impact what really hit me from the monitor what really hit me what really hit me from the barometer was the massive difference we can make if we can aggregate changes to consumer behavior yeah I think the IEA said it's almost 60% of the emissions reduction is required as a global society to hit net zero by 2050 and it's related at least indirectly to our behaviors or our choices or what we buy so we think consumer research is obviously important because of that so it's key obviously when we ask consumers themselves ironically they don't think it's their responsibility they think it's primarily government responsibility and in the case of things like increasing the amount of packaging gets recycled or workers rights it's companies responsibility there's a lot of gluey stuff we see in the data but one of the positives is still the majority of consumers do feel they can have that positive impact that comes through clearly in the research as well it varies my country but the general majority but they don't tell you the right things to do so to some degree is it the consumers responsibility or does the sustainability barometer indicate that yes we want consumers involved we have to but what are you really saying is the brand's responsibility it's a it's definitely a combination I mean yes consumers don't hold themselves that accountable but I think what's useful is to see what consumers think of priority issues and sometimes they're on the money they do prioritize climate change they do prioritize air quality and they do prioritize ocean plastics an example of something that's less down what's informative is to see what they're prioritizing ask why and look at cases where maybe you're a company where you don't have any plastic footprint and your footprint is all about something else and you've got a job to do to educate them the issues you're addressing are important as well so that comes to you very strongly when you're producing that barometer what opportunities did you find in terms of the way that we can change as marketers to make those sort of massive impacts that you discovered possible I think one thing you know in terms of the practical side of things in terms of the communications the bad news is trust brands in terms of what they're talking about as we've just covered in terms of what would make them trust brands more what comes through very strongly is and this is very demanding but you know they want to understand the positive or less negative impact they're having at an individual product level they want to be able to buy a package good and something on there tells them by buying this you've done something better than buying this obviously it's consumption so it's always going to have an impact but they want to understand having an impact at a product level and they want to know about the importance of the value they want convenience so the kind of neutral score labeling we see which is being developed in terms of groups like Mondra and things they want that convenience on pack and it comes down they want brands they can trust I think ultimately what they want is not to engage the issues but not have to spend time scanning QR codes or things like that they want to go into a store and say I trust this brand I know I don't have to check it in that way so they want that convenience factor as well that comes really very clearly that's really the holy grail though isn't it to be able to be trusted as a brand in that way where customers are questioning me and you've mentioned different different times of day you know if you're in a store particularly for us in the chilled juice aisle it's really quickly cold so unless it's a heat wave like the moment you don't want to spend too much time so you want to know that you've got a brand that you trust you build that trust probably not in the five seconds that you're picking out your juice but over the long term over all the other communications that you do where people have a bit more time if they're scrolling their phone whilst they're on the tube or if they're reading a leaflet back at home so I think then it's back into the whole long term short term and all those marketing principles which are really true where do you build your brand where do you build your trust and where do you do your short term activations and it's going to be a mix of both be careful not to advertise on this podcast but I think it's fair to ask you which is for some exemplars which have managed to build up that sort of magic trust factor where people think they're confident that they are buying sustainably from those brands are there anything that you've been able to identify on your book? Well not in terms of asking consumers which are the ones, they're go-to ones we haven't seen that specifically in brands but clearly there's some retailers like M&S or something which are making this to point clearly despite the flak it gets in the media a brand like You Leave was clearly built on that and you know they're all good or IKEA they're all good evidence of brands which is sort of very mainstream when we talk about the case of why brands should do this the choice consumers are getting now in terms of being able to go for a more responsible or less impactful option is growing whenever we talk to clients about you know we aren't convinced in the business case we're doing that we're really trying to hammer that hammer that home Does it pay? Does it pay? In the long term it's going to pay, yeah I mean I think going back to the mistakes brands make in terms of you know what they're doing they should be doing this to make money it might not be this year it might not be next year but you know this is about securing your future supply lines it's about getting more customers keeping the ones you've got it's about avoiding compliance taxes so yeah it does pay that's the business case and I think the ones the companies are often having all problems are the ones who aren't doing this to make money they're doing it to just tread water and not do what our competitors are doing that's interesting if you're doing it for good commercial sound commercial region you're more likely to succeed that way I think for me it's a balance it's the balance of you know people planet profit and it sounds a bit like you're out of Miss World when you talk about these things but it is genuinely true and if you think that's not wanting to go back to packaging but I hope we do get to it you know the plastic packaging tax the fact that now we have to put 30% recycled content we've been doing it for years but the point is there is now a market value for recycled content and therefore the circularity and the circular economy works in this instance because there is a reason and yes we are advocating we are pushing the government to have deposit return schemes because then we can get good quality recycled content and it can the loop can loop that's a strategically financially sound decision we need to be savvy about if it's something really interesting there if you're at the vanguard of this stuff you can also push the regulation into your favour and that's what brands that are doing well should perhaps be doing which is good yeah I think some of the best examples I see of this are really kind of unsexy brands like you know things like British sugar you know where they've got their sugar beet factory and all the soil that comes in on the beat becomes a top seal product they sell and all their waste their CO2 their lime all that becomes other products like the circular factory or the co-op bank or something I've been doing some work with bayonet aspiration credit card in the US recently which is basically just the co-op fronted by Robert Downey Jr it's just like a lot of it is in the spin so a lot of the sort of inspirational credible examples of people who are closing the loop people who are doing a wholesale approach across the board often are particularly well marketed or they're not badly marketed but they're not going to be the needs and the inspiration can come from the ones who again are underselling it you did give an example of circular beer barometer is that right circular beer yeah again this comes back to this theme of resilience being a you know key sort of economic driver for why companies should be stabled so there's a in Singapore we have circular beers there's a company called MuWater it's basically just recycling the sewage water from Singapore which you know newsflash probably happens so they've early branded in that way putting some local problems on it almost like in a craft water now they're doing beers which they're celebrating from that source as well putting some local problems to it they're a craft approach which we'll obviously see more of as we urbanize and more and more cities are growing their own food produce and things as well that's quite interesting isn't it the authenticity of saying you drink this beer you're drinking sewage but you're doing you're being good for the environment and that's quite provocative so you're going to you know take a double look and think what and it's going to prompt you to think a bit more about it local sewage but it is it creates it's all a talking point and therefore it makes an interesting conversation and people are going to engage with it is that an interesting departure for brands sewage I was going to say waste I mean ultimately a lot of what we're talking about here is reusing waste not necessarily not creating waste because everyone is going to create waste but reusing it and using it properly is that an interesting approach but if you can make waste sexy then you're onto something I mean I'm personally quite excited by waste I spend a lot of time and you know I live just opposite the ones where I've recycled art I've been there a couple of times and actually I was just reflecting the other day waste management systems not only aren't sexy but they are by nature dirty the factories are old you go to new factories we've just got a new factory and it's all beautiful and slick and there is I can't believe there's not more that can be done in the waste systems to make it a bit more not just sexy but just up to scratch with the high technology that we have in the beginning of the chain of a product again I'm talking here from the innocent kind of view I'm presuming it works for the circular bear but the sewage bear it works yeah well there's a lot of byproducts out there in food and drink and watch Marmite that's the byproducts of the brewing industry basically there's definitely a lot of that happening there's a lot of it happening in beers as well as Toast Ale made out of bread waste and things like that so in food and drink it's starting to happen those kind of things people don't have an aversion to it's all about brands finding partners for their waste countries like China if you don't find a partner for your industrial waste you're going to be in massive trouble with the government and you know it's very it's forced closed loop if you like obviously we don't have the same society here but yeah I think again it goes about at that point that's all about cost savings bringing value to waste and you know I say there's no gold or there's no silver lying in the ocean because there's a value how do we attribute a value to these things in our in our society as it is all governments are being a bit easy on this you said that you were pushing the government to make to out to introduce that value to regulation you said look we're doing this make everybody else do it so argument still a little bit too softly softly on this do you think gosh I have to be careful here more legislation please more legislation in general absolutely yeah we need to we need to have you can't have a first mover disadvantage which is something that's quite interesting as well you want the level playing field and I'll give an example of France where we're back to plastic I do want to talk about all other topics but plastics on some of the fruit and veg has been banned and there's a study from rap which says here in the UK that you could quite easily not have as much plastic to wrap fruits like apples or pears it's quite different for softer fruits but the point is no one retailer is going to undo that because from an efficiency point of view it's much better so unless you have government regulation to really put everyone on the same that's not going to happen I mean let's to stay in France on the theme of regulation you know it has to be a bit more carrot and less stick I think in this country it's quite a lot of punitive stuff you know from changing sector we look at things like electric vehicles I think what's interesting in a country like France is obviously had the chile genre movement because Macron did that kind of bungled fuel to actually hit everyone at the same level and he's now learned that instead it's like right we're going to give 100 euro incentive to people to release vehicles so I mean the incentive part of it I think probably at a consumer level rather than legislation on France it seems to be that's really in dire need I think there's a lot of deterrents not a lot of incentives I think what's going to get them to do it well going to talking about packaging I don't understand to me and Emily might know more about than me but you know why don't we have the same kind of you know reverse vending culture and things like that in this country which is you know really on the present in Norway or Germany or Turkey Japan it's things like that which is which is convenient it's visible you're like yeah I'm recycling my book everyone I'm doing it in public which is you know a great thing you know consumers love you know that's a low budget version of why people like driving around Tesla's you know there is that kind of desire to be you know green ego I think so I think things like that are going to attack it but Marx has a big role to play in that in pushing governments yeah pushing people is to do it and you've had some success in that area but Marx should know that they are actually they have agency to push governments have been locked as a big organization and that's the point going back to the point at the beginning about these are the proof points this is what you have you have to be answering those consultations you have to be pushing your MP to when there's going to be that debate in parliament that they stand and they say yes I support this that's all the work that needs to be done it's not visible you're going to have a marketing campaign about how you've influenced your MP but you really need to have that in the background because you need to be pushing and you know in the government's favour that's the point of view so we need to be working in collaboration to explain how it comes to mind we'll get to some questions from the audience shortly we will give the audience plenty of chance to ask questions but I'm going to do that annoying journalist thing now I'm trying to boil this down to a binary question for you Emily and for you as well which is what are your biggest do's and don'ts in sustainable marketing I'll start with you Emily the biggest do is just do it just start somewhere don't be afraid and I think that's what we said at the beginning if you're authentic if you're genuine and if you've got those tangible proof points of what you're doing then you can start talking about it and I'm not saying millions of marketing campaign but just being honest and genuine with stakeholders what took me from the otter story is it doesn't matter that much if you make a mistake if you're being authentic because you can easily recover from a mistake you shouldn't stop doing it in the first place presumably it sounds cheesy but you do learn from mistakes and that's how we all learn and that's how we can learn together collectively so as long as you don't make too many mistakes and you're explaining where you've come from and don'ts biggest don't don'ts overcame if you've got your cynical think of your cynical friend in the park what do you want to be able to say to him it's that looking in the mirror test or sometimes we call it the granny test the granny test when you're on your rocking chair do you want to look at yourself and think okay I was as authentic as I could and I tried and I made a few mistakes but fundamentally I was there or how do you want to live your life and that's probably a bigger even topic you've got the first second move that's disadvantage here Emily's given so great time to think I'll start with a don't don't use bullshit metrics about Tyrannosaurus rex use data with context I think I think the crucial thing is you should be doing it to make money and succeed as part of the strategy not just to do what the competition is doing I think the other thing is don't fall into trap thinking a sustainable and ethical product is going to sell just for those reasons the first parameter we had is quite from John Lennon about selling peace and the peace movement which is much ridiculed at the time but he was making the point that we're trying to sell peace like people sell soap with soft drinks and that's really true if you've got a sustainable soap sell it for the benefits of it being a soap first and the sustainable things third or fourth maybe so I think remember that as well I think soft pedal it perhaps don't think it's just going to sell what it means it's going to do biggest do but try and make it part of an education process with customers if you can about turning it into a lecture and think about the emotional benefits people want to buy something because it's going to make them feel good or it's going to make them look good or it's going to make them feel smart don't forget that I think often with sustainable ethical things we just think it's got that holiness to it and that's enough it's still a product it's always enough on it's own think of the emotion interesting we're going to take some questions from the audience I hope we've got some hands up here and a roving mic somewhere lady in the back of the dark hair hi thanks guys that was great super super interesting my question is more so for Richard with the sustainability barometer and your work with brands in your experience is there still a big gap between what consumers say and what they do when it comes to sustainable marketing and buying sustainable products about 23 percentage points yes wow some colleagues did some bad research a few years ago about would you agree describe yourself as someone who tries not to damage the environment it's like asking someone are you racist something like 85% of people said that describes me and if you look at the most basic or easiest thing we can do which is supposed to benefit the environment something like recycling it comes in at around 57% so you've got a massive drop off it's in everything in the barometer we try and avoid asking those kind of questions which are easy to answer try and make it more about what people do there is that value action gap it's not just particularly strong in sustainability but it's in everything to help your lifestyle they'll say yes look around us clearly and the gap between people did you exercise in the last week that is a problem in research which we have to try and avoid obviously there's a moment of truth and someone purchases as Emily was talking about that moment when you're purchasing that's when it comes to the crux there is that value action gap that needs to be closed but it can be closed in the next day doing it to appeal to other ways giving them a compelling reason to buy that interesting any more questions gentlemen at the back hi thanks very much everybody how important is it do you think to focus on the positives of sustainable movements rather than negative data I can start you've probably got the data really look there's enough sad and difficult stories going on in the world and in people's lives so absolutely bringing them those positive stories so that they can feel empowered I always talk about the depression session and when I give any talk I have to balance the reality which is pretty scary with what they can do what people can feel empowered to do so bringing those positive stories and again when we think about how we either market some of our campaigns or even the work that we do at the start how are you positive making them feel good about themselves back to what you were saying I don't know I'm not going to hit you with a specific stat but it's certainly the majority of consumers agree that challenging statistics about climate change are depressing I think the worst kind of conceived campaign would start off with glaciers collapsing with a stat about that probably not a good way to start your campaign and I think people are very familiar with that I think you know with what we found in the barometer was that people's optimism levels dipped about whether we were running out of time which people were shocked by my colleagues like what do you expect they've just been hit by all this data around COP26 so I think people's awareness has already gone up massively so there's not really a need I don't think to grab people's attention with these alarming statistics maybe there was five years ago I don't think there's a need cutting to the chase what's the consumer, what's this going to make you feel smarter looking better in front of your peers feel like you're doing your bit impactful I think that's what we need to cut to the chase Well on that impact point is there an attendant disadvantage to being negative is that if you're too negative you make the consumer feel hopeless that they're actually, they can't have an impact that therefore doesn't matter what they do doesn't matter what choices they make it doesn't matter what brands they choose we're going to hell in a handcart anyway Yeah because I mean it's going to be hard to make the case that any kind of consumption is going to be good or beneficial to the environment a colleague was telling me or I came here that speaking to some young potential employees at a trade fair and said how come Intel is talking about sustainability when you're basically promoting the whole concept of consumption why would I work for a company like you so you know we're getting at the flak as well providing data to help people sell more stuff or sell less stuff Yeah but that's certainly a challenge So try and keep it positive and show the impact that there's a lot in your barometer about impact isn't there that you're actually trying yes you've got to close the gap between what people think they're having and what they are having but the fact that they think they can make an impact in the first place is presumably a very good thing I think the reality is the impacts like to be a less damaging choice so if you look at fashion brands like Reformation we'll say you know this dress produced this much CO2 and water which is really bad for the industry standard it's a lot better than that so a lot of it's about that I mean there's one brand and another brand in fashion called 10 trees and they try and sell the positive impact on if you buy one of our t-shirts we're going to plant 10 trees and you can see to maybe quite uninformed people that looks great but you know in terms of the impact of that t-shirt on you know resources water etc is going to far outweigh the benefits of planting 10 trees so it's a thorny issue like that's an example of by very screen washing I don't know creating the wrong impression it's great wrong impression but is there something there compare and contrast is that a valid approach do you think to compare and contrast your brand with your competitor's brand with consumers I think you're always better off just talking about what you do and doing it in a better way I wouldn't want to win by you know ditching the others I'd rather people are convinced about what we were doing naturally of course you're aware of the market you think is an isolation either you've got to be strategic in what you're doing but I think with consumers winning with what you are and then letting people copy copying is the best form of flattery it's probably the way around to lead the charge and genuinely was needed Interesting, any more questions lady at the back of the blonde hair How do you think you're going to balance our sustainability messages when the cost of living crisis is getting worse and it grounds you in today to feed your kids today how are you going to think further out when it will naturally price will be almost the de facto of why you purchase I should say the lady is looking in which direction but to mix things up I'm going to ask Emily that first I think it's back to the point where it has to work financially and one example I quite like which was one of the unintended consequences that we found of a trial of reuse in ASDA people were saying that so reuse trials I think everyone's familiar with them you would in theory bring your own box and then get past the way how much past you've bought without having to pay for the packaging and actually that enabled people to measure exactly how much pasta or coffee in particular case they wanted so actually it had a double effect of A you were incentivizing them to pay less if they were bringing their own packaging but B they didn't have to buy two kilos if they didn't have enough for two kilos so that's a really specific example to say it has to work financially otherwise especially with the cost of living crisis but to be honest at any point it ain't going to work clearly now is not the time where people are going to start paying huge premiums of products which are being staying what I think the bigger picture around what's happening now is giving people a kind of early harsh lesson in what's to come so all those shortages we're seeing commodities or energy they're already happening because of crop failures because of climate change right now so the shortages we're seeing from Ukraine things at the moment will be wrapped up in some of the going to an old feed and things in terms of grain that's the reality what's going to happen with droughts anyway so businesses are going to have to steal themselves to that and businesses are going to have to take the hit on that in the short term or look at making things more resilient and if you look someone's arguing this morning about this and talking about Germany's opening up its coal mines again you know this is what's happening but at the same time Germany's bringing forward its renewable energy so for businesses it's a short term they've got to be resilient and they're going to have to foot the cost but for consumers there's certainly in the short term pioneer alternatives going forward the argument for return on investment what we're seeing in the barometer is whilst all this is happening the desire to improve things like home energy the desire to have electric vehicles is actually going up that's got to be made a realistic thing which is sold as a return on investment and in mature markets what we see is in here people who buy electric vehicles are all like tech heads so you know early adopters is that kind of thing people who buy them in more mature markets it's all about very value conscious people who've seen that at the end of the month they've got more money left than doing that so that's not going to happen next month but I think the lessons coming out of this for businesses that have positioned things and how they operate is definitely going to lead us to that you can do both it's possible, very possible we're coming to the end of the talk we've got time for one more question two more, we're going to take two more questions gentlemen over here in the lead prices the last part of the chart institute marketing's definition is satisfying customer requirements profitably and you shared that sustainability might be green but it's never black and white and I'd like to just touch on Richard's point that you need to do it to make money and succeed in terms of sustainability and I was just wondering Emily from Innocence Point of View from the work that they've done on sustainability how would you say it's helped the organisation make money and succeed and I was wondering from Richard's point of view there is a particular example which is glowing around you need to do it to make money and succeed from a case study point of view a couple of things first I think the brand the strength in the brand because it's done and because there is to my point for so much data so much to prove everything that we've been doing since the start I think that's a very important one for the brand and the trust in Innocence and there's something we haven't talked about too much but employee confidence employee satisfaction all of that behind the scenes especially at the moment when actually job market people can go left, right and centre if you feel proud about where you work and if you feel that you're genuinely working for an organisation that makes a difference at the end of the day it's going to be about your people and making sure that your people are convinced so I'm going to do a bit of a plug here but I spend a lot of time educating our own workforce internally about what it means both in their personal lives but also in our business so that they can then be proud, spread the words and feel confident I think it's really important Building on that, when I say make money and succeed I'm talking about encompassing things like that I'm not just talking about making a premium on something your position primarily is being sustainable in a product, it is about things like keeping your workforce happy and more productive and not having to re-hide and retrain them every six months or a year it's about reformulating like someone like you leading would do using five ingredients instead of seven ingredients that's a cost saving right that whether it's an environmental saving is another debate but it's a cost saving for them that's what I mean when I'm talking about making money I'm talking about making money in terms of you still being here for five or ten years rather than losing ground to your rivals and obviously I think some of the most faithful examples of brands which are doing this and making money are premium, you look at someone like most obvious example someone like Tesla has taken lots of hits but is emerging and is going to inherit that whole sector in terms of transport arguably and then I see it some of the mainstream level brands like IKEA brands like Unilever's taking hits on its market valuation and things like that but with customers they are succeeding and it's being done at a very mainstream level and solved in quite a soft way again I would say people don't feel like they're being lectured by those brands they're doing it in quite a gentle way for example I see it being less successful I mean in terms of making money I think the easiest way I kind of deflect it when I talk to clients to ask you about making a premium is to say this is giving if you don't do this it's giving people pretty good reasons to choose someone else because they can probably increasingly have the option to choose someone else at a similar price point they're not going to have to pay a premium for much longer just to get that, it will ship So one final question and longed her back Hello there I was going to ask about the importance of turning the marketing inwards towards your employees so how would you say that it's best to start to educate your people and build that pride and build that engagement with your brand and sustainability I would say you start from day one we're probably even before day one when they're applying but we have a whole plug of innocence but we have a whole induction program so a whole week where every single employee goes through really understanding what each department does open Q&As as much open transparency honesty, being realistic it's just taking them on that journey explaining to them why you've made the decision and not that one, it takes time because we could just not do any of this but we really figure it's important to then get the long term buy into all your online employees I think I would say we're not doing anything as progressive as that here at the moment what I think it comes down to is what we are trying to do here is have a community where we share best practices just everyday lifestyle tips that's something I see brands doing as well and see brands extending into publishing or even online courses there's a beauty brand in India called Bare Cestes which has done that I've seen things at Penguin so I think doing it at day to day level as an employee that's what I would look for yes I want my company to be doing the right steps we signed up to Science Place Targets and doing that but it's all about how can you help me on my day to day in the office how do I become more responsible in my behaviour here and sharing lifestyle tips maybe on how I can do it so I think it's quite a soft approach here I'm trying to harden it you talk about Science Base Targets at the starting point realised that no one in our business knew what it meant and no one in our business actually knew the real difference between net zero and carbon neutrality which FYI I'm just going to explain really quickly that we talk about net zero as being having the image of a tap and reaching net zero would be to turn the tap off if you see the tap and the water coming from the tap as the emissions and carbon neutrality we see as the sponge so you're always going to have a bit of water trickling through your and so just analogies like that we're tested with our own employees to then see how they resonate with other consumers you can do a lot of test and learn with your own and then they feel part of the journey as well Brilliant, take away that use your own employees, your own people as a test bed before you try the ideas out I mean of course go to Mintel for all the official research of that Please do call us sir Well that's fantastic thank you very much for your time today Emily Anne Richard Head of Forced and Good at Innocent UK Richard Coat Senior Trend Consultant at Mintel I think a round of applause for your fantastic time and insights today which I'm sure our audience is going to find extremely helpful If you've enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe to the CIM Marketing Podcast on your platform of choice CIM Marketing Podcast