Green Wolfie

There was an incredible amount to learn from the Sustainable Brands conference in Monterey. I have picked the following six big lessons:

1. Brands which aspire to become sustainable need to communicate on a personal, not a political, level. Landor/Cohn & Wolfe’s own ‘Green Brands’ study showed that consumers on both sides of the Atlantic are much more concerned about personal environmental issues, such as waste and packaging, and they are being ‘turned off’ (to some extent) by abstract concepts like ‘global warming’. This is why supermarkets are making such a connection with people in both the UK and the USA. Abstract appeals to ’save the planet’ won’t work as well for brands as aspiring to make individual lives more ’sustainable’.

2. The environmental/sustainable message of brands must be combined with the more traditional consumer touch points, such as efficacy, price, etc. This was the starting point for Method, the home products company, which is growing incredibly fast from a zero base. There were many other examples of this important point.

3. Becoming a sustainable brand is also about better, long-term business performance. At a time of economic woes, a week of talking about sustainability might seem like a massive irrelevance. But we heard time and again that this big subject is just as much about profitable business as it is about the environment or social impacts. The people who created ‘Hip Investor’ believe they can outperform the market by investing in sustainable brands.

4. Any company can aim to create a sustainable brand. That was the view of green marketing guru Jacqueline Ottman, when I put the question to her. In Monterey, we heard from two companies, Dow Chemical and Clorox (best known for making bleach), who would not have been top of anyone’s ’sustainable brands’ list a few years ago. Yet both have embraced the sustainability agenda (in very different ways) which has earned them credit from customers, employees, shareholders and the media. Even coal companies, one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, can become ’sustainable brands’ if they truly embrace the ‘clean coal’ agenda and invest in new technology.

5. Brands which aspire to be sustainable must ‘get their house in order’ before they even start planning any ‘green marketing’ initiatives. Measurement is critical. The best brands are performing ‘life cycle’ analysis - complex assessments which provide critical data on the social, environmental and economic impact of products through the supply chain, production process and after purchase. Life cycle analysis tells a brand just how far it needs to go before it can claim to be ’sustainable’. A good example of this is the work done by the New Belgium Brewery, Colorado, on some of their beers. This showed the company that, even though they prided themselves on making big progress in the production process (e.g. 100% renewable energy), life cycle analysis of the product after purchase showed they had a long way to go. But that’s OK! Sustainability is a journey, not an end point. Consumers don’t expect perfection when it comes to sustainability. But they do want to see that brands understand the scale of the problem, have a plan, and are in the process of implementing it.

6. There are now unprecedented opportunities for brands to get their sustainable messages across through both old and new media. This point came through loud and clear during the media session which I hosted, with Claire Alexander from Discovery Channel’s new Planet Green, Nick Aster of Triplepundit.com, Anya Kamenetz of Fast Company, and Betsy Rosenberg of Eco-Talk. After being a little slow off the market, traditional print and broadcast media are embracing the sustainability wholeheartedly. The launch of an entire network devoted to the subject is a significant moment. And online, Nick Aster was a great example of the passionate, innovative and interactive journalism which is springing up all over the digital media landscape.

To finish off, I have a clip from my interview with green marketing guru Jacqueline Ottman. Jacqueline has been in this business for more than twenty years, advising huge brands like HSBC. Her insights into sustainable brands in 2008 are well worth listening to.