The Ring: should brands or consumers be leading shifts in behaviour around sustainability?

The Ring is a new series from 21CB where members of our team take an opposite stance to explore ideas and issues that are shaping our world. First up is the S word on everyone’s lips: sustainability. With trust failing in governments, who is responsible for shifting consumption behaviours: brands or consumers? We need both, but who should take the lead? And where should marketers be focusing their attention?

Fauzia: Anna! I recently got back to London from a holiday in Italy. I’m several shades darker and much happier (not ignoring the immense privilege where I can work from anywhere and afford to take a holiday). However, I can’t say the same about the nature surrounding our house. Upon our return, half the garden was dead, and recently, there was a hose ban?! Anywhere you look around the world (a third of Pakistan flooded and the west coast with record temperatures), climate catastrophe is here. I thought we had a few more term-time holidays before things got this bad? But in all seriousness, I am deeply concerned. We took trains as often as we could instead of flying. But still, we flew. This makes me wonder: what will it take for me to change my behaviour significantly? Is it a tall order to ask consumers to be the change they want to see in the world? Or is it ultimately brands’ responsibility to accelerate the change by selling less but better, advertising less, and making us feel less miserable about the lives we don’t have? Whose responsibility is it actually??

Anna: Hey Fauzia! It’s been pretty tropical in the UK while you were away and I think a lot of us are asking the same questions. But while most of us care about the environment and want to stop the climate catastrophe, we can’t all be Greta Thunberg. Most people are too busy earning money and raising kids to drive change. If politicians are focused on short-termism – getting re-elected, power games and contracts for their mates – then we need brands to facilitate and provide the tools so that people can do their bit. In fact we’re hungry for this, it allows us to buy and engage with brands they love and feel better about themselves.

Fauzia: I hear you. But as consumers, we vote with our pockets. Our politics around change are manifest in the companies we purchase from. With the war in Ukraine, initially McDonald’s refused to pull out of Russia, but with huge consumer outcry and probably some nudging from their boards, (Western) public opinion forced them out. This is all to say that we have all the power to inform change, but brands play a huge role in using their marketing to make us think we need more, and that they will lead the charge on seismic climate shifts, when really we can hold them accountable by not purchasing from them.?

Anna: I agree, it’s great that consumers are putting pressure on brands, but I’d argue brands need to be sustainable to survive. Often the supply chain of huge global giants (like those in the Unilever stable) have been adversely hit by climate change, that’s why they’ve been putting sustainability at the core of their brands since 2010. While they’re always going to be accused of greenwashing, changes by huge brands like this can have real impact in terms of saving water and reducing plastic pollution.

Fauzia: These are all fair points, but I have to disagree (unsurprisingly!). It’s not just greenwashing I’m mad at, it’s the fact that brands are taking up the mantle of climate justice, while making a slew of products we don’t need. The clothing industry contributes up to 10% of the pollution driving the climate crisis, not to mention still ongoing crappy labor practices in many parts of the world. So take Farfetch. They are leading the charge on sustainability and have done so amongst their counterparts. All of their packaging is recyclable. They’re aiming to go fully carbon neutral in their deliveries. And yet. Farfetch carries over 1,300 brands on its website. Think about all the actual stuff they market and therefore sell; do we need all of it? My mind is telling me no, but my body (or my shopping addiction)…feels otherwise.?

Anna: Sure, we definitely don’t need all the crap they’re manufacturing and fashion is one of the most polluting industries. However, brands like Nike, IKEA and Zalando are at the forefront of exploring circular design and sustainable growth models, pushing their partners to be more sustainable in the process. I think this will have a snowball effect.

Fauzia: Fair. But these are multinational companies who profit from their scale. What if their scale was smaller? Fewer, but better products? One brand seems to have mastered this: Patagonia. Patagonia understands that the key is about getting the consumer to behave differently, but also producing well-made and selling fewer products. They’ve got the Buy Less, Demand More resource that talks about materials and which ones to demand from brands they use.?

Anna: Patagonia is a great example of a brand that is providing consumers with a toolkit, a guide for how they should behave. On an individual level, most people are overwhelmed by climate change and don’t know where to start. They don’t think that they can have an impact. So they do nothing. They carry on buying what they've always bought or what’s on offer. You’ve seen Don’t Look Up. The people didn’t sort it out – the brands did (and as a result we all lost). But if Mark Rylance had been the CEO of Patagonia and driven BASH to do good in the world (rather than seeing the situation as an opportunity to mine a meteorite for metal) then the planet would have been saved.

Fauzia: I love Mark Rylance, but I really didn’t like that movie…I do think people have the power to change behaviours, and arguably, this is the entire premise of marketing and advertising, right? To make us believe and hope for more, better, different. And it’s effective. But we, the people, have to advocate for ourselves more so than ever before, and the first step is awareness.?

Anna: Brands might make us believe and hope for more but do we have any agency? They also invest millions in studying behaviour change to understand people’s emotional triggers so they can successfully nudge us into action. Brands know that most of the time, people don’t make rational decisions. It’s Kahneman’s system 1 and system 2 thinking. I think it would be crazy to expect people to drive sustainability by asking them to buy less. If they reflect on buying fewer items then they might recognise it’s the right thing to do, but in the moment they’ll still make that trashy fashion purchase for a night out or a wedding. People need to be part of something bigger that’s driving the change, otherwise they’re lost.?

Fauzia: I’m Hobbesian about this and actually think people need a little bit of fear and urgency (like a yellow lawn when they’re back from holiday) to get a kick up the butt. We can’t wait for companies to lead the way. We, the consumers, have to. And like you say, clear guidelines that are reinforced by the government and brands. There was a brilliant report published by academics at Leeds University and analyzed by experts at the global engineering firm Arup and the C40 group of world cities, suggesting that there are six key things consumers can do that can reduce a quarter of the emissions reductions required to keep the global heating down to 1.5C. Those six commitments are:?

1. Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste
2. Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year
3. Keep electrical products for at least seven years
4. Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one long haul flight every eight years
5. Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold of your existing vehicle for longer
6. Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

If you look at number two, that’s a pretty bold consumer shift to make as well as number three (sorry Apple!). So this just makes me think that the entire western capitalist system needs to truncate its approach to growth, but that needs to be an end result, we can’t wait for companies to re-organize themselves to make less stuff or we’ll be sailing into a global tidal wave before we know it.