Time to give up on green marketing?

When sustainability can’t cut through in an age of greenwash, some businesses are choosing to abandon the conversation altogether.?

It’s not often, as the host of a podcast for ESG leaders, that a guest tells you to stop talking about climate change.

One might almost take it personally – particularly when they start throwing the word a**hole around instead!

In the case of Giorgia Granata and Eli Khrapko, however, it made sense. In a recent episode of Conversations on Climate we were talking about the rebrand of their sustainable hygiene company Wype , and their decision to lean in to humorous taboo-busting rather than the environmental angle.?

Out went the branding which highlighted their biodegradable, organic alternative to single-use plastic. In came posters like these:

Source: https://bpando.org/2023/05/04/hygiene-branding-gel-wet-wipes-design/

As Giorgia explained, ‘there are a few reasons for moving away from sustainability as a marketing tool, and one is because everybody's using it as a marketing tool these days. It almost doesn't mean anything anymore.’?

In other words – talking up your green game is over; it’s time for everyone to shut up and get on with the business of sustainability instead. And I really don’t know what I think about that.

Where green branding has gone wrong

To be fair, their position is more nuanced than that brief characterisation. The core point is that, in consumer product sectors in particular, advertising environmental credentials has become so widespread – and so degraded by greenwash – that it no longer serves consumers. The fulcrum has shifted, so that the sustainability element is more in service to the marketing element than the other way around.?

Instead of trying to shout over the greenwash, argue Giorgia and Eli, we need to raise our game on a fundamental level. Sustainability should now be a core element of a product rather than an optional extra – the ‘sprinkles on top,’ as they put it. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it meets consumers where they are today – with much higher baseline expectations of their favourite businesses. And now that being green is no longer such a differentiator, smart brands must look to other themes to capture savvier customers instead.

Wype aren’t the only ones thinking about the future of sustainable marketing in an age of greenwash? -this is clearly a hot topic. And personally, I like their new branding and ad campaigns and applaud them for bringing the conversation around intimate hygiene and health to a new level. After all, climate isn’t the only area where the culture needs a better-quality conversation. But I’m not so sure I’m ready for progressive firms as a whole to stop talking about climate – and here’s why.

Is this what post-sustainability marketing looks like?

Ultimately, I think this is an idea that has arrived before its time. We simply aren’t there yet in terms of cultural awareness, analysis or systemic solutions. For me, Giorgia’s argument is more aspirational than descriptive of today’s conversation.?

In an ideal future, no business should have to market its sustainability credentials, because unsustainable products will no longer be in business. With the right combination of regulation, taxation and simple recognition of material reality, sustainability would be fully internalised and communicated through the price function alone – and so markets would resolve environmental tensions in the way they do best. But that remains in the future. We still don’t even have a functioning carbon price in 99% of global markets, let alone corrective taxation for plastic pollution, fossil water and so on.

I absolutely agree that firms have a responsibility to guarantee sustainably on its own merits, rather than as a marketing strategy. And whilst it is true that consumer awareness and expectations are improving, I still don’t think we have reached a tipping point in terms of the sophistication of the majority which would obviate the need for further awareness-raising and guidance. Sadly, greenwashing is so prevalent because it works; consumers may grow weary of it, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily able to accurately evaluate truth from fiction in an ever-mutating marketing environment.?

This is another sad application of the tragedy of the commons – our collective trust in the veracity of information is spoiled by those who deliberately employ greenwashing. I don’t know how far it is a deliberate strategy of climate oppositionists – to use greenwashing not only to appear sustainable but to undermine the very idea of sustainability as a useful category – but it is working.

That said, the solution to a signal/noise problem isn’t to withdraw the signals. But I also sympathise with Giorgia and Eli when they say that, ‘the educational piece is a larger and more complex thing than what small companies can and should do.’ That piece has moved beyond the first stage of mere awareness; people now have to start understanding how certain businesses are embedded in systems of infrastructure and power and how that relates to the climate struggle. For a small start-up to step into the ring with those same multinationals (and their billion-dollar marketing budgets) on that level, is to pick a David-and-Goliath fight that will be very difficult to win.?

Where value remains

It's understandable why a business like Wype wants to move out of being defined by sustainability. But for a lot of other businesses, it might not be a choice. Wype have found an underserved niche and built a unique, high-quality solution to the problem they discovered. That opens up ways to compete beyond the green label.?

Other firms, however, may not have a vector beyond simply being a more sustainable version of a classic product. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need them, and desperately – the ecological challenge is one that has to be tackled from millions of unique markets all at once. There isn’t much scope for someone selling recycled cutlery, for example, to make a name for themselves by busting taboos; and there is only so funny a fork can be. Furthermore, as Eli himself pointed out, we’re unlikely to reach a point where most sustainable products are able to compete on price (ex-corrective taxation). So if your USP is genuine sustainability, that might be all you have to go on.

Furthermore, demand still far outstrips supply in many markets. If you’ve ever spent hours trying to find a green alternative to a product you’ve used for years – only to give up in frustration – then you’ll know what I mean. Greenwash or no, there are still huge areas where companies can still differentiate themselves with a genuinely innovative sustainable option. If someone comes up with genuinely carbon-neutral jet fuel, for example, I don’t think they will need to spend too long debating a marketing strategy!

Your no-obligation quote

So I don’t think we’ve hit a post-sustainability conversation; nor do I think that every green firm has the luxury of finding an alternative communication vector. That just leaves a bigger question: do we, as climate-conscious businesspeople, have a moral duty to keep the conversation going and educate consumers??

Here the conversation has shifted my thinking somewhat. There is real value in talking up your climate credentials, particularly if you have succeeded in doing something difficult and meaningful. However, no one has an obligation to proselytise. If you want to walk a good walk without advertising it – good for you. The impact you can have will be felt in other ways; through material reality rather than cultural conversation.?

Furthermore, consumers aren’t the only audience. A quietly sustainable firm might find itself having an impact simply by proving to other businesses that it is possible to compete as a sustainable brand, without making your brand all about sustainability. That example – be it practical or moral – might scale up behaviour change behind the scenes in a given industry, which can have a more direct and immediate impact than going through the slow and uncertain process of consumer attitude formation.?

Underneath this whole discussion is a deeper current too: what is the climate conversation for? Are we here to lecture – to push more and more information? Are we trying to force change with guilt, embarrassment, and negatively-framed messaging? Should we pin our hopes on role modelling and inviting others into a positive (and yet-unrealised) future? Or is the whole idea of trying to change other people’s minds fundamentally mistaken in the first place?

That is a debate which has been rumbling on for years, and I don’t know if it will ever be resolved. It is too tied up with one’s individual character and outlook on the world. I don’t know that I fully share Wype’s outlook on the state of the sustainability conversation – but I am completely behind them in their wish to do it a different way, or opt-out altogether. Personally, I think ideas of obligation and individual responsibility – and the implications of guilt behind them – have had their time.??

If that makes me an a**hole, then at least I’m in the best of company!

#sustainability #greenwashing #climatechange #ESG #marketing