There’s been no bigger story emerging in marketing than sustainability. With the current economic conditions being distinctly different than 12 months ago, and the media already reporting that companies are seeing green as a less important issue, but as consumers and brands alike are becoming more attuned to sustainability, there’s a very important insight that no business, brand or marketing professional can afford to miss: sustainability isn’t just green.

According to the latest installation of Ci’s SHIFT Report™, a 5,000-person study, conducted in April of this year, 90.48 per cent of the North American population rank “Feeling connected to my friends, my family and my community” as an important sustainability issue compared to 57.8 per cent of the population who rank global warming as an important sustainability issue, while 30 per cent of North Americans rated organic products as important. Why then have so many companies jumped on the green bandwagon? The answer is simple. In the rush to tell consumers how much they "care" businesses are not taking the time to review where their brand can authentically play in the cultural shift to sustainability and have failed to look at green in the overall context to other issues in our lives. It’s resulted in an intense amount of what I call "Knee-Jerk Green" marketing, and it’s a big mistake.

Over the past year, we’ve seen companies of every shape and size market themselves as green because they think it’s the only way to get on the sustainability wave. Often it’s been done in a sloppy fashion and without vigor. When brands make vague, philosophical claims about their pro-environment values but don’t support them with specifics, it diminishes the eco story for everyone and begins to spark a backlash. I wrote in a Ci newsletter sometime ago that “Consumers are seeing the same colours, fonts, language and imagery (lots of Earth images, smiling babies, trees, and so on) used across multiple categories, from hotels to food to packaged goods to fashion, and it’s not ringing true. They’re hearing warm and fuzzy statements about how much a company cares – and occasionally, misleading claims about what steps they’re taking to be planet protectors – and their BS detectors are on alert.”

While the environment is important to consumers, it’s important to understand that it’s only one part of the sustainability equation. Feeling connected to community, spending time with friends and family, how workers are treated, supporting locally based business, spiritual contentment and support versus material – these are some of the key issues that were identified in Ci’s first SHIFT Report™ in 2006 when we sat down with consumers and asked them deliberately open-ended questions on how they defined and interacted with “sustainability.” Their answers fall neatly into what we call consumers’ Four Pillars of Sustainability™: Social, Environmental, Spiritual and Social Sustainability. Initially, this may seem to complicate things, but on closer thought it provides brands with more opportunity to define their own brand-specific sustainability story, that connects with their audience, honestly reflects their brand behaviour and helps consumers fulfill a significant consumer insight: Help me be a conscious consumer.

Brands that help their consumers fulfill this key desire will be successful. To do so, they must look at consumers’ overall relationship with sustainability, the key issues that define it, where their specific audience and category falls into the equation – and not just “Knee-Jerk Green” which leads to questionable ROI. Wal-Mart is a brand that has spent millions on green marketing lately. Interestingly, in the latest installation of Ci’s SHIFT Report™, only 18 per cent feel that Wal-Mart is a socially responsible brand – a dismal response for a high profile and well-patronized brand making significant steps into the eco-camp. Wal-Mart – to its detriment – has been focusing on its eco story without considering the importance of improving its social sustainability story.

The July 14th/21st issue of Business Week had a small article in the “News You Need to Know” section on Wal-Mart and the two million labour law violations the company has received – it was titled Whacking Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart may have enjoyed some success for the launch of a Personal Sustainability Program designed for employees, however, two million labour law violations have undercut any of those good intentions. Sticking environmental sustainability in one bucket and social sustainability in another is simply not effective. They are not exclusive, and placing them in silos does not reflect people’s relationship with sustainability. Green might be grabbing all the headlines but it still only makes up one quarter of the overall sustainability matrix.

There’s been much debate over people’s attitudes on sustainability issues and social responsibility versus ultimate action – people say one thing and do another. While we are seeing significant growth in certain categories, it can’t be denied that there is an attitude-action disconnect and understanding it is important to consider, when brands look at how they can help consumers fulfill their desire to live more sustainable and responsible lives. There are Four Barriers to Conscious Consumption™ and considering these is a start of creating a sustainability story that connects with your audience. They are Time, Knowledge, Price and Pressure, and understanding the relationship your consumer has with each of them will help close the gap between high attitude and tangible actions.

In today’s economy, we’re going to see increasing real-world actualization of the number one sustainability issue for North Americans: feeling connected to my friends, my family and my community. The good news is that this will have a healthy impact for the environment, often resulting in a lower carbon footprint. Look for an increase in community gatherings, supporting local, DIY/ repair and home cooking. It doesn’t sound so bad. In a recent October 18th New York Times article titled Fluctuations: The Hemline Index Updated, writer Tamar Lewin quoted Dalton Conley, a sociology professor at New York University: “A downturn, then, could result in benefits unmeasured by the market. If people eat out less, the GDP goes down,” Conley said, “but nothing in the GDP captures what you gain if you cook and eat in a leisurely way with your kids.” Ask most people today, “What’s the colour of sustainability?” and they would invariably answer, “Green.” I hope that you’ll consider the other colours on the palette, and the brand and business opportunities therein – a ripe strategy for the current economic and cultural times.

Kierstin De West is a sustainability marketing specialist. She is the co-founder and CEO of sustainability marketing group and think tank Ci: conscientious innovation.www.conscientiousinnovation.com

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Winter 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.