The CIM says that marketers have a significant role to play when it comes to supporting businesses drive a more sustainable agenda and practice responsible marketing.
But sustainable marketing comes from sustainable business models.
We’ve recently attended some training run by the CIM on a topic that’s important to the company: The Sustainable Marketer. And what we’ve learned?
As well as being good for everything from our communities to the planet, sustainability is good for business.
68% of people are more likely to buy from a company that talks about sustainability initiatives
The Language of Sustainability White Paper, Trajectory, Jan 2024
Listen to your stakeholders. Sustainability disclosures are being expected more and more at pitches. People are expecting businesses to lead the way. It makes sense to think about it now to future-proof your business.
The UN's Global Goals for Sustainable Development
Some companies use the UN’s framework and choose which elements align with them. There are 169 associated sub-targets for these 17 goals, so an excellent framework for what “good” looks like.
These goals have been developed with more than business in mind, but why not choose one or two to focus on where your business can make an impact?
Understand and question your supply chain
It’s not just about how you do business. It’s about who you’re working with too. Their sustainable practices are your sustainable practices.
Know where you are
Using your carbon footprint as an example, there are plenty of tools to help you understand your carbon emissions as a small business. Then you can understand, record, monitor and reduce it!
Shout about it!
We spent some time on the course talking about greenwashing, which is where businesses are untruthful or misleading about their sustainability initiatives or the impact of what they’re doing. This is obviously a huge no no, and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is taking huge companies to task over it – fining up to 10% of their global turnover for misleading green claims.
With that said, if you are making sustainability efforts – you can talk about it! Just be honest with the activities and the impact – and don’t forget to bring it back to how it positively affects your stakeholders.
What we're doing
At the moment, we have climate action on our list: reducing waste and doing business sustainably, and having a monthly carbon offsetting plan. We also support two local charities in our community – both of which work with young people.
We’ve taken sustainability training over years to try and understand how we can improve our business operations to benefit our community and the world more generally!