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Marketers and their agencies still struggle against business realities when trying to push the sustainability agenda, especially now survival is many businesses’ priority.

“What is it going to cost us?” That’s the common refrain from businesses when challenged to increase their sustainability efforts, according to marketers speaking at a recent roundtable hosted by Marketing Week and sponsored by creative agency Five by Five. The event, held under the Chatham House rule, addressed why more brands aren’t fully able to realise their plans for sustainability, and how that might be overcome. “There’s a trade-off when we talk about being able to deliver work as sustainably as possible in terms of cost,” noted one agency lead. A senior marketer in the insurance industry was similarly open about the dilemma companies face: “Why are we shooting [an ad] in South Africa? Because it’s cheaper. When it comes down to it, if it’s cheaper to fly a whole crew to South Africa rather than film in the UK, it isn’t the right thing to do [for the environment] but we will do it.” If the government is looking for ways to boost the UK economy and contribute to sustainability, there’s a clarion call from marketers. The UK’s creative industry needs help to compete globally, which won’t just drive money into the local economy but deliver on sustainability targets too.

“Anyone can have a sale. We wanted our customers to know that ours was the biggest and the best. The campaign made that happen.”

Jamie Hewett, B&Q

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Five by Five is an independent creative agency with offices in London, LA, Sydney and Southampton. If you are looking to give your brand a kick up the @rse then contact george.roberts@fivebyfiveglobal.com to discuss, or for more information visit www.fivebyfiveglobal.com.

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More than skin deep But even then, from an agency perspective, being positioned as a sustainable alternative is the altruistic option. Contributors to the roundtable universally agreed that they currently did not select industry partners based on their sustainability credentials. There are other, more pressing priorities. “We are looking more around inclusivity and diversity of talent, BAME and women on boards. These are things that have been bubbling up since before Black Lives Matter,” the participant from the insurance sector added. This may yet change, as consumers look deeper into how their chosen brands behave. There was general agreement that companies are coming under far greater scrutiny than ever before when it comes to their green credentials. Top level sustainability – recyclable packaging, lowered emissions – is a hygiene factor and it can’t be used to mask murkier goings-on below the surface.

“We’ve walked away from a few things where the client has been quite prescriptive about going down the sustainable angle and you just scratch a little bit and find out it’s a marketing initiative,” admitted the agency lead. “People’s awareness and desire to do something for the environment is only going to increase over the next decade and there’s a massive trap for companies who paint themselves green without really investing,” warned a representative from a sports brand. He said what many organisations fail to realise is the sheer amount of effort companies have to put in to genuinely embed sustainability into the company. “To do this seriously is a major, major piece of work. Everything has to be reimagined.”

A long journey The more the group discussed the challenges facing companies on the road to a truly sustainable future, the bigger the mountain they had to climb seemed. With so much set against them, is the temptation just to give up? Having been tasked with creating a gold standard of sustainability for his employer, one specialist noted the irony that “when you put in all the metrics and measures that people wanted, the organisation wasn’t even green enough for itself. It was just not realistic. We consume oil; no-one is 100% sustainable. We all have impacts.” “But people recognise that you’re on a journey,” he continued. “Transparencies are really important. There’s no way you can make most products that have no impact. [Instead] look at our business, what are our impacts and where are the easy wins? That’s where we should focus.” One of the biggest concerns for executives seems to be that they want to make a genuine change, but that even their best intentions will be met with disdain. A leading marketer with a luxury goods retailer articulated her challenge: “We’re not quite sure how to approach the sustainability issue. Some of the issues are outside our control. Can we push ourselves as a sustainable brand when some of the brands we stock might not be that way inclined? We don’t really know the right approach and we’re worried about backlash. But you have to start somewhere.” “People appreciate steps towards something bigger. It’s all about making progress against a bigger idea,” agreed a marketer from the beauty industry.

“Sustainability has to be an agenda item at C-suite level and someone has to own it.”

Take ownership How companies take those steps is certainly a challenge and there was a worry at the roundtable that, if left to the marketing department to drive the sustainability agenda, it would become little more than a marketing initiative. That’s not to say marketing would be bad at driving change, but that getting wider buy-in across the business to create a genuine shift needed sponsorship from a different area. A marketeer from a global fruit supplier illustrated why sustainability was a ‘whole business’ task: “Ours is a leadership challenge. We have a profit target and we have to be sustainable to a degree. We have to be as sustainable as we can across the whole supply chain, from the farmer to the retailer and the end consumer. “If it’s a job title, it tends to get done,” she continued. “You can’t make it everyone on the board’s job. To be relevant, it has to be an agenda item at C-suite level and someone has to own it. The big challenge for me is making it authentic.” That ownership, she added, helped also to define where the company’s focus should be. Sustainability is such a broad church and most companies have several directions from which they could be tackling the issue. To go at all of them, all at once, isn’t helpful. “Carbon footprint works really well because you can control water consumption, travel and so on, and it all accumulates towards that one goal,” she insisted.

“Humans aren’t very good at facts, but we do sniff out inauthenticity.”

A former marketer at a large FMCG manufacturer agreed that you can’t do it all, and flexibility is important. “For one drinks brand it was all about recyclable packaging. For the baby food brand, it’s a very different story. We set targets around packaging in glass jars, for example. There is also different messaging across Europe. The marketing team is allowed to adapt and bake sustainability into innovation where appropriate.” The overall sentiment from the gathering was that sustainability is a worthy goal; that there are some tensions within the business, particularly when it comes to cost; but that sooner or later, sustainability will become either a driver or destroyer of revenues in its own right. For those who are struggling to figure out where to start, or how to keep the process focused and under control, the executive from the sports sector had some advice. In order to devise a single coherent strategy, the company first conducted surveys asking about the choices consumers made in the product category. “We were able to say which portion of customers cared, what their common themes were and so on. We already had a list [of sustainable actions] from the operations [department] and the survey brought some clarity. It made the list make sense. You can find out what customers want and do something about it. Just jump right in.” The roundtable attendees concluded that sustainability is non-negotiable and, while consumers are largely forgiving, companies must almost act with the best intentions. “Humans aren’t very good at facts,” admitted one marketer, “but we do sniff out inauthenticity.”