What's Next... for sustainability: is the message getting through?

22.07.2010

Our event asked whether the sustainability message was getting through

Governments have signed up to ambitious targets to cut carbon, and yet many individuals and businesses remain unconvinced of the need to change their behaviour. Our What’s Next...? panel discussion looked at the extent to which the ‘green’ message will ever appeal to mainstream consumers, and whether corporate action must take the lead.

The speakers were:

- Doug Johnston, director for climate change and sustainability at Ernst & Young.

- Professor Alan Knight OBE, sustainability expert and independent advisor to Virgin Group

- Harry Wallop, consumer affairs editor at The Daily Telegraph.

Key conclusions were:

- A variety of ‘sustainability’ messages from water to conservation can conflict and cause confusion.

- Some people may engage with environmental messages, but many will ignore them. Corporate measures have often prompted more significant changes to behaviour.

- Some businesses can be transformed through sustainability, providing they align corporate action to their strategic objectives, but businesses should not always expect bottom line benefits.

- News values apply: ‘green’ doesn’t sell newspapers, even where there is a clear benefit to the business. It must mean something to the day-to-day lives of readers.

Watch what our speakers had to say

What's Next... for sustainability: is the message getting through? from Fishburn Hedges on Vimeo.

Confusion over the core message

Taken as a whole, the case for sustainability is a web of different issues and interest groups. There are for instance, over 70 different schemes certifying different environment standards from forestry to fishing. This can be confusing.

Leaders and communicators on sustainability can help by presenting an overarching narrative that unifies different issues – whether that be focused on lifestyle, poverty-reduction or saving the planet.

Carbon has limitations as that unifying concept, particularly with the difficulty in expressing and visualising it – what does 43 grammes of carbon look or feel like? Nobody knows.

Consumers and business – who’s leading who?

Significant changes to consumer behaviour have often been prompted by ‘choice-editing’ – removing the most harmful products or appliances within a range – rather than by communications alone. For example, removing plastic bags as an option for shoppers, or less energy-efficient washing machines.

Corporates and brands can play a lead role here in providing consumers with better choices. Providing information on the environmental impacts of products, and thereby equipping consumers to make those choices themselves can be problematic.

‘Concerned’ consumers may engage with carbon labelling, and it seems inevitable that more is on its way, but many will ignore it or just feel confused. This implies that some organisations will need to lead the way with innovations in the products they deliver, but also the way they are delivered, which means working on a more sustainable supply chain.

‘Green’ doesn’t sell newspapers

Traditional news values apply: what makes sustainability newsworthy to an editor, is a story that means something to the majority of the paper’s readers in their day-to-day lives, not something which just means something to the business responsible for them.

Sustainability, particularly ‘top-down’ initiatives by big business often will not meet that ‘most people, every day’ test. They are too worthy.

New products or real incentives for consumers to be green do mean something for consumers, as they can experience them. For instance the clothes or hanger recycling schemes from M&S, did make it into the paper.

There was a view from the floor that the media must bear some responsibility for bringing sustainability messages to life too.

Some businesses can be transformed through sustainability

Some businesses harness the full potential of sustainability, using it to further their strategic objectives, manage reputation and business risks, and reduce costs. This leads to further internal buy-in, and progress can continue to a position where further significant changes can be made.

Within some organisations, ‘sustainability’ falls down, and that is typically where the strategy does not fit with the business objectives, where performance isn’t measured, or perhaps where the wrong things are measured and reported back to stakeholders.

‘Strategic sustainability’ means identifying the key issues for the business and regularly communicating around those issues.

However, sustainability will not necessarily give your organisation competitive edge, for it should not be deployed solely as a ‘marketing’ tactic. Businesses should not always expect bottom line benefits from sustainability initiatives.