Sustainable marketing is more than just a buzzword — it's a fundamental shift in how consumers perceive the products and services they are purchasing.

Each year, consumers demand more “responsible” brands. According to a study by Unilever, a third of consumers are now buying from brands based on their social and environmental impact. As a result, a new kind of marketing has emerged for brands — green marketing — that involves them being more transparent about their production habits and sustainability credentials.

Unfortunately, going green takes some green. It's expensive to transition to sustainable systems and products that don't harm the Earth, but in today’s world, green marketing is well worth the dollars spent. When you’re building a campaign, it’s important to consider every touchpoint and how it affects the consumer, the environment, and your bottom line.

Gripping the sustainability trend, companies are turning to embrace purpose-driven marketing — leading with heart and stories rather than discounts and offers. Sustainable marketing is especially prominent in the CPG arena, with a focus on things like biodegradable packaging, low-emission transport, and sustainably-sourced food.

As Earth Day and World Water Day approach, we will define green marketing, explore strategies and best practices, and look at some ways top brands are executing sustainable marketing.

What is Green Marketing?

Eco-marketing, environmental marketing, green marketing — call it what you will, but the term refers to a brand, products, or services that leverage marketing practices with environmental benefits.

Green marketing is not only about promoting products or services with environmental characteristics — it also involves brand modification and changes to the manufacturing processes. While conventional marketing is selling-oriented and focused on the end benefits, environmental marketing is centered around education and values.

Companies need to realize that sustainability involves three aspects — environmental, economic and social — each of which should be taken equally into consideration. These aspects form the triple bottom line. In its purest form, they boil down to what you have heard referred to as the 3 Ps: people, planet, and profit. People considers employees and the community, planet refers to a company’s effort to reduce its ecological footprint, and profit encompasses maximizing revenue and sustainable growth.

Be Cautious of Greenwashing

Companies that market themselves as sustainable but don’t implement consistent practices can face serious public backlash.

Fashion brands H&M and Zara have been faced with criticism for their vague sustainability claims that fail to provide adequate detail on their environmental initiatives. The basis of marketing law says that “claims about a product’s main qualities must be easily accessible and understandable for the consumer” — something that these brands failed to do in their product descriptions.

Although greenwashing is rarely caused by malicious plots to deceive consumers, brands should focus on being fully transparent to consumers about their intentions. Steer clear of fluffy language, irrelevant claims, and suggestive pictures.

Green Marketing Strategies

Green marketing can touch various aspects of business — including planning, production, distribution, and public relations. We will outline some of the most common strategies brands use today.

1. Green Logistics

This refers to elements like green packaging that dictate how goods are manufactured and brought to the retailer. Not only is packaging crucial to the safety and quality of food, but it can have a profound impact on the environment. Green logistics also includes recycled packaging, transportation optimization, and carbon offset.

Nestlé has launched the world’s first free, mobile application for iPhone and Android devices to help people recycle waste packaging correctly. The world’s largest supplier of foods and beverages is committed to making 100% of its packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025. Its vision is for none of the food giant’s packaging — including plastics — to end up in landfills or as litter.

A handful of eco-labels — the chasing-arrows recycling logo, the Energy Star, and USDA's Certified Organic — can influence consumer purchasing behavior.

2. Green Positioning

Everything a company does is a reflection of its core values. Green positioning is essentially a combination of all company activities and how they affect its bottom line. They key to this tactic is being fully transparent about all the company’s contribution to upholding sustainable practices — including supply chain, wages, materials, and environmental impacts.

Here are some ways companies position their brands as sustainable:

Publicly commit to a specific, measurable mission that positively impacts the environment
Publish sustainability reports on a regular basis
Share relevant updates, progress, and behind-the-scenes content on social media and through marketing campaigns
Encourage an ethical, sustainable culture for employees and customers

With social media and so many digital channels available to brands, conversations around the environment are moving at light speed.

3. Green Workforce

A big part of green positioning is cultivating a purpose-driven workforce. If your employees aren’t committed to sustainability, how can you ethically market yourself as a sustainable company?

Unilever is a great example: 76 percent of its 70,000 employees feel their role at work enables them to contribute to delivering the sustainability agenda.

The true key to empowering a green workforce is rooted in the company’s leadership. We have seen a rise of the Chief Sustainability Officer, who may become the most crucial member of the C-suite guiding a transition toward a new economic reality.

Having a visibly committed CEO who makes environmental soundness a corporate priority can forge an emotional link between a company and its customers. CEOs like Patagonia’s Rose Marcario and Procter & Gamble’s David Taylor actively take responsibility and join the public discussion regarding sustainability.

By identifying ways for employees to get involved and keeping them up-to-date on concepts like climate change, clean technology, and green consumer behavior, your sustainable marketing initiatives will come off a whole lot more authentic.

4. Green Disposal

This refers to sustainable waste management and disposal. Many companies have been investing in ways to minimize waste.

For instance, Estee Lauder’s 23 manufacturing and distribution facilities have sent zero waste to landfill — and any waste that cannot be recycled is incinerated and turned into energy. On top of that, the company’s packaging designers and engineers are re-working the company’s packaging portfolio to integrate post-consumer recycled material into its packaging.

Garnier, Aveda, and a plethora of other beauty and fashion brands have also adopted recycling and sustainable disposal initiatives.

Examples of Sustainable Marketing

Along with the brands we’ve already referenced, these are some of the companies making big leaps in the sustainable marketing realm.

PATAGONIA

Patagonia is more than just an iconic outdoor gear manufacturer.

It was Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, who helped create 1% for the Planet — Patagonia’s self-imposed Earth tax that provides support to environmental nonprofits working to defend the world’s air, land, and water. Through this initiative, businesses pledge 1% of sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. On Black Friday, they went so far to donating

Their employees, who they call Global Sports Activists, use their roles in the sport community to drive positive social and environmental change.

Finally, Patagonia gives grants to grassroots environmental organizations that identify the root causes of problems and approach issues with a commitment to long-term change.

STARBUCKS

Starbucks has long had a “global aspiration of sustainable coffee, served to our customers in more sustainable ways,” according to CEO Kevin Johnson.

The leading coffee retailer knows it has a long way to go in terms of shrinking its environmental footprint — its annual waste adds up to more than two times the weight of the Empire State Building, and the water it uses could fill 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. At the beginning of 2020, the company announced that it plans to replenish 50 percent of all the water it draws for its operations and coffee production by 2030.

As part of the "Starbucks Greener Stores" initiative, it plans to design, build, and operate 10,000 environmentally friendly stores globally by 2025. These greener stores will embody Starbucks’ commitments to energy efficiency, renewable energy, water stewardship, waste reduction,

IKEA

You may think of massive stores and mass-produced items when you think of IKEA, but the furniture giant is taking big steps to show its devotion to sustainability. IKEA plans to make all its products according to circular principles by 2030 — meaning they can be reused, refurbished, or recycled.

The Swedish furniture retailer is also committed to sustainable energy usage, with 90 percent of its buildings having solar panels. On top of that, it uses wind farms to generate energy, has planted millions of trees, and only sends 15 percent of waste to landfills.

IKEA’s main sustainability initiative, People & Planet Positive, encourages consumers to be environmentally conscious and manufactures products through eco-friendly practices — relieving us from the necessity to choose between stylish design and sustainability.

AMAZON

Amazon doesn’t just claim to be sustainable — it gives consumers real-world proof of how they’re doing it with brands they recognize. Last year, the company unveiled a “climate pledge,” promising that it would transition to zero emissions by 2030.

As part of this initiative known as Shipment Zero, Amazon will annually announce its company-wide carbon footprint. Amazon touted efforts to spearhead this initiative, like its network of solar and wind farms and the installation of solar panels on its fulfillment center rooftops.

UNILEVER

Unilever has made sustainability part of its corporate identity. 2010 saw the company update its vision statement from “make cleanliness commonplace” to “make sustainable living commonplace.” — all part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.

Five years later, it set about identifying brands within its portfolio which could be dubbed “Sustainable Living Brands” — those that clearly communicate a strong environmental or social purpose.

Take its largest brand, Dove, who has helped over 35 million young people around the world with self-esteem education. Other Sustainable Living Brands in its portfolio include Ben & Jerry’s, who campaigns for social justice and climate change, and Lipton, who is working to increase tea workers’ and smallholders’ incomes.

The company has maximized its sustainability efforts through buying up and growing these brands each and every year — now having a total of 28 brands that deliver 75% of the company’s growth.

Conclusion

Whether its making products more eco-friendly, investing in recyclable packaging, or empowering communities to reduce their environmental impacts, green marketing strategies are becoming more and more commonplace. In today’s digital world, the importance of doing good things for the planet is put front-and-center of us — so brands need to tap into this growing phenomenon to gain consumer loyalty.

The Rise of Sustainable Marketing