Equip your marketing team for the green revolution

Many producers and retailers of speciality foods are not simply passionate about their produce, they’re passionate about creating or selling foods that are sustainable.

Small food brands and stores have traditionally sourced local ingredients or have a network of suppliers close to home. Creating local jobs and reducing food miles are obvious environmental benefits and are a big draw for many customers.

In recent years that commitment to sustainability has gone much further with many speciality food producers creating ‘purpose-driven’ brands. These are designed to help tackle a particular social or environmental challenge in a way that creates positive environmental and community benefits, as well as a thriving business.

Well known examples include chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolonely, which aims to make chocolate production 100% slave-free. And Rubies in the Rubble that makes award-winning condiments from food that would otherwise go to waste. These are just two examples of companies that have put ‘purpose’ at the core of their business mission and their brand.

There are many more and they are often part of the wider ‘B Corp’ movement, a group of companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.

The popularity of these brands with consumers has not been missed by other food producers and retailers, and some have understandably emphasised their own green credentials to win a piece of the action. You too may have been tempted to talk-up your sustainability credentials.

But a word of warning: you could be opening yourself up to accusations of ‘greenwashing’, the practice of making sustainability claims without any evidence. This isn’t just a potential PR disaster, since 1 January 2022 it’s been illegal.

The practice of ‘greenwashing’ hit the headlines at the start of the year when the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) unveiled its new ‘Green Claims Code’, designed to hold brands accountable for their sustainability claims. The announcement coincided with CIM research, which found half (49%) of UK marketers are now wary of working on sustainability campaigns, such is the fear of greenwashing accusations.

Unfortunately, this puts them at odds with both consumers, who demand businesses be more active when it comes to sustainability, and with many business leaders who recognise that sustainability must be a business priority. In fact, 51% of the companies we surveyed went as far as saying climate change could threaten the very existence of their business or clients.

There’s no doubt marketers have their work cut out for them; our research also shows increasingly savvy consumers are sceptical of brands’ sustainability efforts. The majority (63%) believe many only get involved with sustainability for commercial, rather than ethical, reasons.

But it is for this reason we welcome the new CMA regulations. To make real progress in tackling climate change, we must see businesses be more open and transparent about their impact on the environment.

Far from shying away from communicating sustainability credentials, marketers should view anti-greenwashing guidance as a huge opportunity. If the law succeeds in combatting inaccurate sustainability claims, the market advantage will likely swing to brands which are successfully working to mitigate their social and environmental impact. And if you have the data to support this work, your marketers have everything they need to tell the story of your products credibly.

But businesses should also enable their marketing teams to upskill, giving them the tools and knowledge to feed into effective sustainability-led strategies with confidence. We found that 40% of marketers admit they do not have any marketing qualifications relating to sustainability, but are interested in one, revealing a critical skills gap that needs to be addressed.

That said, confidence to communicate sustainability claims will come more easily if brands approach everything they do with integrity. Without integrity, fears of greenwashing accusations may be justified. Brand owners need a robust sustainability strategy, which means not viewing marketing as a separate entity. Marketers can’t describe what they can’t see, and delivering accurate, substantiated claims depends on close collaboration.

Encouragingly, 71 per cent of the marketers we spoke to feel they already have a voice within their company or with their clients when it comes to sustainability, demonstrating the positive impact they could have within businesses when armed with the right skills.

I would remind marketers that their job is not just about driving click-throughs or marketing a product. They are in a strong position to influence social change, mediating the relationship between brands and their customers. They can be a catalyst for positive change and have an important role to play in making sure brands have genuine sustainability claims high on the priority list.