Should sustainability sit under marketing?
Posted by Neil Davey in Marketing on Mon, 20/09/2010 - 01:37
Tweet
In the wake of the launch of a new major initiative to drive sustainability, MyCustomer.com speaks with a handful of experts to solve one of the biggest conundrums vexing businesses today - where should sustainability sit within the organisation?
Last week, London played host to a nine-day business summit marking the launch of the Start initiative, a campaign to seek solutions that will enable sustainability throughout every sector of society.
Over the course of the nine days, more than 1,000 business, public sector and opinion leaders attended the conference, hosted by IBM, to discuss and debate what sustainability could do for business and what business could do for sustainability.
Amongst the list of influential speakers at the summit was His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, a passionate advocate of sustainable development for many years. Ahead of the event, he voiced his concerns.
"A cursory look at most of the web sites that talk about climate change will reveal that it is full of this negative language: ‘stop’, ‘cut’, ‘reduce’, ‘don’t’," he explained. "That is only one way of looking at it. Far too few talk about the potential for a sustainable future to be better and more rewarding – both for us and for nature – than the lives we lead now. This potential needs to be communicated across the country and, indeed, across the world."
Communication and education are indeed key. As demonstrated by a recent study from market research house Incite, the general public remains confused about sustainability, with 44% associating it with the environment and 44% aligning it with financial security – while a further 12% were unable to define it at all.
"It is perfectly understandable that people are confused," says John Elkington, director of Volans, and a leading figure in the corporate responsibility movement for three decades. "In an increasingly unsustainable global economy, the concept of sustainability is bound to be unsettling – and therefore hard for people to get their brains around – because it means change, and profound change at that. There is growing evidence of the system’s unsustainability, with drought and fires in Russia, millions dispossessed by floods in Pakistan, or the landslides in China.
"But most political and business leaders continue to shy away from addressing the issues head-on, which gives us all an alibi for doing less than we should. At the same time, however, where business gives people a clear steer, as retailers Marks & Spencer and Wal-Mart have done in some areas, it is clear that most people will do the right thing."
Where does sustainability sit?
Businesses may be able to provide a valuable 'steer' to the public when it comes to sustainability, but to date this role has been fairly limited. In some cases this may be due to a lack of willingness. But in many others, this is simply a reflection of the fact that many organisations are wrestling with their own confusion about the issue, not least how and where sustainability is best placed in the business.
In a recent interview with MyCustomer.com, Robert Nuttall, who played a central role in devising and implementing the internal and external brand and communications strategy for Marks & Spencer’s sustainability campaign ‘Plan A’, outlined these challenges.
"Sustainability can sit in many different places in an organisation,” he explained. “It could sit in marketing; it could sit in corporate communications; it could sit in corporate responsibility; and it could sit in finance. It can be in many places. One of the challenges for an organisation is that it is quite fragmented in terms of the responsibility – if indeed it is seen as the responsibility for anybody!
"You can get hand-offs across an organisation which may not be as smooth as they might be and which can lead to communication not being as robust as it should be or indeed the core plan not being as robust as it should be.”
Speaking to Marketing Week recently, Unilever’s new chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed, voiced his belief that sustainability strategies are best delivered through the marketing department. "How can marketing be joined-up when we talk about sustainability and ethical products? By making marketing responsible for it," he said.
This belief is borne out by Unilever itself, which has developed the CMO role to incorporate responsibility for communications, sustainability and a place on the company board. As one of the leading sustainable businesses in the world – recently topping a poll by international sustainability consultant Two Tomorrows – should businesses be following Unilever’s lead? Should sustainability sit with marketing?
A sustainable future
"There are a couple of strong arguments for sustainability sitting in the marketing department," agrees Mark Stuart, head of research at the Chartered Institute of Marketing. "Firstly, if there is confusion amongst customers about sustainability then marketers will understand whether or not a customer is likely to be confused by the claims or the labelling the company wants to put out. Secondly, the marketing department will also be best placed to decide how a sustainable claim should be communicated; again, drawing the distinction between a green claim and greenwash is likely to be best understood by the marketing department."
Brand director of the Start initiative and chair of The Marketing Society Green Alliance, Jo Kenrick, similarly believes that marketing is where sustainability should sit. "This year, as part of The Marketing Society’s ongoing commitment to driving the green agenda, we have held a number of events in collaboration with HRH The Prince of Wales and Business in the Community to discuss how marketers can best help create a sustainable future. A number of different themes have been highlighted by the events but the key theme which arose is the need for greater levels innovation to help encourage consumers to change their behaviour. As innovation is the bread and butter of all marketers, it makes both business and common sense that sustainability should be the responsibility of the marketing department."
She adds: "Delivery of a company’s sustainability strategy should sit firmly within the marketing department, of that we are in no doubt. Marketers are best placed not only to influence consumers and help change behaviour but also to prevent the many great efforts made by businesses every year going unnoticed by UK consumers."
And it’s not just those in the marketing function that believe it is the correct home for sustainability. Michael Willmott of agency Trajectory, co-founded Future Foundation and wrote the influential book Citizen Brands, and he is agreement. "In my book Citizen Brands I argue that CSR is so important to companies going forward that it should rest in the marketing department or even the CEO’s office. Sustainability is an element of that."
Nevertheless, Willmott believes there is a caveat to this. "Business can and should take a role but only if they’re clear what they are trying to say and have conviction in it. To some extent, given the way society has and will develop, it is something that has to be embraced but like all marketing comms nowadays it needs honesty and clarity. Not something to be abused."
A fun choice
Unsurprisingly, however, there is no consensus over the responsibility for sustainability. Few are as distinguished in the field as John Elkington, who has been described by Business Week as "a dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades", originated the term 'triple bottom line', founded think tanks/consultancies SustainAbility and Volans, and has authored an extensive list of books on the topic. He is wary about marketing taking responsibility for sustainability.
"That’s where the rubber hits the road, certainly, but you can’t just leave it to marketing people," he says. "If you do, chances are that they will run the vehicle off the road. Recall what happened in the CFC/ozone-friendly era, when marketing people were busily reassuring consumers that lead-free petrol saved the ozone layer. These people are rather too inclined to grab the wrong end of the stick and brandish it vigorously, further confusing consumers."
Robert Nuttall too, believes that placing sustainability in marketing isn’t a silver bullet.
"You have to approach it on a case by case basis," he suggests. "In very broad terms I would say that FMCGs and retailers are among the leaders [in sustainability] because they have seen the business benefits that tend to come very central to their core business proposition, and so sustainability is placed in somewhere that is central to the business. That will depend upon their internal structures as to where that will be. So it is not so much a department. It is the fact that it has board representation at the highest level. That is what defines the leaders from the others."
Although Kenrick believes that sustainability should sit in the marketing function, she does however agree that this would be unworkable if it was siloed within the department. Indeed, while the debate over sustainability’s position within the organisation continues, there is agreement that there needs to be integration with the whole organisation.
"Whilst I [think] that it should sit in the marketing function, I also believe that it is key that all areas of the business buy into it, as it needs to be at the core of what the business does rather than an add on or afterthought," she emphasises. "So marketers should be taking the lead but ensuring that they engage their colleagues in both the cost saving and innovation driving and revenue opportunities which the sustainable agenda opens up."
Similarly, it is telling that there is a consensus about another issue in this area. While the intricacies are still being addressed, there is agreement that businesses have an important role to play in the communication of the issues behind sustainability.
"It is vital that businesses proactively educate consumers about sustainability and make it easy for them to choose green. Behaviour change, both encouraging and enabling it, lies at the centre of helping the UK public enjoy a more sustainable way of life. Business not only needs to make it easy for consumers to make the change but should seek to make that change as enjoyable as possible," concludes Kenrick.
"By providing consumers with new ways to be sustainable through product innovation, incentivising and monetising them, or simply by exciting them we can ensure that sustainability is not only an easy choice to make but a painless and even a fun choice too."
- login or register to post comments
- Add to a social bookmarking site
Has to be owned by the most powerful function or that most responsible for waste / carbon emissions
I would be very wary of giving responsibility for sustainability to the marketing function, de facto - the risk is that it becomes about what marketers are strong at - comms and brand image - and less about making substantive changes across the organisation. Marketers do not, for the most part, have the clout and credibility to get this done. The exception to that would be in FMCG because marketing is the route to the top. It is the most powerful function, therefore it takes a leadership role and can get things done.
I would argue that you either give it to the most powerful function, whatever that is - engineering, operations, finance, marketing. Alternatively I would give it to the function that currently has the highest carbon footprint or generates most waste - the function that is most responsible for current lack of sustainability.