Why sustainability campaigns shouldn’t be on your marketing plan for 2023

Earlier this year, I was at an advertising and marketing conference in Cairns to deliver a talk on why our industry should be doing more to fight climate change. I called it “From Net Zero to Net Hero” and my major worry was that other speakers would have chosen a similar subject. They hadn’t. As far as the conference was concerned the existential threat of climate change was non-existent. I implored everyone to do more.

Now, I’m not so sure. I’ve come to realise that doing a big advertising campaign about your business’s approach to climate change will probably backfire. Take the recent HSBC debacle with the UK government’s watchdog for talking up their loans for climate-friendly initiatives while failing to mention they significantly invest in businesses and industries that emit notable levels of greenhouse gasses; or the backlash against Coca Cola for sponsoring COP27 in spite of being one of the world’s biggest plastic polluters. Going big on green claims isn’t working.

The trouble with greenwashing is that it creates a cynical public who don’t believe anyone is doing the right thing. Brands, quite rightly, have to tell the truth. With climate action, they must go one step further and tell the whole truth. It’s time to stop making a big show for sustainable development when realistically this remains only at a brand’s marketing and communications level.