Brands and sustainability: the passion and the passive
Consumer beliefs and purchase behaviours are out of synch, writes Douglas Nicol, partner at The Works, part of Capgemini. He reveals the 4 big challenges for brands and sustainability.
As the world transitions to a low carbon economy, to date much of the leadership on Net Zero in Australia has come from the private sector and in particular brands that are combining genuine purpose with the profit opportunity of reengineering their businesses.
There are no best practice guidelines on how a brand becomes a true agent of change on this lower carbon journey, but the brand leaders on this journey are both passionate and inspiring.
I recently curated a panel on the topic at Mumbrella360 with some of these leaders: Kinda Grange (Joint Managing Director of Goodman Fielder), Nicky Sparshott (CEO of Unilever ANZ). Sparshott and Grange are custodians of over 50 iconic pantry and home brands, and finally, Dr James Robey (Global Head of Sustainability at Capgemini and, also a lecturer in Sustainable Business and Carbon Accounting at Imperial College London). What this panel shared was enlightening and best expressed as these four core challenges and opportunities for brands on the journey to Net Zero.
- There is a gap between what consumers believe and their buying behaviour
Data from Forrester suggests that only 26% of Australia consumers report that their buying decisions are based on a brands position on climate change and Net Zero. Yet according to The Australia Institute in 2021, 69% of Australians favour Net Zero targets and domestic action to achieve the goal. This means that brands need to act as advocates and educators to close the intent/action gap.
- Consumers see many barriers to embracing a more sustainable lifestyle
Our research highlights the significant barriers consumers have in adopting circularity: 60% want clearer recycling labelling on product packaging and 53% cite the inconvenience of recycling as a big issue in their busy lives. This means that brands will need to cooperate with each other at an industry level to solve this issue. This is already starting to happen in Australia with opportunities like making recycling of soft plastics a curbside service.
- True progress on carbon reduction is often invisible to consumers
Often the real progress on decarbonising the value chain for a brand is hidden deep in the back-end manufacturing processes rather than the high viz elements like packaging. This is a communications challenge for brands as the methods of decarbonisation are often seen as dull engineering talk, yet the outcome is highly valued by consumers.
- Net Zero as a brand claim is becoming corrupted
Many niche brands have reached (or claim to have reached) the Net Zero target, even some large corporations are already claiming Net Zero status. A big challenge is many brands are calibrating the math’s differently on what their actual carbon reduction progress is. This is a clear and present brand risk. Without a uniform immutable measure of carbon reduction, consumers will at first be confused and then cynical about what the brands they buy are actually doing in reality. Importantly, we need to reflect upon these targets in the context of the wider interconnected aims of a brands ESG framework.
Brands are often framed in concepts like status, premiumisation and most recently experience. As the ethical, community minded pragmatists of Gen Z become the mainstream consumers of brands, they will buy brands differently and ask the question – is this brand a true agent of change? Is your brand ready to answer the question?
Douglas Nicol, partner at The Works, part of Capgemini
