Does sustainability need marketing?

December 13, 2023 marked the conclusion of COP28. For some, the UN conference on climate change was a giant step forward in transitioning away from fossil fuels. But for most, this event confirmed the conviction that we are on the road to no return. The imagery that comes to mind is classic Armageddon: evolutionary clocks seconds away from midnight. Total game over.

It’s an incontrovertible fact. But the risk in pointing to the impending apocalypse is that human kind will become completely paralyzed, our sensitivity dulled, and any movement toward sustainability quashed. Lulled by the persistent monotone, we risk starting to stop doing anything at all. This is why, when we think about sustainability, we have to stop seeing it as a systemic issue and accept the fact that it calls for objective effort, every day from everyone, a change in the mental habitus that we all inhabit.

Given all of the above, marketing too has to come to terms with “unsustainable sustainability” in order to compose and propose a palatable story. Every day, we are inundated with a plethora of messages, urging us to behave in ways that will save us and the planet. The problem is a serious one; that is beyond a doubt. But the problem is also the “color” of the messages that are excogitated and generated, messages which unavoidably reach us and affect us. All these messages share a very similar, ultra-pessimistic vision revolving around sacrifice, invariably framed by the “don’t paradigm” (“don’t do this,” “avoid doing that,” etc.).

Data and daily proof in hand, let’s look at the strategies adopted up till now to promote sustainability and make it the focus of attention and civil and social engagement (even in the business world – “ethical buying” for instance). As we can see, these strategies have failed to stop us from creeping closer to the point of no return. Indeed, in the catalogue of failed attempts at sustainable innovation, new entries are added every day. These are linked to failures that appear quite shocking on the surface, regarding: performance (“normal” products perform better), appeal (“old” products were more appealing, even sexier), or efficiency (“sustainable” modifications make products harder to use, less intuitive, or lower quality). 

Changing people’s behaviors by offering them less effective, less useful, or less sexy products, is a feat of titanic proportions. Doing so without them benefiting from changing is almost impossible. We know very well that rewards are what initiate habits. Receiving a reward, or being promised one, triggers the release of dopamine, and gratification creates habits.

Conceptualizing how to change human behaviors using a simple model, we can pinpoint four fundamental phases.

• Make it understood. We all know that the current conditions of the planet are unsustainable. We also know from experience that dwelling on this realization rarely leads to behavior modification. (Simply saying, “smoking is bad for you” never made anyone put out their cigarette.) Yet many companies and experts in public affairs alike continue to claim that knowledge alone leads to behavior modification.
• Make it easy. Sadly, when talking about sustainability, most experts address the issue in a hyper-specialized way; when people can no longer follow their line of reasoning, they end up having an experience that is anything but simple.
• Make it a reward. The current conversation on sustainability has seen a huge number of casualties up and down the line. Remember the messaging urging us to cut down on our energy consumption to slow down the melting of the icebergs? The inroads that resulted fell far short of other campaigns inviting people to turn off the lights to save on their electricity bills.
• Make it a habit. Developing sustainable habits, in light of everything that’s been written and said, is not simple, or immediate, or cheap (in terms of the energy it requires). It takes effort (broken down into micro-changes), time, and energy.

That’s why we need to build a bridge between marketing and sustainability so that the former can bring the best it has to offer to the latter. Then, if ours is an era of responsibility, the new marketing will be “marketing responsibility” too.

• Positivity. This means framing messages and strategies as opportunities that the target would perceive as desirable, rather than showing the other side of the coin – a growing danger, grave and imminent.
• Personalization. This involves an act of segmentation, not only in terms of socio-demographics but also in a psycho-graphic sense; raising our awareness of the fact that our public is not a single body but a many different tribes with different priorities.
• Pragmatism. Here we have to show people (consumers and stakeholders alike) that the change they are being asked to make will have tangible results for them in their daily lives in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. This is the only way to prevent the canon of “responsibility” from losing any bearing on reality. Before they decide to make a change, first they have to know that such a change will produce a measurable, desired outcome.
• This calls for vulnerability, a type of intelligence that means showing the public who we are, painting a picture that may not always be flattering, but that reveals a willingness to grow that the public will interpret as a commitment; this will serve as a stimulus, socially and internally.

This conception of marketing responsibility, structured around a sustainability mix like the one described above, changes scope and style in equal measure. Because beyond the model, and the assumptions and the holistic background underpinning it, this is not an activity aimed at conveying a message in the familiar manner commonly used today.

The deviation from storytelling and storydoing, in this sense, is striking and noteworthy. Indeed, we are now placing the accent on the public’s ability to engender a sense of happiness which can spur individuals to act. In doing so, they throw off the shackles of apocalyptic, doom and gloom prophesies that leave them numb or indifferent. Instead, they “breathe” the story, which fosters a profound sense of connection with the narrative, an introjection of the contents, in the awareness of how these messages touch their daily lives. What follows is activation, in light of a deep-seated desire to strive to make a change that is positive, not only because people clearly see its importance, but also its immediate, personal, and escalating impact on their lives.