The biggest challenge facing business is the need to change how we do business. Revenue and profit can no longer be the sole focus. It is critical that businesses look at the triple bottom line considering people, planet and profit and understand the operating landscape is changing rapidly. From decarbonisation targets through to tightening regulations, new reporting requirements and exciting opportunities such as the circular economy, the way in which we plan, operate and measure what we do as businesses in order to create sustainable markets and ways of living is a challenge, but also a huge opportunity. For people, the biggest challenges lie in changing our mindsets and behaviours. How we eat, heat and travel are key areas we need to be more aware and educated on. Then there is our unhealthy relationship with consumption; a considerable challenge, but one that business and society can change if we work together.
We are very clear that Marketers have been a significant part of the problem, driving consumption, shaping behaviours and creating demand, with little to no responsibility for the emissions and unsustainable levels of waste associated with it. However, as creative thinkers, story tellers and behaviour shapers, Marketers are well placed to be a significant part of the solution, something that sits at the very core of this book. As Sir David Attenborough said when he joined Instagram, "Saving our planet is now a communications challenge," so Marketers cannot underestimate their part in driving positive impact.
Sustainable Marketing isn’t about marketing green products and sustainability. It isn’t about rebranding and reinventing marketing into something else, and it isn’t about new skillsets. It’s about rethinking marketing, and placing a responsible lens over what we as Marketers do. As readers will see, we take traditional strategic marketing models and ask a different set of questions, questions which reflect the changing operating environment and take into account people, planet and profit. Sustainable Marketing IS marketing, it isn’t something that sits separately. Businesses still need to make money, attract employees and engage with customers. Opportunities to increase efficiencies and grow are still very much present, but the difference is they can no longer be at the cost of the planet we inhabit.
Can Marketing Save the Planet? has been written and designed to be used in a multitude of ways. It isn’t only for Marketers; the content is for senior leaders, other business functions, corporates and SMEs across all industries. You can read it from cover to cover, use it as a handbook, dip in and out as questions or topics arise and download the Sustainable Marketing models to help you build sustainable marketing strategies and plans, or to set measures and metrics around social impact. There are three actions at the end of each chapter totalling 303 actions in total for readers to consider, and a useful resources section which will be kept up to date on the Can Marketing Save the Planet website. However you choose to engage with the book, we have ensured the content and learning continues well beyond the pages so as to meet our objectives of educating and driving awareness around the biggest challenge businesses and indeed humanity faces today.
Not on its own, but as readers will see, Marketing plays a significant role across many different areas across the value chain of the business - and with collaboration, a responsible lens and a different set of questions, the opportunities are huge, both from a personal and professional perspective. There are really two key strands – 1) Marketing ‘sustainability’, embedding it into the heart of everything a business does and engaging all key stakeholders along that journey – and 2) Sustainable Marketing, rethinking all that marketing does. We believe that cohesively, Marketing Sustainability and Sustainable Marketing incorporates strategy, brand, innovation, creative thinking and effective communication, all of which makes ‘marketing’ important and exciting.
