BLOG: No more greenwashing! How should brands fight climate change?

Read our blog to learn what our panel of industry leaders think brands and advertisers can do to promote sustainability and stop greenwashing.

Climate Change

Brands have a key role to play in the fight against climate change. How can advertisers help them lead the way to a greener future?

When it comes to climate change, people are ready for action. 57% of viewers think that environment and sustainability concerns are the most important right now, but how can brands and advertisers use their influence to create change?

As part of our 4Talks series, we spoke with experts and industry leaders about what brands and advertisers can do to become more sustainable and avoid greenwashing.

What is greenwashing?

Greenwashing is a term that describes marketing that falsely persuades consumers that products are sustainable and environmentally friendly when they’re not.

However, as Channel 4 Group Digital Manager and 4Earth Chair Tom Patterson pointed out, it’s more complicated than that: “Trust in advertising has gone up, which is fantastic, but claims of greenwashing and a lack of definition of what is a greenwash is causing issues.”

Anna Abdelnoor, co-founder of isla, suggested that we can be too quick to define marketing as greenwashing. She argued that “whilst it’s important to call out behaviours that might not be completely authentic, at the same time [...] it has the propensity to make the problem worse, because then people are afraid of doing anything.” She believes that behaviour changes will help shape system changes, creating the cultural shift needed to fight climate change.

Huib Van Bockel, Founder of TENZING Natural Energy, agreed that “it’s dangerous if we call everything greenwashing.” For him, it’s important for people to analyse what they consume and consider the details of products. Huib used the example of biodegradable plastics, which many people don’t realise are worse for the environment.

With so much disinformation around, it can be difficult for brands, advertisers and consumers to make the right decisions around sustainability. Being able to access the right information is key for increasing awareness. So, what can brands and advertisers do to help?

What can brands do to be more sustainable?

To combat greenwashing, brands have to walk the walk when it comes to sustainability. Nevertheless, our panel recognised the complexity companies face as they aim to become more sustainable. Ed Gillespie, Environmental Entrepreneur, Speaker, Futurist and Author highlighted that “when you get a supposedly sustainable brand, that has invariably [...] involved some quite serious business model innovation and some quite radical ingenuity in order to form it in the first place.”

Anna pointed out that there’s currently a huge gap between products that are marketed as sustainable and authentically sustainable brands. She argued that there has to be a “transformation in the way that our systems work, in order to get to that place that brands can authentically be talking about being responsible and accountable and focused on the future.” Ed agreed that system change is the way forward, stating that real change must come from “reimagination and reengineering from a sort of systemic approach.”

Huib, whose company is committed to a sustainability pledge, added that “knowing your footprint as a business” is essential. He argued that brands should show their footprint for the benefit of both consumers and the environment: “If you show your footprint to the world, that gives [consumers] the opportunity to make wise choices. As soon as you show [your footprint] to people, you’re very inclined to take it down.” He imagines that in the future, it will become automatic for brands to know and show their footprint, making it more desirable for companies to have the lowest carbon impact possible.

Storytelling for sustainability

As brands go greener, how can advertisers help lead the change? For Tom, advertisers have the power to influence a huge audience: “if [advertisers are] telling a good story, normalising a behaviour that’s better, [...] that has to be a positive step.” Channel 4’s portfolio alone reaches 51 million people a month, which shows the influence TV advertisers can have to “normalise sustainable behaviours” through their storytelling.

Ed believes that in the future, advertising agencies will increasingly have to justify their “eco-effectiveness” and ensure that their work isn’t “growing overall footprint.” He envisions that this will create greater transparency and lead to the emergence of “genuinely radical agencies, who are delivering sustainable behavioural shifts.”

When it comes to greenwashing, Tom stressed the importance of setting “a gold level standard” that’s agreed across the industry. This would help to formally define what greenwashing is and ensure that all advertising meets criteria to combat it. However, change is already underway in the industry; Tom highlighted the work of the Purpose Disruptors and Ad Net Zero, a framework for advertising professionals to get to net zero by 2030, as signs that the industry is already improving.

To learn more about what brands and advertisers can do to change the world and combat greenwashing, watch the whole talk, “The Power of Advertiser Brands in the Climate Fight”, now!


 

Share this article