How can agencies inspire brands to adopt sustainable practices?
On Wednesday 21st October I joined a panel discussion hosted by Robert Half creative services addressing sustainability and brands. The panel included Ollie James, Business Development Director at Proctor + Stevenson, Nathan Williams, Associate Director at Coutts Banking, and Andrew Redman, Managing Director of Realise Design, each panellist had their own angle on how creative agencies working with brands had opportunities to embrace sustainable practices and inspire their clients.
Time for action
The host for the evening was Steve Malkin Founder of Planet Mark Start who set the scene, highlighting the sobering reality of the detrimental man-made impacts on our only home including the extensive plastic pollution as emphasized by the Blue Planet programme as well as the recent IPCC report which states that without dramatic action we will be facing unprecedented climate chaos within 12 years.
Sustainable Business Foundations
Ollie from Proctor and Stevenson kicked the proceedings off using the profit pillar of sustainability (people, profit and planet) arguing for a solid and sustainable business which you can then use as a platform to inspire and win clients, “With a focus on sustainability, we’ve been able to attract other businesses who have and believe in the same ethics”. With over 40 years in business, Proctor and Stevenson have recently renovated an old print works into a carbon-neutral building, powered by solar panels which charge their fleet of electric company cars. The walls are also coated with a material called CristalACTiV which sucks in CO2 and inside they have living walls of plants.
When questioned by a smaller start-up business, Ollie said that small businesses shouldn’t be worrying about expensive technological innovations but embedding sustainability values into their business and outputs from the beginning and shouting about it in their comms to inspire others.
Embedding it into the Culture
Nathan Williams from Coutts & Co, developed this idea of a business routed in sustainable practices by focusing on the culture. Culture change can be achieved by actions such as tackling plastics and disposables. At Coutts, they have replaced disposable coffee cups with reusable ‘keep cups’ and water bottles for their employees. And to connect people with nature and food they have a ‘Skyline’ garden. Nathan explained, “This idea came from our head chef Peter Fiori, and allows us to grow products you can’t go out and buy — and is used as food for clients, and we also keep bees there and make our own honey, called ‘3 Crowns Honey’.” Again these ideas can be scaled up and down depending on the size of the organisation. But it is important that these initiatives are supported by top management so everyone feels they are on a journey of change together.
Advocating Producer Responsibility
I carried on the plastics and materials focus addressing the reasons to re-think and re-imagine because of both consumer and legislative pressures. The time for brands to produce products with no responsibility for their end of life is over. A recent study found 62% of people said they now choose their purchases based on packaging instead of price, and 35% of customers stop buying from brands they perceive to behave in unethical ways. And if customer dissatisfaction doesn’t mobilise organisations there is the voluntary plastic pact in the UK and new EU legislation tackling plastics and packaging which have set targets (which will penalise non-compliant producers) for reusability, recyclability or compostability. I heeded caution at the jump to compostable plastics,(the event was serving them with no provision to get them to the correct composting facility) because again their end-of-life has not been considered properly as they require collecting and processing at one of the 54 in-vessel composters in the UK, the main composting facilities, anaerobic digestors won't accept them.
Presenting this as an Opportunity
Andrew from Realise Design talked about how agencies have a great opportunity by getting clued up on sustainability and steering their clients with innovations that will differentiate them in the marketplace. He talked about going further than just ‘light-weighting’ plastics and seizing on the consumer appetite. He mentioned a pilot that Realise Design had worked on, a few years ago for a refill laundry dispensing system in a major supermarket that was ahead of his time and didn’t get the consumer buy-in; although would have been received very differently if launched now.
Other takeaways
In answering questions from the audience some other key takeaways came up:
- Listen to your customers and understand their concerns
- When talking about environmental issues don’t just focus on the negative or the polar bears. Provide communications that are positive, tangible and relevant to people’s day to day lives.
- It’s time for a shift from human-centred design to humanity centred design now (I stole this from this inspiring blog I had just read)
- Be the change you want to see in the marketplace and the world (although Ollie did say ‘Be’ which got a laugh from all the greenies in the room!!)
