What I’m Learning About Local Sustainability from Renowned Marketing Experts
Summary
Brands large and small are experiencing this change and responding to it in a variety of ways, and here we return to Butler and Carvill’s remarkable interview with Sarah Duncan who referenced the triple bottom line concept originated by “sustainability Godfather” John Elkington, author of Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism. With the rising generations deeply interested in climate action and championing least consumption, upcycling, recycling and circularity, and with incoming marketing staff walking into organizations from the global school strike marches launched by Greta Thunberg, Elkington codified this economic approach: 1) People: No business has any future without its customers. The majority of the ads they are creating are about clean energy investments which they arent actually undertaking at scale.” Because polluters wouldn’t be nearly so good at telling these tragically misleading stories without the skills of creatives, millions of marketers with a life-stake in a livable planet are now standing at a fork in the road. It’s an unacceptable worldview that planetary stewardship is only for the privileged and I listened with great interest to Collective Stories Director, Helen Hepworth, explain how a major UK supermarket chain has intentionally installed its least-packaging options in one of the poorest neighborhoods in West Yorkshire. Multiple interviewees referred to the middle folk in the supply chain (namely retailers) as essential gatekeepers, urging them to put in the work to source their inventory from suppliers with the lowest possible carbon footprint to make green choices readily accessible.