Tony's Chocolonely shows how an ethical marketing strategy can pay off - Simon Biltcliffe

A recent study by Deloitte suggests that 40% people choose brands that have sustainable environmental values and practises, with 37% choosing brands with ethical values and practices.

So, it’s clear there are huge opportunities for businesses that prioritise sustainable, ethical business practices, and that’s one of the many reasons why many organisations have invested in incorporating sustainability throughout their operations.

An area which is often overlooked when reviewing sustainability is marketing. There are many reasons for this, including that marketing channels are hard to measure.

A key exception to this is the drive towards digital-only. The ‘save the trees, go paperless’ message is a classic case of greenwashing, and one that we marketers in the print world know all too well.

With net zero goals to meet and growing consumer awareness around the impact of their buying behaviour, it’s incredibly important to review and incorporate sustainability into marketing strategy: from buying, through to your messaging.

Despite a breadth of research by the likes of Mike Berners-Lee, the impact of marketing channels like social media and email are challenging to accurately determine. Other channels like direct mail are more measurable.

At Webmart, we identified that there was opportunity to develop carbon

calculators for print and mail distribution. The solution, Enviromail, offers climate positive mail distribution and means our customers can align their sustainability efforts in their offering with the way they communicate this with their customers.

That’s not to say that brands shouldn’t use a channel because it isn’t accurately quantifiable and can’t be reported on.

Reviewing how your customers engage with your brand, then tailoring your marketing mix to suit, maintains your engagement without excessive touchpoints and footprint.

Incorporating sustainability into your marketing buying strategy, over and above cost, ensures you are aligning with agencies and businesses which add value to your overall sustainability strategy. Just as with supply chains, partnering with organisations which chare your ethos will offer opportunities

for collaboration and futureproof the marketing partnership.

When it comes to messaging, historically we know that consumers respond to marketing which demonstrates how your product or service adds value to them.

Increasingly important is communicating how these meet the sustainability expectations of consumers.

Many brands are also leveraging their consumer following to raise awareness of issues which are important to the brand, and the actions they are taking to support it.

Tony’s Chocoloney use their social media platforms to raise awareness of slavery in cocoa harvesting. Their brand revolves around making chocolate production 100% slave-free and is very transparent on their own progress, as well as being an industry disruptor and calling out their competitors.

Their message resonates with their audience on several notes: it raises awareness of the human impact to harvest cocoa for chocolate, it shows that their chocolate production is actively fighting the problem, and it establishes themselves as sustainable leaders in their sector. This approach to raising awareness of their brand and mission is hugely impactful and has contributed in no small amount to their rapid growth.

With marketing being a significant function for most businesses, it’s important to approach this with sustainability as a focus, just as you would with any other area of your operations.

Not only does this place you at the forefront of sustainable development, but it is also the right thing to do.

Simon Biltcliffe is founder and CEO of Webmart Ltd