How brands are evolving in the area of sustainability marketing and communications — and how their stakeholders are asserting their own needs and preferences.
In early March, Cone Communications teamed up with ORC International to conduct a survey of over 1,000 adults to better understand how consumers interpret and grapple with the flood of environmental information coming their way. The survey included many questions on how consumers seek out information, usage and disposal instructions, and how well they actually understand what it is that they are being told. The results are now a part of the 2013 Green Gap Trend Tracker and boil down to a series of statistics. Usually, a list of percentages can be tedious and meaningless if taken out of context.
Starting this month, Sustainable Brands will bring you a treasure trove of insight, examples and opinions on communicating sustainability, all to help you persuade, motivate, nudge and inspire people and brands to do things differently. That’s a very important goal; once impetus is established people can achieve great things.
A 2012 Gallup poll reported sobering news for Corporate America — only 19 percent of the public has significant confidence in big businesses, 41 percent has some and 39 percent has little or none. The only institutions doing worse in the public’s eye are HMOs and the U.S. Congress.This comes as no surprise given the plethora of corporate controversies, CEO scandals, bailouts and environmental accidents that have dominated headlines in recent years. These types of stories often overshadow the good work being done by more conscientious brands, making it difficult for them to stand apart from less-responsible competitors.
Bacardi Limited has achieved a nearly 50 percent drop in water usage and roughly 33 percent reductions in both energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the last six years, according to its latest corporate responsibility report, released online Wednesday. Reductions were achieved through a combination of conservation measures that included more efficient equipment and greater use of renewable energy sources.The digital report, “Our Spirit is Clear,” embodies Bacardi’s commitment to reduce both its carbon footprint and impact on the earth’s natural resources. The company says the water saved is equivalent to providing a glass of water to every person on the planet.
“The world is not made of atoms, it’s made of stories.” — Muriel Rukeyser
H&M for the first time has made its supplier factory list public alongside its annual sustainability report, released last week.
SAP AG today announced the SAP Integrated Report 2012, its first report that brings together the information usually shared in an annual report with the information normally contained in a sustainability report.
This week, GreenBlue announced the successful completion of the soft launch phase of its How2Recycle labeling system, and the addition of The Kellogg Company to the 11 other brands already using the label.
Candy company Unreal is sponsoring the 2013 Easter Bunny Apology Tour, a social media and publicity campaign aimed at “unjunking” popular candy products, according to a recent announcement.
The old cliche “money doesn’t buy happiness” still rings true; yet in this economy, apparently it can buy sustainable consumption.
Tom’s of Maine has launched a new website that makes it easier for people to learn about the way it does business, its goals and its progress against those goals.The Tom’s of Maine Goodness Report breaks the company’s efforts into six categories — energy, ingredients, waste, water, packaging and community. The Report features 2011 benchmarks, updates on recent projects and a goals tracker for 2015 and beyond. Highlighted goals include:
Consumer-facing companies made up more than half of the Top 100 BrandPower Rankings Report released this month by CoreBrand.
New research released last week by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Edelman shows global marketers overwhelmingly agree that "purpose" will be increasingly important to building brands in the future.
On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved a final order settling charges that The Sherwin-Williams Co. and PPG Architectural Finishes, LLC made false and unsubstantiated claims that some of their paints contained zero volatile organic compounds (“VOCs”) after tinting.
Within the next five years, all products sold in Whole Foods stores in the U.S. and Canada will be labeled to indicate if they contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), according to a recent announcement.
A total of 138 companies have made the World’s Most Ethical (WME) Companies List, an annual designation recognizing companies that consistently translate business ethics rhetoric into action.
Unilever has launched a new soup in France that is the first to publicize a key ingredient as sustainably sourced, according to a recent announcement.
The Climate Reality Project and communications agency Arnold Worldwide announced on Thursday the global launch of Reality Drop, an innovative social media tool that educates users about the reality of climate change and uses modern gaming techniques to combat climate-change deniers.
The lingo of sustainability didn’t offer a descriptive enough term for modern brands that integrate energy savings, waste reduction and innovative sourcing goals into the framework of the way they do business. So professors Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister coined one: Eco-Business.
Levi Strauss, BBVA, eBay, Danone and General Electric made the top five of the SMI-Wizness Social Media Sustainability Index 2012, an annual review examining how major firms use social media to communicate sustainability and corporate social responsibility.