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Thrive as a Purpose-Driven Brand with New Data, Tools and Success Stories

Sustainability experts often talk about the need for — and opportunities in — embedding systems thinking and sustainability-driven innovation into every aspect of a business. It sounds quite sexy, but it very often is a long and messy process that takes years, even at companies whose executives ‘get it’ (and that is still a small minority of companies, mind you). Baking significant improvements into product design, manufacturing, supply chain and operations is challenging enough, but not at all the end of the story for companies that want to capture a full set of sustainability benefits. Indeed, there is a growing list of case studies demonstrating tremendous value in enabling brand strategy, marketing, communications and HR to innovate for sustainability in their own work.

To some business leaders, innovating for sustainability on a brand, marketing or HR level can seem too ambitious or far-fetched in the face of more immediate operational challenges. Others may not even understand what we mean by “innovating for sustainability on a brand, marketing or HR level.” Many are interested, but not sure what to do next, given the constantly-changing landscape of perceptions and interactions they are experiencing in an age of informed, creative, always-present stakeholders. That complexity could inspire a variety of reactions in brand, marketing and communications executives — from jumping at new opportunities for engagement with full steam, to slow-pace action in ‘follower’ mode, to cautious observation with barely any action to go with it, to utter paralysis over a single move or statement. Which of these reactions describes YOUR organization best? Why? What could you do to improve?

No matter where you currently stand on this matter, the Sustainable Brands community is here to tell you there is a LOT of business and brand value to be added when brand, marketing, communications, and HR executives get actively on board with broad sustainability strategies. Just ask Unilever, Chipotle, Patagonia, SAP, Microsoft, PUMA or Interface, among a growing number of brands leading the pack toward realizing their full sustainability potential. Of course, integrating any corporate department seamlessly into a larger sustainability vision takes a lot of effort and a lot of time. It takes new arsenal of skills, a new set of tools, and a new network of collaborators. Below are five critical areas of learning that leaders in the SB community deliver regularly, presented here with select highlights from our upcoming Sustainable Brands London 2013 Conference:

• Engaging brand as a key component of a broader sustainability strategy

Unilever’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Gail Klintworth, will share how and why her company is teaming up with other corporations to figure out how to drive (profitably) the big systemic shifts we need on both the supply and demand sides of the economy. Denise Alves, Director of Sustainability at Natura, will share how her employer, a leading cosmetics provider in Brazil, came to root its entire identity in profound ethics and deeply humanistic beauty principles. Sean Ansett, Chief Sustainability Officer at Fairphone, will shed light on the role of disruptive innovation and social entrepreneurship in the rise of a values-based economy.

• Using market-tested tools for embedding purpose into brand

‘Purpose engineer’ Benoit Beaufils, Business Humanizer & Founding Partner at Innate Motion, will demonstrate specific market-tested tools and processes – applied at Coca-Cola, Unilever and Visa, among others – that can help any company build a sense of purpose and turn it into a business driver. Dragon Rouge, Forum for the Future, Swarm, BBMG and other prominent solution providers will be on site to share their clients’ latest accomplishments.

• Making the business case, both internally and externally

Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability Officer & Head of International Institutional Affairs at Kering, parent company of PUMA, Gucci, and multiple other brands, will join us for a live plenary interview with global sustainability guru John Elkington. Jim Hanna, Director of Environmental Impact at Starbucks, will outline a unified business case approach that can drive product, brand, marketing and operations at the same time. Graham Seabrook, leader of BT’s Global Services & Business Transformation business, will participate in a leading-edge conversation dissecting ‘net positive’ business models, including their financial viability.

• Leveraging new means of product and business model innovation

BASF’s President of Nutrition & Health, Saori Dubourg, will bring to life whole-value-network analysis as a prerequisite for optimized partnerships with customers and suppliers alike. Jacobine DasGupta, Corporate Sustainability Manager at Royal DSM, will share how a breakthrough approach to measuring social impacts on a product level can serve as a lever for product upgrades, customer engagement and sales. Alexis Olans, head of adidas Better Place, will describe the process that led to the development of two generations of low-waste running shoes that contain only a fraction of the materials of their predecessors without sacrificing quality.

• Understanding and influencing customer preference, trust, and purchasing behavior

In an exclusive launch specifically designed for the SB community, Etienne McManus-White, Chief Marketing Officer at the The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), will share brand-new results from a global mainstream consumer survey on trends, beliefs, values and behaviors around sustainability attributes products and brands. Raphael Bemporad, Founding Partner & Chief Strategy Officer at BBMG, will updates us on how 2.5 billion Aspirationals are doing, while Denise Turner, Head of Intelligence at Havas Media Group, will continue to unveil consumer insights and data analyses contributing to the development of Havas’ Meaningful Brands Index.

Here is the full program. Looking forward to seeing you, your colleagues and your partners in London next month!