Community Updates

Global Cohort Joins Sustainable Brands’ New Network for Brand Transformation

Affiliate Member Network launches with a peer-to-peer community designed for sustainability service providers

Brand Provided | By Sustainable Brands | Published 5 years ago | About a 3 minute read

Image: SB Affiliate Member Network | Sustainable Brands

Sustainable Brands® announces today that it is adding a new dimension to its community. The SB Affiliate Member Network launches with 12 founding members and the potential to dramatically increase the number of brands embracing sustainability and accelerating transformation for future success.

“With today’s launch of the SB Affiliate Member Network,” said Darren Beck, Vice President of Membership at Sustainable Brands, “consultancies, agencies, nonprofits and other purpose-driven solution providers now have a home where they refine their craft. They are the guides and enablers of sustainable brands. This network offers a forum where they can learn from each other and increase their effectiveness.”

Members of the new peer-to-peer network receive passes to SB global events and private member meetings enabling them to meet regularly. They have the opportunity to collaborate annually with SB Corporate Members. They can share sustainability news and insights through SB’s digital media channels. Importantly, they can also use the SB Brand Transformation Roadmap℠, a proprietary tool, in engagements with brands that they support. The roadmap is a navigational guide that lays out the entire sustainability journey for a brand and enables any company to assess the maturity of its efforts in five related practice areas: Purpose, Brand Influence, Operations and Supply Chain, Products and Services, and Governance.

“As one of the world's largest digital communications agencies, we see the amazing potential of the digital society to do good,” said Anna Easton, Global Head of Social Impact for Dentsu Aegis Network—an SB Affiliate Member Network founding member. “That’s why we are transforming the role of brands. We’re working with our clients to deliver better outcomes for society through campaigns aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Collaboration is key to achieving our goal. Sustainable Brands offers a convening platform and a way for the media and advertising industry, academia and brands to work together on new initiatives, research and tools. The SB roadmap is a great example of this. With it, brands can assess how well they are prioritizing profit with purpose, leveraging their brand influence and capitalizing on other aspects key to becoming a more sustainable brand.”

In addition to Dentsu Aegis Network, the founding cohort for the SB Affiliate Member Network includes: Acacia Blue Cares, Barkley, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Global Strategy Group, Hakuten Corporation, Latitude, Pixelis, Sustainability Academy Turkey, Sustainable Waves, The BrandBeing Consultant (SB Thailand), and URBAN. The network offers each of them a safe space where they can gather, find inspiration, share best practices and identify opportunities to collaborate, all within a pre-competitive setting. Even more, these founding members appreciate how the SB Brand Transformation Roadmap℠ offers a broader framework for their conversations with brands they support and can hasten the transformation of those brands and the scale of their impact.

"Consumer brands have extraordinary power to drive positive change," said Chris McLaren, Chief Marketing Officer for the Forest Stewardship Council U.S. "As a voluntary, market-based system that rewards and incentivizes responsible forest management, we are excited to be strengthening our relationship with Sustainable Brands. Through this new partnership, we see great potential to share our partner brands’ efforts to lead on climate, biodiversity, labor and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and other issues though FSC sourcing. We are convinced that joining SB’s Affiliate Member Network will also open doors for us and our brand partners to increase FSC’s positive impact in forests worldwide."

To learn more about the new SB Affiliate Member Network and whether it might be the right fit for your organization, email [email protected].

About Sustainable Brands. Sustainable Brands® is the premier global community of brand innovators who are shaping the future of commerce worldwide. Since 2006, our mission has been to inspire, engage and equip today’s business and brand innovators to prosper for the near and long term by leading the way to a better future. Digitally published news articles and issues-focused conversation topics, internationally-known conferences and regional events, a robust e-learning library, and peer-to-peer membership groups all facilitate community engagement throughout the year. For more information visit SustainableBrands.com.