Is It Time to Stop Talking About Sustainability?
How Smart Companies Are Shifting Focus From Values to Business Fundamentals In a Polarized Environment
Does sustainability need a rebrand?
In recent months, “ESG” has been lumped in with “DEI” on the long list of ways for your company to get pilloried in the right-wing media. Sustainability, environmental responsibility, circularity, green” anything… all of these are getting pulled into the morass of the culture wars.
In such an environment, what’s a sustainability practitioner to do?I
Is it time for a rebrand?
A Rose By Any Other Name
What’s frustrating is that the broad backlash against anything seen as “woke” (however that’s defined) ignores reality:
There are solid business reasons to pursue sustainability efforts that have nothing to do with an expression of values.
(and yes, this holds for broader ESG and DEI initiatives too).
To put it plainly: You can make more money—and make your business stronger—by incorporating sustainable technologies and practices.
So how did a business improvement get caught up in the culture wars? After all, no one on either side of the political spectrum is worked up out CRM software. Why did sustainability get drug into this mess?
Because, for a lot of business leaders, the push to be more sustainable was an expression of personal values. These leaders led the way—at Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia and elsewhere—because sustainability and environmental stewardship meant a lot to them. It was an expression of values for them, and their organization.
But the problem with values is that issues framed as “morality” become two-sided: If I believe A, someone else believes B.
If I think it’s a moral imperative that people only write with red ink, it opens space for someone else to believe writing with red ink is bad. Which side you fall on becomes a matter of personal values, not some objective measure (readability, for instance). If I tie my own sense of self to my belief in the virtues of red ink, it’s easy for non-red-ink writers to become “bad”.
Because we’ve let a perception of values infiltrate our discussion of something that is simply good for the business, sustainability and ESG are now part of a values argument where they don’t belong, whereas CRM software is not.
Let’s Reframe
So what should we do?
Any business executing a sustainability project should follow two rules:
a/ If it’s internal, keep it internal.
Not all sustainability projects need to be crowed about. Did your company switch to an all-electric truck fleet to reduce maintenance, fuel and operating costs? Great! You’re improving your margin!
But maybe—particularly in the current cultural and political moment—you should resist the urge to brag in public about how virtuous you are.
b/ Focus on customer value.
Ikea’s products are some of the most sustainable in the furniture industry. And while the company talks about its environmental stewardship, it focuses far more on telling the story of how it’s offering low-cost, high-design products.
It’s customers want to buy a table. Sustainability is important to many of them, but everyone buying a table cares about cost and style. That’s where they focus.
(As an aside, much of Ikea’s sustainability work is focused on manufacturing efficiency—sustainability helps them win on cost, making low-price products possible)
Focus on what your customers care about
b’/ …. this holds for internal messaging too…
Not only should you focus on customer value when talking to external parties, you should focus on customer value when talking to internal stakeholders too.
I focus all of my clients on the business value they get from their sustainability work—your team should understand that the switch to the packaging you’re making is reducing your costs by x%. That is why you’re doing the work and why it’s important now—the fact that the change is also better environmentally is a bonus.
(Thankfully, almost all sustainability work hits on core business fundamentals—efficiency, productivity, product differentiation, etc).
So is it time to rebrand sustainability?
Maybe not rebrand—maybe just refocus.
Focus on telling only the stories that need to be told, and focus on the value of the work you’re doing.
That’s work that no one can argue with.