5.2. Market with integrity

In a nutshell

• Look at your marketing and consider how to best incorporate your sustainability efforts.

• Stay humble and don’t be tempted to get carried away with overclaim.

Companies that shout too loudly about their eco credentials attract the sceptics. Even if they are not actually greenwashing, people may go digging for dirt and find enough to put them off purchasing. 

Be transparent and come clean

Sustainability is not about perfection. But it does involve acknowledging your imperfections or mistakes and addressing them. 

It is much better to keep it real and involve your audience in the journey. Market with complete transparency. People will respect you and engage at a deeper level.

Every action has a reaction, and as you go along there is a high chance that you will make some mistakes. That is fine. The knack is to come clean and not try to hide them. You need to:

• Acknowledge misjudgments as soon as possible.
• State exactly what happened.
• Explain why it was tricky.
• Outline what you have learnt.
• Clarify what you are doing about it.

Finding the right balance

In many traditional forms of internal and external communication the focus is on bigging up the company, using evocative and promotional language.

By contrast, communicating sustainability with integrity requires a delicate balance between the heart and head – emotion and science. But the factual always needs to win out over the fanciful.