Honing in on the ‘S’ of E S G – a critical component of the sustainability journey

ESG – environmental, social, governance, a subject that has been an increasing topic of debate and discussion, but what about the S?

In this episode we speak to Beth Knight, a leading figure in social impact and sustainability, with over 15 years’ experience in purpose-led business transformation – Beth shares incredible insights as we take a deeper diver into the ‘S’ for social - an area that, whilst often the least talked about, is critical for key stakeholders (employees, customers, communities) who are looking to gauge whether they want to engage.

With information being more accessible, people are more vocal, and therefore, it is no longer enough for organisations to simply broadcast messages that stakeholders take at face value, without question.

Beth speaks about the rise of data and sentiment monitoring to understand if your brand is doing well beyond the campaigns and how looking at the full health of your organisation is now a critical part the sustainability journey.

We discuss the challenges faced by large corporations who have teams dedicated to ESG and sustainability and Beth shares some insightful ‘hacks’ for SMEs who perhaps don’t have the resources, but need to start or accelerate their journeys.

Beth’s commitment to making a positive impact is unwavering – and with her wealth of experience, we could have picked Beth’s brains for hours – so many insights and examples.

Tune in to hear Beth talk about:

• How we raise the profile of the S in ESG?

• The acceleration of the social impact conversation and the opportunities that align with that social side.

• How we advance the conversations and narrative both internally and externally.

• The importance of understanding the materiality assessment of an organisation and the social impact indicators within that.

• How as a Marketer you should be helping your organisation plan how you're going to proactively engage with key stakeholders on the ‘Social’ topics.

• The challenges being faced by SMEs and the ‘hacks’ to navigate them.

• The role of Social Marketing (not to be confused with social media marketing) in educating, driving awareness and changing behaviours.

For more information about Beth Knight - you can visit her site.

Enjoy…

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

“Be the voice of the consumer who wants to do more.”

ESG – environmental, social and growth, (yep you read that right), growth rather than governance. We absolutely loved that take from Sandy Skees, Purpose and Impact Global Lead at Porter Novelli. We’ve wanted to talk to Sandy for some time since we came across their research on the ‘Intention – Action Gap - the ‘Rise of the Conscious Consumer’, when writing ‘Can Marketing Save the Planet - 101 Ways to use Sustainable Marketing as a Force for Good’.

This particular piece of research looks at people’s willingness to adopt changes to their behaviours, and not just by purchasing ‘green’ products. Sandy shares example after example of the significant shifts that are happening with consumer appetite and behaviour - shifts which are some of the biggest indicators yet that things are starting to change, and quickly.

Tune in and listen as Sandy shares many fascinating insights from the data and research and, her vast knowledge and decades of experience in this space. You’ll learn:

• What the pressure points are in driving new mindsets.

• What Marketers need to do and why a focus on culture change is critical.

• Why one of the most important roles of business is to change societal behaviours and how communication is the most powerful way of doing this.

• Why communication has to be intentional.

• What is holding brands back.

• What some of the biggest challenges facing marketers are.

For more information about Sandy Skees - you can visit her site.

To view the research The Gap Between Say and Do - see here.

Enjoy…

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

“If you can change how people spend their money, you can change the world.”

Social Impact, sustainable business, creative ideas and changing behaviours, these are just some of the areas that we explored with Chris Baker, strategist turned entrepreneur and CEO of Serious Tissues.

With behavioural science sitting behind so many successful business models Chris talks to us about his experience across a number of social impact businesses and initiatives that he is involved with, and how a simple switch can make such a positive impact.

You’ll hear us discuss the growing momentum behind sustainable toilet rolls and tissues both within B2B and B2C, bamboo vs. recycled paper and the challenges and opportunities that he is currently seeing. We discuss Chris’s upcoming book exploring social impact and how it’s becoming more fundamental than ever for organisations, the rise of impact investing and how doing good is becoming a competitive advantage. Chris talks about the journey writing his book took him on as he spoke to multiple change brands working towards securing a more sustainable future. Chris shares so many examples, this episode will leave your minds brimming with ideas and inspiration.

Join us as we talk to Chris about:

• Social marketing and behavioural science and why they’re at the forefront of driving commercial and social good.

• The challenges of changing behaviours and the approaches you can take.

• How little changes add up and can open the door to bigger lifestyle changes.

• When it comes to change, the need to look at what you are doing through the lens of opportunity – and framing them as such, as opposed to a threat.

• The intriguing concept of disrupting from within.

• The need to put the right metrics behind innovation to avoid setting it up to fail from the get go.

• The rise of impact investing and how it can scale the good.

For more information about Serious Tissues https://serioustissues.com/

And to tune in to hear Chris talking about the latest Which report about ‘loo roll’, provenance and greenwashing tune in here. (You can connect with him on LinkedIn there too!).

Enjoy…

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

Did you know that 20% of the world's fish and meat is consumed by our pets?

We didn’t… and so yet again, the learning curve continues. We love having conversations with amazing brands who are pioneering, disrupting the norms and thinking outside the box with a focus on delivering social and environmental impact.

Food security, the impact of food production and what we eat is an area of significant focus when it comes to wellbeing for all and transitioning to a sustainable future - something we cannot afford to ignore when considering food consumption for humans, but what about our beloved pets?

We invited Alessandro Di Trapani from Grub Club onto the Can Marketing Save the Planet podcast to dive into this very subject and find out more about their insect based pet food products, the benefits to pets (and the planet) and, the important role marketing plays in the narrative and behaviour change around insect based food.

We learnt so much in this episode so tune in to hear about:

• The only real way to drive sustainable change is to change where people spend their money. And, how we need to provide people with the options to drive change.

• Why having a vision and a belief in what you do can allow you to shake up an industry.

• Marginal and incremental steps to being more sustainable is so important and can drive real progress.

• How Grub Club has approached changing the narrative and telling their story which is key to overcoming some of the challenges both in terms of educating people, and changing mindsets which then leads to behaviour change.

• The importance of staying close to your customer - how to drive loyalty when building a community through wrapping a service around your products.

• Addressing the challenges of transparency, price points and education.

• Why creativity is so important in telling your story and how Grub Club try new ways and, channels.

For more information about Grub Club visit https://mygrubclub.com/

And connect with Alessandro via LinkedIn here.

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

Proving unequivocally that waste can build capital, UpCircle is a truly inspiring organisation built on circular economy principles.

The circular economy presents a huge opportunity for both business and the environment so we were really excited when Anna Brightman from UpCircle, a skincare and beauty brand built from waste and, focused entirely on the circular economy principles joined us on the podcast.

UpCircle fully owns the concept of circularity and builds it into every strand of their business. They have learnt how to turn waste not only into a succesful business, but a global successful business, which is continuously testing the limits of what can be done.

As you’ll hear, their marketing knowledge and know-how is an exemplar on how to engage with community to grow whilst doing good for the environment - which is no easy task when you consider some of the staggering impacts the beauty industry has on the planet, from the 120 billion pieces of packaging they put out every year, through to the questionable product testing practices which are still happening even in 2024.

Join us on this episode as we talk to Anna about:

• How UpCircle entered one of the most competitive industries in the world and now sells in 50 countries, created a full packaging return scheme and grew a dedicated community who embrace not just the products, but get fully involved with the refill initiative.

• The challenges along the way and how they overcame them.

• How they built, incentivised and drive a successful refill service which their tribe as Anna calls them want to get involved with.

• What it takes to build an engaged community, building brand loyalty with high levels of retention and ongoing two-way conversation.

• The importance of working with your community on everything from product development through to growing share of voice and raising awareness of circularity and the need for behavior change.

• Why metrics are so important to ensure your business is moving in the right direction. Brining sustainable and commercial objectives together and how commercial metrics can deliver social impact.

• How every product at UpCircle is collaborative by nature – and through building partnerships with industries you might not ever put together has delivered so much impact commercially and socially.Enjoy…

For more information about UpCircle visit https://upcirclebeauty.com/

And connect with Anna via LinkedIn here.

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

When you view something as a competitive opportunity, you look at it totally differently - how can we go above and beyond? How can we get a real angle on this? How can we bring people with us along this process?

We’ve had a bit of a focus or mini-series on biodiversity and nature over the last few episodes of Can Marketing Save the Planet because it is so so critical that we start to understand, talk about and most importantly take action in reducing, removing and restoring the damage that we (business and society) are doing to the environment.

So, we were delighted when Gavin and Rob over at Pinwheel agreed to come back on the podcast to talk about the solutions and actions that are available today that businesses can make part of their sustainability agendas, and the compelling business case this type of investment can build across, acquisition, retention, collaboration, competitive opportunity, sales and profit. As Gavin says, these projects give, “access beyond value chain mitigation projects which repair and restore our climate and ecosystems.”

The damage that has been done is staggering, there has been a 69% reduction in living species since 1970 globally and, in the UK we currently only protect 3% of land 8% of seas, well behind the 30% global target needed by 2030 set out at COP15.

Biodiversity and climate are not mutually exclusive – as with everything it’s all interconnected.

Tune in and listen as we cover:

• The opportunity for brands to really get involved and for marketers to be able to tell the stories of the projects their organisations support as well as that all important progress.

• ·The fact business can take action now, we can start to reduce the damage, remove the legacy damage and, restore habitats immediately.

• Consumer demand, investor demand and changing regulations will force business to do this eventually, so why not be a pacesetter.

• Why investing in biodiversity is a competitive opportunity.

• How biodiversity is different to carbon in so many ways, yet they are so inextricably linked and addressing one helps the other and vice versa.

• ·Why B2B organisations are moving quickly on this.

• The data and insights that come from investing in biodiversity projects builds a compelling business case across the board.

Enjoy…

For more information about Pinwheel - see here.

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

“We are totally dependent on biodiversity to survive – this is not a ‘greeny’ concern, this is an everyone concern.”

Given nature and biodiversity is SO important to the future of humanity, we wanted to dive deeper into this important area. Following our recent episodes with the brilliant Alexandra Pimor, who works with organisations to give nature a voice and a seat at the boardroom table, we jumped at the chance to chat with Dr Sam Sinclair, a conservationist and expert on biodiversity.

Sam starts with explaining what biodiversity is, and just how totally dependent we are on biodiversity to survive.

There are more people and cattle than on earth today than there are wild animals – which is terrifying. We’ve reached a critical point where nature can no longer be a nice thing to look after. And we discuss how biodiversity loss poses a real threat to humankind.

“The biodiversity field has absolutely exploded in the last year and companies all over the place are now questioning and thinking about this in really serious terms, asking what is my businesses impact on biodiversity and what can I do to reverse it?”

As you’ll hear we talk about developing a biodiversity strategy, and importantly how organisations can take action and make different choices. A key point Sam raises is that, “biodiversity is different to carbon as there is no single metric of measure…it’s very context specific.” He goes on to explain, “what a good biodiversity strategy should do is take all the frustrating complexity and make it not frustrating…here’s how it all comes together and this is where we are and this is what good looks like.”

Sam talks about the shift he is seeing from organisations moving away from individual projects, towards holistic programs and it’s at this point we talk about how for marketing this presents an incredible opportunity. Why? Because, people actually care about biodiversity. “Everybody has a story, everybody has a personal connection to biodiversity. This gives marketers those opportunities to craft narratives and people want to do the right thing, which is share by organisational culture.” Who doesn’t want to tell engaging stories which resonate and capture people’s attention, inspiring them to want to be part of the solution?”|

We ask Sam about tree planting and the context and effectiveness around this well-known initiative. He explains that it is an important element, but it is a small piece of the solution. “Tree planting has great PR so people can get it, it is one unit of nature and they can see it. People don’t look at grasslands and soils in the same way, understandably. Tree planting captures the imagination.”

Sam shares so much wisdom and insight in this episode, it really is one for everyone so we’d encourage you to listen, and share no matter what sector, industry or role you are in.

Enjoy…

For more information about Sam and Biodiversify - see here.

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You’ll find the Podcast on all the usual pod platforms - and also on The Global Player and via The Marketing Society. If you love it, do share it and spread the word. Talking about climate change and the role we play is one of the most important things we can do. So join the conversation. We’re all in this together.

Our podcasts are recorded purely via online conferencing platforms, we apologise for any minor sound quality issues.

Are you using your career to fight for the future? 

In this episode we talk with Claire Osborne who has a fascinating job as a sustainability career coach. Claire works with people who are increasingly looking at where and how they work, questioning the role they can play as climate change, climate action and sustainability continue to rise up the world’s agenda.  

Claire talks about the challenges both business and people are facing and the research from David Graeber’s work around ‘bullshit’ jobs. Claire tell us that research reveals that, “37% of all roles are done by people who themselves rate them as having no positive impact in society”. She goes on to explain, there are box tickers, duct tapers, flunkies and many more categories, all of which open up many questions about the roles we spend most of our time doing.

Claire shares the trends she is seeing such as people defining their own roles and setting their own purpose in work, as well as asking, how one applies the role to drive meaningful impact.

Claire works with people who are trying to change the status quo, and shares with us some of the challenges that come with doing that and what you can do to feel supported, capable and less isolated in the sustainability space.

We also talk about how to influence and build the business case for change and Claire shares some key principles around this and things people can be doing such as, “1. Seed-bombing, 2. Doing your research and listening for certain things within the audiences you are talking – what are their aspirations, ambivalences do they have, and what anxieties do they have? And 3. Listening in the moment, to find the 10% that the other person is right and explore that.”

We dive into effective communication skills and the need to listen more, to share and have conversations, as opposed to purley broadcasting and talking ‘at’ our audiences. Claire shares her view on marketing and the skills Marketers have that can be put to great use in the sustainability space, explaining… “there is a ballsy-ness and incisiveness, which we could all do with applying.”

Claire believes, “Marketers can use their knowledge, the insights and research they have access to, to create clear, rather than clever messaging to help with understanding, and to bring in a rigour that doesn’t overwhelm, but sells the next action, the next thing to do.”

There’s a lot of advice Claire shares, and she busts open some of the most prominent myths in the sustainability space, giving a wealth of practical things for listeners to take away from this episode.

Enjoy and any questions… simply get in touch.

From Claire’s website:

Working in sustainability is tough - the scale and urgency of the climate crisis can make it tough to keep moving forward with energy & focus. Frustration, exhaustion, uncertainty & overwhelm drain energy and make it harder to bring your best thinking to the challenge. One thing is for sure though; we need experienced Sustainability Leaders on the pitch. Your expertise is essential to steer the debate and drive action. Use the latest in neuroscience and behavioural psychology to set you up to be a force for change on climate.

If you feel like you want to speak to Claire, you can find more on her website here: https://www.claireosborne.co.uk/