A key tool to successful sustainability marketing

Companies’ sustainable branding and reporting efforts are more important than ever and have to address many stakeholders: employees, prospective employees, investors and perhaps most importantly, customers.

Today’s customers want to feel like they are making purchases based on shared ideals. According to a report in 2021 by DeLoitte, businesses need to plan for ways they can make their products more sustainable and build accountability:

Sustainability remains a key consideration for consumers, with 32% of consumers highly engaged with adopting a more sustainable lifestyle
Equally important, 28% of consumers/customers have stopped buying certain products due to ethical or environmental concerns

The five sustainability areas or concerns that customers value most include: waste reduction, reducing carbon footprint, providing sustainable packaging, committing to ethical work practices, and respecting human rights.

Creative design and branding can help sustainability efforts stand out in a competitive landscape, making a company’s efforts and initiatives more accessible and easier to understand.

But where do you start? With this essential document – a sustainability report.

A sustainability report can serve as the primary resource for reporting sustainability efforts and progress, and all other marketing materials and messaging can cascade from this well of information. If your company hasn’t yet considered this valuable resource, these three suggestions will help you create one that will engage your customers and other key stakeholders.

Three ways to create an engaging sustainability report:

Report on each key aspect of sustainability: environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters.
As some of this data may be highly technical, use language that your audiences can easily understand and charts/graphs to illustrate statistics, numbers and other reporting measures.
Use engaging visuals and good design to aid with readability, and align with current branding standards to help audiences easily identify and remember your report.

Number three is where I come in. See an example of my work in the sustainability report I recently completed for the century-old filtration industry leader, Donaldson Company here.

Looking for a designer?

While this document is quite robust, I have experience with companies in every stage — early to advanced — and every size of sustainability report. Call me today to talk about next steps.