Communicating sustainability
How to market and communicate your sustainability credentials
This guide is intended for all those businesses that are currently working and behaving sustainably but who may struggle to know how to turn those efforts into real commercial advantage.
Who is this guide for?
The information in this guide will help improve how you communicate your sustainability credentials, use them as a key marketing tool, and avoid greenwashing:
- To attract new customers;
- To tempt them with more interesting products;
- To persuade them to behave more sustainably;
- To encourage them to spread the word and return.
If you’re already working hard to be more socially and environmentally sustainable, it’s time to find how to make sure your customers know about it. But don’t forget to keep it real – authenticity makes your customers’ holidays and days out more enjoyable and their business trips more meaningful.
Businesses like yours across England are becoming more sustainable but are often too shy to tell their customers, for fear they aren’t interested or that their claims will be misunderstood or that they will breach Advertising Standards Authority regulations on greenwashing.
Some of you have public recognition in the form of awards and certification but still struggle to know how these can be used to best effect.
Contents
Who do I tell?
Identify your target audiences to share your sustainability credentials.
Why do I tell?
Why is it important to your business to communicate openly about your sustainability credentials?
What do I tell?
What impression do you want to create with your sustainability text and images?
Where do I tell?
Where can you integrate sustainability to communicate quality?
When do I tell?
Communicate your sustainability credentials at each stage of the customer journey.
Keeping up to date with regulation
Follow the latest guidance on environmental claims in advertising.
