Marketing for Sustainable Growth

Maybe the problem isn’t climate denial. Maybe it’s climate messaging. We’ve been attempting to scare or shame people into caring, and it’s not effective. Is it time to completely rethink how we talk about climate and sustainability? We've spent years trying to influence people through fear, data, and moral urgency. The results? Mixed. If we want genuine buy-in, we need to be honest about what’s isn’t working. Here are seven messaging mistakes we keep repeating. 1. Leading with Guilt and Doom: "We're killing the planet!" doesn't inspire - it overwhelms. Guilt sparks awareness, but rarely leads to action. 2. Talking About “The Planet” Instead of People People don’t wake up thinking about biodiversity - they think about bills, housing, jobs. Make climate personal. What can THEY GAIN out of changing their behaviour? 3. Assuming Rational Facts Will Change Behavior: 1.5°C Warming Is Essential, But Not Sufficient. Facts Inform, but Emotions Drive Action. 4. Using Elite, exclusionary language jargon, such as “net zero” and “green premiums,” alienates the majority. Sustainability can’t sound like it’s just for experts or elites. 5. Neglecting economic and social equity when we assume everyone can afford an EV or solar system, we lose trust. Green should be accessible to everyone - not just the wealthy. 6. Framing Green as Restriction, Not Opportunity: Less driving, flying, consuming... Where’s the upside? A green transition should feel like a win: lower bills, warmer homes, and cleaner air. 7. Treating Climate Like a Separate Issue. Climate isn’t separate from the economy, housing, or healthcare - it is those things. When we silo it, we shrink its relevance. So, how do we change the story? ✅ Speak to lived realities. Discuss how green policies improve everyday life, including jobs, bills, housing, and health. ✅ Shift from sacrifice to solutions. Replace “cut back” with “get more” - resilience, savings, mobility, and wellbeing. ✅ Make it simple. Use plain, human language. Instead of “decarbonize the grid,” say “cleaner, cheaper energy in every home. Help people to measure their carbon footprint.” ✅ Center fairness easily. Ensure that the benefits of sustainability are accessible - especially to those who have been historically excluded. ✅ Embed climate into everything. Don’t treat it like a separate crusade - show how it strengthens the economy, creates jobs, and benefits communities. ✅ Gemify climate action ✅ Give intrinsic value to change of behaviour and reducing carbon footprint. 👉 Time to stop scaring people into action - and start inspiring them with what’s possible. What language has been proven to be effective for climate and sustainability? Let’s share notes. ♻️ Repost this to help spread the word, please! 👉 Follow Gilad Regev for more insights like this.

𝗦𝗼, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆? 🌱 You’re not alone - and that’s the challenge The space is heating up (in all senses), so here’s what I recommend 👇 🎧 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 My go-to podcasts for climate & sustainability learning: → Outrage + Optimism → The Climate Question from the BBC → First Mile | Certified B Corp's Climate Heroes → Sustainability Uncovered by edie → Planet: Critical → Straight Talking Sustainability by Emma Burlow → The Sustainability Agenda by Fergal Byrne 🌍 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 Check out the companies in these networks: → Impact Hustlers (community + podcast) → Unreasonable Group → Tech Nation's Net Zero cohorts → The Chivas Venture 📬 𝗖𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁 𝗮 𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 Getting hired at mission-driven orgs is competitive So you've got to make your email *personal* (no ChatGPT here!) → Why are you committing your life to this? → How does sustainability align with your personal brand and values? → How do you live sustainability yourself? → What specifically excites you about this role or company? 🧠 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆 If you’re in marketing, product, comms or community, you need to become a pro at behavioural psychology Because sustainability isn’t just about “raising awareness” & selling stuff It’s about changing behaviour And that's really, really hard Start with: 📚 Nudge, Atomic Habits, Hooked 🎧 Nudge, The Behavioral Design Podcast, Choiceology, Hidden Brain 🧑💼 Connect with these recruiters → Mission Driven Talent → Rebel Recruiters → Above & Beyond - Climate Tech Recruitment → SR2 | Socially Responsible Recruitment | Certified B Corporation™ → Big Future 💻 Check out these job boards → Escape the City → jobsthatmatter → Tech Jobs for Good And here's a v helpful Notion page with many more resources curated by Nicole Kelner - https://lnkd.in/eEm5HuYJ 🚨 And finally… remember this: The climate crisis is an emergency There’s no such thing as “not qualified” - because we need to reinvent every single part of our economy and society Whatever your skillset - product, ops, finance, sales, data, HR, tech - it can be put to good use, because it needs to be all hands on deck 💡 PS Remember, you may not need to move company - perhaps you can have the biggest climate impact exactly where you are... ♻️ If you found this useful, give it a share. And pop any other helpful resources in the comments, including if you're hiring -------------------------------------- Follow Tessa Clarke 💚 for more straight talking on scaling startups & sustainability 🖐️ Wish your company redistributed its surplus food to local communities?  Find out how with Olio • Share More, Waste Less

People don’t pay for green. Full stop. We see many #climatetech startups marketing their products in this order: 1️⃣ Sustainability - the products are green and have low carbon intensity. 2️⃣ Resilient supply chain - the sourcing of the product is done in a more resilient and reliable way. 3️⃣ Performance - the product is (or nearly is) a drop-in solution. 4️⃣ Price - there is currently a “green premium,” but it will decrease as we scale. Yet, time and again, these companies, especially those selling commodities, experience pushback from an industry unwilling to buy these goods and narratives. The reason is that the industry has the exact opposite set of priorities: 1️⃣ Price - in a high-interest environment where margins are eroded and many businesses face fierce competition (e.g., from China), price parity is the top priority. Even a few cents per kW/h or gallon can make a difference. I recently learned of a battery startup whose raw materials alone cost more than the fully assembled battery of a Chinese competitor. No one will pay that premium. 2️⃣ Performance - many new solutions promise technical performance improvements, but most are not packaged to qualify for all customer requirements and have little evidence to prove long-term benefits. In mega projects, durability is almost always more important than unproven superior performance. Sunfire is flourishing because of their Alkaline cells, not their SoX full cells. 3️⃣ Resilience - following the pandemic and the scarcity of raw materials, this is indeed a growing concern for both industry and governments. 4️⃣ Sustainability - if a product can address all the above topics and also be green, the industry will be happy to adopt it. What does this mean? Startups need to take a market-centric rather than a tech-centric approach. They should develop their go-to-market strategy from day 1 to prioritise customers whose needs align most with their story, and design their entire product and value proposition around those customers requirements. For example, a raw material startup shouldn’t target the battery industry where price and quality are crucial. Instead, they might find success selling to the cement industry, where quality is less critical, and there’s a whole new value proposition around cirularity and sustainability. #venturecapital #fundraising #productmarketfit

The ROI of Climate Action 🌎 Climate action is increasingly evaluated through a business lens. Beyond environmental impact, it delivers measurable returns by reducing exposure and unlocking new areas of growth. On the risk side, effective climate strategies enhance continuity during environmental stress, stabilize input costs, and reduce reliance on vulnerable parts of the value chain. They also strengthen the license to operate by building trust with regulators and stakeholders, while improving preparedness for policy and market transitions. Access to capital is another critical driver. Financial institutions are integrating climate risk into their criteria, favoring organizations aligned with long-term environmental objectives. On the opportunity side, sustainability-led design enables faster innovation cycles, stronger customer relevance, and the development of solutions that respond to shifting expectations. These actions also contribute to market expansion, brand differentiation, and talent attraction—factors that improve competitiveness across industries. Taken together, the ROI of climate action is not theoretical. It is a strategic response to material risks and an enabler of long-term value creation. #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange #climateaction

📣 JUST IN: Green claims require verification. 📣 What went down? Committees met yesterday to agree on how businesses will need to go about validating environmental claims, and the info you’ll need to justify them. They gave more clarity around what the Green Claims Directive will mean for businesses when it passes (likely in March 24). Here’s what was decided: 📅 Companies will need to submit any future environmental marketing claims for approval before using them (claims will be assessed within 30 days) ❌ Those who break rules will face procurement bans, revenue loss, and fines up to 4% of annual turnover ⚡ Special considerations may be put in place for less complex claims that could benefit from faster or simpler verification 🐜 Micro enterprises will be excluded from the new rules and SMEs should get an extra year before having to apply them 🌳 Companies won’t be able to make claims solely based on carbon offsets unless they’ve already cut emissions as much as they can (and all offset claims will need proper certification) ⚖️ Ads comparing products must be fair and use the same evaluation methods 🖐️ Claims of product improvements must be based on data no older than five years This will now put to a vote at an upcoming plenary session and will constitute Parliament’s position at first reading (most likely in March). Will this change how you make green claims? #greenwashing #greenclaims #sustainability

𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙘𝙡𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚 𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙣𝙗𝙤𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮... Just had a project call with a tricky customer who's investors aren't exactly onboard with the key principles of ESG. Whilst this is not ideal, we have to accept that there's lots of opinions on this subject! What was fascinating was to see how quickly they now want to support ESG and a digital decarbonisation strategy when they realised how much money it could save them on cloud spend. Money that could be released into accelerating their product roadmap for their next generation of services. A bit of testing showed that their Devs actually responded way faster to FinOps savings recommendations when reflected as carbon savings and more importantly in metrics that made sense to them (I can't share the metric as it'll give away what they do!!). They saw way greater actual implementation of the savings recommendations from their FinOps team that they think will save them more than $20m next fiscal and have already saved them $2m. This is from a team who had been busy pretending their cared about $$$$ The outcome for them is simple - they now have the budget for the additional engineering resources to accelerate their roadmap before they run out of runway Who'd have guessed that being more sustainable might save the future of your business... #greenops #finops #cloud #sustainability  

Three years ago, I left a nearly decade-long journalism career and pivoted to climate communications. Coming from a humanities and social sciences background, I was keen on learning the discourse of climate change more systematically. I managed to find some great books, courses, and resources that have helped me in this journey. If you are a current or aspiring climate communicator, do check some of these out 🌟 1. The Climate Book: We all know Greta Thunberg as a climate activist. In addition to some of the amazing things that she does on ground, Greta has also put together a book that decodes the A to Z of climate change with articles from geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists, mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders. It gives an excellent overview of key concepts and issues in the space and is easy to read and understand. 2. Climate Change Learning for Action fellowship: This is a 12 week long climate fellowship offered by Terra.do which touches upon the various aspects of climate change. It is a mix of asynchronous and live learning sessions and as a former fellow, I would highly recommend this. https://lnkd.in/dsbDHpf5 3. Communicating Climate Change for Effective Climate Action: A certificate programme that touches upon the various aspects of climate comms, best practices and challenges. The 4-week-long course is offered online by the University of Glasgow. https://lnkd.in/d6-hzbzv 4. Book- Engendering Climate Change: Learnings from South Asia: One of the best resources to understand the various intersectionalities within climate, especially from the Global South perspective. https://lnkd.in/dCFNWVhU 5. Climate Outreach: This website has a lot of research papers and documents on communicating climate with various stakeholders. Some examples include demystifying scientific reports and communicating climate adaptation with local communities. https://lnkd.in/dh875tuB If you are reading this and would like to recommend some readings or courses for understanding the fundamentals of climate change, do comment below 🌻

One important lesson I learned about sustainability in 2024. We have been selling sustainability all wrong. For years, we thought sustainability reporting, complex frameworks, and technical solutions would drive change. We were drowning in metrics and data, while missing the most critical ingredient: human connection. The real breakthrough? Understanding that sustainability is a psychological challenge, not just an environmental one. People change when you make sustainability: - Personally relevant - Emotionally compelling - Immediately beneficial Companies don't adopt green practices because of guilt. They do it when you demonstrate how sustainability: - Reduces operational costs - Attracts top talent - Creates competitive advantage - Drives innovation Consumers don't switch to sustainable products because you shame them. They do it when you show how those products: - Improve their quality of life - Save them money - Look and feel amazing - Make them feel proud The lesson? Sustainability is a continuous journey of understanding human motivations, telling powerful stories, and making the sustainable choice the most attractive choice.

Lately I’ve been obsessed with this question: Why do some climate messages move people—and others don’t? In a new episode of Bloomberg Television's new show Quantum Marketing by Raja Rajamannar, Pranav Yadav (CEO of Neuro-Insight) breaks down how the brain actually responds to storytelling—and how that applies to climate advocacy. Around the 17-minute mark, he analyzes a well-produced climate ad and explains, through neuromarketing data, why it doesn’t stick. The key insight? Psychological distance. The ad talks about climate change, but not in a way that connects to people's personal context—what they care about in their day-to-day lives. And when something feels distant—geographically, emotionally, or temporally—the brain tunes it out. It fails to encode in memory, which means it doesn’t influence behavior. What does work? Stories that activate memory encoding by making the stakes immediate and relatable. That connect to identity, not just intellect. That meet people where they are—then move them. This kind of research lights me up. It’s why I believe we’re at an inflection point in climate storytelling. At TIME, we’re working to reframe climate not just as an environmental issue, but as an economic one. A human one. A business one. If you're doing research in this space—neuroscience, behavioral design, storytelling strategy—or want to help us build a better framework for climate narratives, let’s talk. We need to scale these insights and we have the tools to do it. Watch the whole video but especially the last bit after 17 min if you're thinking about how to communicate urgency, value, and impact in this moment. 🎥 https://lnkd.in/et_uK4c6 #climatecommunications #neuromarketing #behaviorchange #storytelling #TIME #climateaction #businesscaseforclimate

We all participate in doom-scrolling and see climate headlines that leave us feeling helpless daily. So it’s no surprise that climate messaging that is purely data-based often fails to drive action. Here’s why: 1. Our brains are wired for stories, not statistics Climate data alone activates the analytical part of our brain, but decisions are driven by our emotions. For example: ❌ "1.5°C of warming" may not evoke much. ✅"Children born today will never experience a normal snow season in their hometown" instantly creates an emotional connection. 2. We’re overwhelming people with problems, not empowering them with solutions ❌ "Arctic ice is melting at unprecedented rates" creates anxiety. ✅ "Cities are creating urban forests to cool neighborhoods and absorb carbon—here’s how yours can too" sparks hope and action. 3. We’re missing the power of social proof Humans act based on what others do. Case in point: When a Sacramento neighborhood showed residents their energy usage compared to neighbors, consumption dropped 2% more than when they only saw environmental impact data. The most powerful climate messages don’t just inform—they inspire. What are some examples of great research that hasn’t been able to translate into effective climate messaging? Share both good and bad examples of climate messaging in the comments ⬇️ #ClimateCommunication #Sustainability #CorporateResponsibility #ClimateAction