A call to arms

04.01.12

Culture

“Don’t Buy This Jacket” was Patagonia’s thought-provoking campaign launched on the biggest shopping day of the year in the run-up to Christmas.  Cynics may see just another clever marketing scheme to sell more ‘stuff’.   Those who know Patagonia’s business values admire their call for consumers to buy only what is needed, and are signing the pledge to reduce, repair, reuse and recycle before buying new.

Patagonia’s challenge is noble, but not new.  NGOs and activists have been campaigning for green consumerism for a long time.   How are we doing?   Not well, if fast fashion, the poster child for unsustainable business is any indication.  The UK’s largest fast fashion company, a household name, has tripled in size since 2005. That is nearly a 20% annual growth rate during the West’s worst economic climate in 80 years.   The organic cotton movement set a bold objective in 2000 to achieve 10% market share within a decade.  Depending on whose numbers you use, the actual penetration of organic cotton is somewhere between 0.8 and 1.5%.   Sustainable forest products have achieved 19% market presence after two decades of campaigning, a terrific accomplishment, but far short of what is needed.   The list of disappointing results is a long one.

The conclusion is clear.  Other than for a few eco niche products, marketing ‘green’ has failed.  In view of the scale of damage being done to the planet, it is time for NGOs and campaigners to acknowledge this and change their approach.  But what to do?

WWF’s Dr. Tom Crompton, working with a number of other leading organisations, believes we need to speak to people’s values if we want real change.   He points to a wide body of research that concludes that it's not by appealing to people's extrinsic goals - their desire for social status or financial success that will improve society or protect the planet. Rather, it's by connecting with their intrinsic goals: their connection to family, friends, wider humanity and the natural world that is needed.  This school of thought goes as far as to say that we should not be asking people to ‘buy green’, as that only perpetuates the consumption model.  They argue that satisfying extrinsic values can only be done at the expense of more important intrinsic values.

Hefty stuff that.  But this values based messaging is gaining traction across a wide range of thought leaders and even business.  Will other businesses replicate Patagonia’s noble plea?

Another approach, arguably less conceptual, is to focus, at least for the near term, on changing behaviour rather than trying to change values.  (It should be noted that there is a school of thought that says it is not one or the other; the two strategies are complementary.)  Proponents of the ‘change behaviour’ strategy argue that shifting values will take too long, and we just don’t have the luxury of time if we wish to prevent catastrophic and perhaps irreversible damage to the planet. 

But whose behaviour should we target, consumers, business, government?  WWF has a team that works tirelessly to educate, inform and yes, influence government policy.   While some notable victories have been won, Western political leadership has proved itself to be spectacularly lacking in vision on the most important challenge of our times. 

Is shifting the behaviour of consumers more readily achievable than that of politicians?  There are 1.3 billion middle class on the planet now, and this is expected to grow by another 3 billion over the next 30 years.  They (we) are the ones doing the massive damage to the planet (not those at the bottom of the pyramid by the way).   If we are to change their behaviour, then we certainly need to come up with a new vocabulary, as green marketing as we know it has failed miserably.  It is far too focused on value, and lacking in values.  Perhaps advertising agencies will take on this challenge and persuade people to buy less, but better.  Sadly, most advertising agencies say they are just working to the brief of the client, and ‘less but better’ is not in the brief.

That leaves the business sector.  WWF devotes great energy to working with mainstream business to identify their key impacts, and then develop strategies to reduce those impacts.  Our concern has been less on how and what they communicate to the public, and more focussed on a zero carbon, zero waste, closed loop, water neutral and naturally restorative business models.  The idea is that if we can change the behaviour of big business, it will have a multiplier effect across their supply chains, their customer bases, their competitors, and perhaps even those hopeless politicians.   This approach delivers tangible results, but if we are not shifting underlying values, will this behaviour change fall by the wayside in the next financial downturn, or when the current CEO moves on?

Green marketing, as we know it, has failed to move beyond some eco niches that are wonderful, but too small to have a material impact.   It is not driving business behaviour.   A new model is urgently needed; one that causes people to reflect on their core, intrinsic values.   And one that matches the scale of the challenge.   Size matters.