By: Ilaria Pasquinelli, Twitter: @ilaria78, international marketing consultant for the textile and fashion industry.
The market for sustainability communications seems to be flourishing. There are no official statistics for the growth of this market. However, we know the trend is positive by looking at the growth of the wider category of sustainability business consulting services. The market in the UK is expected to reach a turnover of £1.6 billion in 2013 and it is estimated to have reached $700million in the US this year.
Another indicator is the number of small and big specialised communications agencies that have emerged in the last 4 to 5 years. Also global PR and communications firms have established specialised departments within their own organisations. There are 32 specialised sustainability communications listed in the Ethical Performance online directory and it is surely not complete.
Despite the increased availability of sustainability communications experts, an organisation like Unilever, highly committed to change consumer behaviour, only last year, declared that “sustainability marketing is our biggest challenge”. What are these hard challenges Unilever is talking about? Certainly changing consumer behaviour towards a more sustainable lifestyle is the main challenge brands are currently facing. However, changing consumer behaviour can be considered a very ambitious goal and, at present, not for everyone. The majority of brands are still struggling to reach more basic goals such as:
- Decide if communicating about sustainability activities and achievements or not. Many brands are still afraid of being accused of jumping on the green bandwagon. They are also well aware that over 75% of consumers are suspicious of corporate sustainability pledges.
- Integrate sustainability communications into mainstream and marketing communications.
- Find a balance between ethical credentials and product features in the communication message. Marketers are concerned that “sustainability is not sexy” or consumers just do not care.
- Adjust the tone of their communication style: not too preaching, not too blaming, factual but also emotional,surely not boring and so on.
Where are we at in the fashion with communicating sustainability?
Fashion is lagging behind in communicating sustainability when compared to, as an example, FMCG goods.
Product ethical credentials are communicated mainly on product themselves (labels and tags, 57%), in store through signs and sales staff (respectively 37% and 9%). This is the case when brands are confident of their sustainability claims and are, generally speaking, committed to developing better products.
Mainstream brands are still very cautious when it comes to sustainability communications and tend to release information mainly to business stakeholders excluding consumers. In this case, information is included in CSR reports, annual reports or presented at business events, conferences, trade press.
As we have found in a research we have conducted and published on Sustainability in Textiles and Fashion published by Greenleaf, size and international exposure of companies affect the quantity and quality of information released. The more international a company, the more active it is in communicating sustainability; the larger the organisation, the wider their engagement portfolio. Luxury brands, with exception of big international brands, do not communicate at all, probably, on purpose. Sustainability in fashion has always been associated with poor quality and lack of styles, associations that luxury brands want to desperately avoid.
Conclusion
I expect things to change particularly after recent events such as Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. As you know, this disaster has seen the involvement of major retailers like Primark, Mango and Benetton amongst others. These brands have been questioned and criticised openly by customers on their social media accounts urging them to react and manage PR crisis.
