Strategic Marketing for Genuine Sustainability Impact
Purpose-led organisations face a paradox. The more serious your commitment to sustainability, the harder it becomes to communicate that commitment without sounding like everyone else. Audiences have grown sceptical for good reason.
The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has made greenwashing a focus in recent years. Between July 2024 and December 2024 alone, the ASA handed down six rulings against companies for misleading environmental claims. The regulator now uses an AI tool to scan more than 500,000 adverts per month, meaning potential breaches are increasingly likely to be identified.
At the same time, consumer trust remains fragile. YouGov research from 2024 found that only 4% of British consumers completely trust sustainability logos on products, the lowest trust level in a 17-market global survey. Another 13% do not trust these logos at all, highlighting widespread scepticism towards environmental claims.
Against this backdrop, even genuine progress can be met with cynicism. Stakeholders have heard too many lofty promises from organisations still tied to unsustainable practices. The challenge is not whether your environmental work matters; it is how to communicate it in a way that builds trust instead of fuelling suspicion.
The Evolving UK Regulatory Landscape
Understanding the regulatory environment is now essential for any organisation making environmental claims. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its Green Claims Code in September 2021, setting out six key principles that businesses must follow when communicating sustainability credentials.
These principles require that claims are truthful and accurate; clear and unambiguous; do not omit important information; make fair and meaningful comparisons; consider the full life cycle of products or services; and can be substantiated with evidence. The CMA found that 40% of green claims made online could be misleading, underscoring why robust guidance was necessary.
Crucially, enforcement powers have strengthened considerably. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the CMA can now directly fine businesses up to 10% of global turnover for consumer protection breaches, including misleading environmental claims, without going to court. This represents a significant shift in the risk landscape for any organisation making sustainability statements.
In 2024, the CMA concluded its first greenwashing investigation, securing legally binding commitments from fashion retailers ASOS, Boohoo and George at Asda regarding their environmental claims. The message to all sectors was clear: regulatory scrutiny is intensifying, and organisations must ensure their claims are accurate and substantiated.
Why Many Organisations Struggle
When we analyse sustainability marketing challenges, the problem is usually not a lack of commitment or impact. It is a communication gap.
Audience fragmentation
Different stakeholders demand different types of information. Donors and investors expect credible impact metrics with third-party validation. Beneficiaries want to see how initiatives improve daily realities. Regulators care about compliance and transparent reporting. Staff need to understand how values show up in practice. A single sustainability message rarely works across all audiences.
Budget constraints and complexity
Limited budgets force organisations to oversimplify complex environmental work, or to overcomplicate straightforward messages in search of credibility. Research from Deloitte’s 2024 Sustainable Consumer survey found that affordability remains the primary barrier to sustainable choices for UK consumers, with a growing proportion also sceptical that sustainable options make a real difference. This scepticism extends to how organisations communicate their efforts.
The progress versus perfection dilemma
Most genuine sustainability journeys are exactly that: journeys. Communicating ongoing improvement without falling into defensive spin requires transparency, accountability, and careful expectation management. The ASA has emphasised that organisations do not face a binary choice between greenwashing and saying nothing. The regulator actively encourages businesses to make impactful and informative environmental claims, noting that these benefit consumers by enabling more responsible purchasing decisions.
Building Trust Through Strategic Communication
So what actually works? Three approaches stand out in practice.
Evidence first
Credibility begins with measurable impact. Organisations like Innocent Drinks have built trust not through bold slogans but by publishing detailed progress against science-based targets. The company has committed to reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 100% by 2030 and Scope 3 emissions by 50% per litre of finished product. They publicly disclose the carbon footprint of each drink and report both successes and setbacks.
Innocent has also invested £1 million in its Farmer Innovation Fund, supporting ingredient suppliers to transition to regenerative, low-carbon farming practices. This addresses their largest emissions challenge directly, as over half of the company’s carbon footprint comes from ingredients.
Baselines, progress tracking, and third-party validation carry more weight than aspirational statements. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) provides one framework for setting and validating emissions reduction goals that align with climate science.
Systems thinking
Sustainability never happens in isolation. Supply chains, partnerships, and communities are all part of the picture. Patagonia’s operations demonstrate this through their Worn Wear programme, which offers free repairs on any brand of clothing, sells pre-loved gear, and has established the United Repair Centre in London in partnership with Fashion-Enter. This initiative not only extends product lifespans but also provides training and employment opportunities for young adults and newcomers with refugee backgrounds.
That bigger-picture honesty, acknowledging areas still being improved while demonstrating concrete action, signals maturity rather than weakness. Research suggests that buying used garments rather than new ones could reduce an individual’s apparel carbon footprint by up to 60%.
Resource stewardship
Particularly for third sector organisations, environmental action has to make financial as well as ethical sense. The UK Government’s Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund illustrates this approach at scale. The programme provides funding for retrofit measures in social homes, with projects saving tenants around £400 a year on energy bills on average while reducing carbon emissions and tackling fuel poverty.
Framing sustainability as both environmental and operational responsibility strengthens the case with funders and demonstrates that environmental work directly supports core missions rather than distracting from them.
Applying This Thinking Across Sectors
Charities and social enterprises
For charities and social enterprises, the challenge is often showing donors that environmental work underpins, not distracts from, the core mission. Oxfam’s climate justice programmes demonstrate this effectively. The organisation works with communities globally on adaptation and disaster risk reduction, supporting initiatives from micro insurance schemes for smallholder farmers in drought-affected regions to renewable energy installations that keep essential services running during disasters.
By making the environmental-social link explicit, such organisations demonstrate that sustainability work directly advances their mission. Climate resilience is not an add-on but essential to protecting livelihoods and achieving lasting impact.
Professional services firms
For professional services firms, the task is different: demonstrating that sustainability is woven into strategy, not bolted on as CSR. Law firm Bates Wells exemplifies this approach. As the first UK law firm to achieve B Corp certification in 2015, the firm has embedded environmental and social considerations into its governance, service delivery, and client relationships. Their third recertification achieved a score of 140.2, making them one of the highest-scoring B Corps in the UK and the highest-scoring law firm globally.
Bates Wells helped develop the UK legal test for B Corp certification and drafted the Better Business Act. This approach creates differentiation by making sustainability inseparable from service delivery and governance rather than treating it as an add-on.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Understanding what does not work is equally important for developing effective sustainability communications.
Vague or absolute claims
The ASA has consistently ruled against broad, unsubstantiated claims. Terms like eco-friendly, green, or sustainable require substantiation across a product’s or service’s full life cycle. If a claim cannot be backed up with evidence, it should not be made. The CMA specifically warns against general claims that cannot be justified by the overall business impact.
Cherry-picking positive initiatives
Organisations that highlight specific environmental projects while omitting information about significant ongoing environmental harms risk regulatory action. The ASA’s guidance states that where businesses are responsible for significant harmful emissions or environmental damage, adverts referencing beneficial initiatives are more likely to mislead if they do not include balancing information about the broader impact.
Scientific claims without context
Research from Edelman found that scientific claims, such as biodegradable or climate neutral, often perform poorly with consumers compared to claims that relate directly to their lives, health, families, or local communities. Claims about working with local farmers or ensuring food supply for future generations resonate more strongly than technical certifications alone.
Measuring What Matters
The effectiveness of sustainability marketing can and should be measured, just not only by social media impressions or website clicks. Credible campaigns track multiple dimensions of impact.
Environmental outcomes:Â Tangible results, such as carbon reductions, waste diversion, resource savings, or verified progress against science-based targets, demonstrate real impact rather than intentions.
Stakeholder engagement outcomes: Metrics, including donor retention, client acquisition, staff recruitment, and community support, indicate whether communications are building meaningful relationships.
Trust indicators: Stakeholder feedback, earned media coverage, sector recognition, and qualitative assessment of how messaging is received all contribute to understanding communication effectiveness.
The key point is that communication itself becomes part of impact measurement. If your messaging builds trust and deepens relationships, it advances the mission, not just describes it.
Questions to Ask Before Communicating Sustainability Claims
Before publishing any environmental claims, organisations should work through several critical questions.
Can you substantiate every claim with credible, up-to-date evidence? The CMA requires that all environmental claims be backed by data and documentation. If evidence does not exist or cannot be independently verified, the claim should not be made.
Does the claim reflect the full picture? Consider whether it accounts for the whole life cycle of your product or service, and whether it omits significant environmental impacts elsewhere in your operations.
Is the language clear and specific? Avoid vague terms that could mean different things to different audiences. Replace broad claims with measurable facts wherever possible.
Would a reasonable consumer be misled? Consider how your audience is likely to interpret the claim, not just what you intend it to mean.
Are you prepared to discuss both progress and challenges? Authenticity requires acknowledging where you are still working to improve, not just celebrating successes.
Moving Forward
Not every organisation needs a glossy sustainability campaign. Many need help aligning stakeholder communications, creating simple but credible narratives, or finding cost-effective ways to share progress. The organisations that succeed are those that put authentic action ahead of perfect messaging.
In the end, sustainability marketing is not about polishing your image. It is about making your commitments visible, understandable, and verifiable. If you are genuinely working to reduce harm and create positive environmental impact, your marketing should reflect that honesty.
Purpose-led organisations deserve to be recognised for their real work, not mistaken for those still purpose-washing their way through the climate conversation.
Ready to Communicate Your Sustainability Story Authentically?
At Not Another Marketing Agency, we help purpose-led organisations find their authentic voice on sustainability. Whether you need support developing credible messaging frameworks, creating evidence-based content, or navigating the evolving regulatory landscape, we are here to help.
Let’s talk about how to share your sustainability story with confidence. Get in touch today to explore how we can support your communications strategy.
