Why businesses should fund sustainable action with Tam Hussey

In our April You're Marketing gathering Tam Hussey, founder of Halo by Design, led a discussion about how marketing can be used effectively to create more sustainable behaviours.

She said, "If you're told to do something, even if we know it's the right thing to do, the healthy thing to do, it's not something that humans are very good at doing. So if brands want to close the sustainability Say-Do gap they need to make it easy for us to take action with them, rather than just telling us what to do."

Tam shared four important reasons why businesses should be allocating budget to take sustainable action:

1) The status quo is no longer feasible - extreme weather and flooding is already impacting many businesses in the UK and conditions will only get worse

2) Avoid greenwashing and greenhushing by doing something meaningful

3) Protect brand loyalty - 88% of people want brands to help them take action

4) Avoid the risk running foul of regulation and litigation (New York recently sued Pepsico over plastic pollution)

Tam explaind that to successfully change behaviours we have to make it easy for people to participate, use social pressure to reinforce and it has to be done at the right time and place. And she mentioned many great examples of businesses that are doing this well including REI's Opt Outside campaign, which sees them close their stores on Black Friday and help their staff and customers to go enjoy the outdoors.

Tam referred to Zak Gottlieb, who is co-founder of bank.green, which is a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to make sure their bank isn't funding fossil fuels. And MarketingKind members will be supporting the work of bank.green in our May Coffee with a Cause.

You can watch the replay below or listen to it on the MarketingKind podcast here.