How brands are helping the environment become sustainable?
Have you ever heard of the word ‘’sustainability’’? The awareness of this term is at its peak and is now being implemented in many different industries all around the world, like sustainable fashion, sustainable materials, sustainable architecture, sustainable brand, and many more. Moreover, there are a lot of Call-to-Action phrases that come with this topic, such as “Save the environment”, “Save the Earth”, “Think ecologically”, “Reuse the products”.
The sustainability awareness has only increased during the “COVID” pandemic. This is due to the environmental and social factors that have been at the front of the scene. As pollution dropped while people stayed at home, it demonstrated how much human activities really impact our environment. At the same time, “COVID” has tested how truly serious companies are about their initiatives, and reinvirogated internal conversations about the benefits of implementing sustainable practises.
Nowadays, consumers are looking for brands that align with their values. Today, millennials and Generation Z are driving the sustainbility movement – a “Capgemini Report” shows that 79% of consumers are changing their purchase preferences towards brand invoking social responsibility, elusiveness, or environmental impact shown by brand. At the end of the day, sustainable brands make consumers feel justified in their purchase, create an emotional connection and bring added value.
To know which brands have the sustainability at its best to gain connection with the nowaday consumer, we decided to have a look at the Futerra’s ‘’Planet Brands Index’’. It identifies the 100 brands that could change the behaviour of billions. The brands are selected by these 3 key factors:
- Brand influence:Because the world’s most trusted brands are the world’s best agents to make sustainable behaviour “normal”;
- Global scale:Mass-market brands can touch enough consumers to make a real difference to their footprint;
- Sustainability: Consumers will only trust the call-to-action messages from brands that have started and proven their own sustainability journey.
All companies introduced below are mentioned in this year’s index, which make the most out of sustainability, since the biggest enterprises are building their companies as much eco-friendly as possible. To prove that, here are a few examples of how companies are saving the environment for the better future:
Volkswagen striving to decrease the world’s biggest gas emission share of 29% for transportation industry.
Volkswagen – one of the world’s leading car manufacturing companies intend to almost halve the environmental impact of production by Year 2025. At the same time, they are recycling old car parts to reuse them and have a cleaner look. With this, they save vast amounts of raw materials and energy, while also reducing CO2 emissions.
Adidas programme ‘’Run the Oceans’’ – connecting sports and pure environment
Recently, Adidas has hosted a campaign ‘’Run the Oceans’’ where, with the help of tracking devices, each participant had the ability to help out. The goal is simple – 1 km spent on a run equals to 10 bottles cleaned up in the ocean. Overall, the campaign was a great success – a bit more than 5 million participated and ran more than 56 million km, which equals to half a million pounds in weight!
Apple and sustainability – fighting for our ecosystems
Since the Year 2018, the business has become carbon-neutral and by Year 2030 their products will also be without carbon footprint. They have created a Restore Fund to restore ecosystems while helping them become a company with no carbon emissions.
Coffee magnate Starbucks fighting for Carbon Neutral Coffee.
In 2020 company has comitted to a resource-positive future, formalizing environmental goals to cut its carbon, water and waste footprints by the Year 2030. As a progression against those goals, the company also wants to commit to Carbon Neutral Coffee and to conserve water usage in green coffee processing by 50%. At the same time, they have announced the replacement of plastic straws to paper ones and for a while, their coffee holders have been out of thinner cardboard.
Carrefour – 28.6% less CO2 emissions, 67% of recycled waste and less than 1867 tonnes of packaging. Less words more action!
Carrefour, one of the biggest food and drug retailers in France, have taken action. Since the publication of their strategic plan for Year 2022, they are now offering more organic and local products and they have decreased the amount of food waste. There are now 28.6% less CO2 emissions, 67% of recycled waste and less than 1867 tonnes of packaging.
Companies are ready to change the world for the better. As we can see, the ways are different – starting from recycling our packages to having a carbon-neutral world up until getting everyone involved for cleaning up our oceans in an extraordinary situations. This is our call to action to help out not only our businesses in completing their goals, but also helping the environment.
