At the risk of giving the competition a plug we noticed this article announcing the launch of Saatchi & Saatchi Sustainability in this week’s Australian Financial Review.
On one hand this is promising. It’s good to have competition, it keeps everyone on their toes and means that clients are demanding more sustainable thinking which can only be good for the planet and the future of the human race.
On the other hand it opens a bunch of questions. In the words of our good friend Ed Gillespie, founder of UK agency Futerra, “Can an agency really be credible around sustainability when it sells cat food one day and catalytic converters the next?”.
And it’s a question that goes beyond agencies and into clients as well.
If your business is tea and coffee and you launch one Fairtrade variant, what does that say about the rest of your range? And, while the impact of your Fairtrade range may be positive, is that really significant when considered in the bigger picture of all your company’s activities? In short, are you part of the solution or part of the Greenwash? Are you looking for short term gain or committed to long term change?
We are often asked who we will and won’t work for and our answer is simple. We will work with brands and products who have a long term goal of making their business sustainable. We won’t work with brands or products who simply want to tick a box by launching a green variant while continuing the rest of their business as usual.
It’s a simple delineation. It’s a clear positioning. In sustainability, you are or you aren’t and that’s that.
And we can’t help but wonder, if we were talking Fairtrade in the boardroom and fast food down the hall would it really be, well, sustainable? Probably not.
Which brings us to the next article from UK magazine, Campaign. Rather than paraphrase it we’ll let you read it for yourself, but suffice to say that when people like Sir Martin Sorrell start asking questions about the very foundations advertising agencies are built upon then perhaps the agencies themselves need to start asking them too.
And change the way they do business rather than simply ticking the green box by setting up a new sustainability division.
Comments? Complaints? Make them below. Sustainability is an open forum and we welcome your thoughts whatever they may be.
