Cambridge Business Association
Sustainable Marketing
Book

Sustainable Marketing

The Industry’s Role in a Sustainable Future

Alexis Eyre
Kogan Page, 2023
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Bold
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

If you don’t trust marketers to help you find environmentally friendly products, you’re not alone — and your distrust is certainly warranted given marketing’s history of “greenwashing.” But given the climate crisis and current damage to the natural world, marketing is long overdue for a mindset shift, says Eyre in her inspirational, highly informative handbook for marketers in the Anthropocene. It’s time to step up, using your platforms to drive sustainable transformations at your company and educate the public about sustainability. If you work in marketing, you can’t afford to focus only on accruing shareholder profits given the existential threats humanity is facing — start prioritizing “people and the planet” today.

Summary

Marketers should be inspiring conversations about sustainability in the age of the Anthropocene.

Humanity is living in the Anthropocene, a term coined by chemist Paul Crutzen and limnologist Eugene Stoermer to describe a geological era in which human activity is the key driver of changes to planetary systems and the natural world. In order to prevent widespread damage to the environment and navigate the current climate crisis, people working across industries and sectors must collaborate to identify and implement sustainable solutions. However, marketers are often “alarmingly” out of touch with the sustainability movement, focusing instead on pushing unsustainable levels of consumption. In fact, marketing language often lacks an ethos of care and prosocial values — marketers refer to humans as “targets” and use militaristic words — such as “blitzed” and “sniper targeting” — when describing their interactions with people. It’s time for a perspective shift: marketers must start treating both “people and the planet” with an ethos of care.

Rather than promote unsustainable brands and lifestyles, endeavor to work with companies...

About the Author

Alexis Eyre is the founder of Green Eyre, and a co-founder of both Sustainists Consultants and the Sustainable Marketing Compass.

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