If you’re an organisation looking to incorporate sustainability into your strategy, it can be off-putting to see other companies be accused of greenwashing. But there are some huge differences between meaningful sustainable action and greenwashing. If your intention is to just use ‘sustainability’ as a buzzword to improve your sales without any meaningful action or changes to the way you do business, then you should expect to be called out for greenwashing.
At Grow, we love to help organisations do better. Better for you. Better for your customers. Better for society. Better for the planet. So in this blog post, we want to give you three pointers on how to do just that whilst ensuring that you don’t fall into the greenwash trap.
First, get your house in order…
In a previous blog post, we discussed the four questions you should be asking yourselves at the start of your sustainability journey. You can read that post for more information, but knowing the answers to these questions and getting your house in order is a great first step to take meaningful action:
- How do you treat your people?
- What is happening down your supply chain?
- Do you unnecessarily consume resources?
- What do you do to make society a better place?
Being aware of the bigger picture and knowing which areas of your organisation you can and intend to change ensures that you don’t make any unnecessary knee jerk reactions. It is more often than not the ‘quick, we need to think of something to make us look eco-friendly’ moments that lead to greenwash.
Stop. Take your time. Understand what is happening in your organisation first.
Second, define your purpose…
Knowing what you do and why you do it is key to avoiding the ‘G’ word at your organisation. If your true purpose is to deliver a large profit to your shareholders by any means, critics will quite rightly see through you when you decide that you’re going to publicise that you’ve thrown a relatively small amount of cash into planting trees via an app that can’t even tell you where those trees were planted. (And you should read this article before you begin to think that tree planting is always an innovative way to do some good…)
We know that nearly everyone reading this will have a completely different purpose to this. And when you know what your purpose is, you can begin to think of truly meaningful ways to make change and do good.
Try and focus on the areas that your organisation impacts upon. Research what is already happening within your sector or in your local area in terms of both sustainability and your responsibilities as an organisation. How do these things link to your purpose and what can you offer to make things better?
…Then take radical action!
By now you should know exactly what your organisation needs to improve upon and how this relates to your organisation – you are ready to start taking some meaningful action!
You know to avoid tactics like off-setting carbon footprints, without first tackling the root issues surrounding your industry. Rather than opting to donate a percentage of your profits to faceless causes, you may choose to donate your funds or your expertise to relevant, local grassroots groups, or to teams that are researching and developing the technologies that will help your industry become better for the planet.
You may choose to change the way your supply chain works, changing to suppliers who pay fair wages and use circular technologies that reduce the level of harm they cause. You may choose to overhaul your internal structure or policies to distribute power and autonomy in a way which works for every staff member.
There are a million different ways in which you can take radical, meaningful action to become a better and more sustainable organisation which are not greenwashing tactics.
And most importantly – don’t be afraid to tell people about the changes you are making! Be transparent. Tell stakeholders about the changes you hope to make in the future.
We know there is a huge temptation to jump straight into taking action as a quick PR opportunity to ‘tick the sustainability box’. But the consequences of not following these steps and opting for easy greenwash tactics can be devastating for your organisation. These steps take time, and we know that for smaller organisations, it can be especially difficult to find the chance to re-analyse and re-strategise. But this is where we can help. If you think our expertise can help your organisation take its next steps on its sustainability journey then please send us a message via the contact form or email us at hello@goodbusinessesgrow.co.uk.