Sustainable Marketing: Key Principles & How to Leverage It [+ Examples]

Price, shipping, and reviews are all factors I consider when making a purchase. But there’s another factor that can tip the scales for me, and that’s sustainability.

When choosing between similar products, I’m often more likely to choose the brand with sustainable practices.

I know from research that I’m not alone.

Our State of Consumer Trends report found that buyers take a company’s environmental impact, DEI commitment, and ethical production practices into consideration.

And they’re willing to pay more for brands with sustainable practices.

Smart brands are bringing this to the forefront with sustainability marketing. So, how does a brand leverage sustainable marketing to appeal to a growing, socially conscious audience? We’ll cover that and more below.

Table of Contents

What is sustainable marketing?

Sustainable marketing is the promotion of socially responsible products, services, and practices. While eco-friendly brands naturally work on sustainable marketing campaigns, brands that are not rooted in sustainability can still apply its principles to their strategy. Its goal is to promote a mission, not a product or service.

Green Marketing vs. Sustainable Marketing

While both terms are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between green marketing and sustainability marketing.

Green marketing focuses on strategies that promote environmental awareness and protection. Sustainable marketing, on the other hand, is a little broader.

It encompasses green marketing, but it also includes practices that go beyond the environment, such as social and economic issues.

Sustainable Marketing Principles

As you build sustainability into the DNA of your brand and marketing strategies, it’s important to know which approach to take. Familiarize yourself with these three core sustainable marketing principles, which I’ll explain below.

1. Customer-Value Marketing

You can earn customer loyalty by designing products, services, and marketing strategies that align with customer values. For sustainable marketing, this often means highlighting eco-friendly attributes, values like diversity and inclusion, or the long-term benefits of sustainable products.

2. Sustainable Pricing Strategies

This principle involves educating customers about the full life-cycle costs to create a sustainable product, including sourcing and downstream costs of re-use and recycling. The right education and messaging can convince customers that the benefits are worth paying more for.

3. Societal Benefit Marketing

Also called societal marketing, societal benefit marketing emphasizes the long-term benefits to society beyond a company’s profit or the immediate benefit to the consumer.

For instance, Ben & Jerry’s positions its marketing around its three core values: human rights and dignity, social and economic justice, and the environment. “We believe ice cream can change the world,” they state. Then, they back those principles up with action.

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Do customers care about sustainability? [New Data]

While once seen as a luxury or niche tactic, sustainability has gained traction as a mainstream, cross-generational preference. In a world where I can buy the same product from dozens of online sellers, I look for one that’s local, that supports fair trade, or that supports a cause or charity I like.

In 2024, we surveyed over 700 consumers to learn about their shopping habits. Here’s what I learned:

• 76% believe companies should try to improve the well-being of their employees
• 64% believe companies should actively reduce their environmental impact
• 58% believe companies should donate a portion of their profits to charity
• 55% believe companies should advocate for racial justice and gender equality
• 50% believe companies should do more to advocate for social issues, with the top issues being affordable healthcare (47%), climate change (35%), and income inequality (35%)

These values are reflected in consumers’ purchasing decisions, especially for younger generations. While only 5% of Boomers say a brand’s environmental impact is a top purchasing factor for them, that jumps to 16% for Gen Z.

The difference is even starker for a company’s charity support and employee well-being.

So, to answer the question posed at the beginning of this question: Yes, consumers of all ages care about sustainability.

So, even if your brand isn’t rooted in this mission, you will still find value in investing time and resources in sustainable practices and marketing to attract more customers.

Learn more about consumers in our latest State of Consumer Trends report.

1. Have a larger purpose.

Brands typically judge their success by the numbers. How much revenue they have or will generate in any given period is usually the biggest KPI.

Sustainability shifts this perspective by having brands evaluate themselves by something other than profit.

As a brand, you have to promote something that’s bigger than your products and services and transcends any particular industry.

Do you have a clear social mission? If not, spend time discovering what that is and how your brand plays a role in furthering that mission.

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For instance, fashion brand Autumn Adeigbo sells clothing, accessories, and home decor items. However, its mission, as stated on its website, is to impact the lives of women on a global scale.

They do so by using female-owned production facilities and employing female artisans, among other practices.

2. Think long term.

Sustainability marketing is all about building long-term value. Too often, brands focus on gaining immediate results.

For instance, many marketing tactics like running Google Ads and blogging are great lead generators. However, what happens once your lead has made a purchase and turned into a customer? Sustainable marketing looks at ways to nurture and educate consumers during the entire buyer’s journey.

Sustainability initiatives — like replacing styrofoam with paper or reducing your carbon footprint — can take years to implement. Releasing sustainability plans and updating customers on your progress go a long way in building trust, but they won’t yield immediate, attributable growth.

Education is one way to build loyalty with your audience early on, from the first point of discovery to post-purchase. For instance, a food brand could educate its audience on the importance of ethical farming on social media and continue this process post-purchase with package recycling tips.

This works well to build trust and loyalty in the long term: A Vericast study found a strong correlation between consumer preference for sustainable practices and consumer preference for buying from brands they already know and trust.

3. Be customer oriented.

You might be thinking, “Isn’t being consumer-oriented what all marketing is?” Ideally, yes, but not always.

In traditional marketing, a brand often tries to push a product or service to a customer. With consumer-oriented marketing, it’s more about understanding your customers’ needs and tailoring your marketing to that.

First, leverage user research to find out what’s important to your customers. For instance, say your audience is craving more transparency in your sourcing practices or wants you to be more vocal on social issues.

You could use that information for your next campaign or even pivot your business practices to differentiate yourselves from everyone else in your space.

4. Back up your claims.

Sustainability marketing doesn’t work if it’s not authentic.

Imagine finding out a business that claims to be sustainable has failed to implement any practices to promote its mission. Consumers would distrust that brand, and it would be difficult to earn it back.

Make sure your brand is looking at sustainability from a holistic lens.

Are you preaching about sustainability but using unsustainable resources to build your product? Are you collaborating with brands that conflict with your mission? Is your team representative of the future you want to promote?

These are the questions you should ask to determine if your brand reflects the mission you’ve set out to achieve. Identify the areas that need work and go to the drawing board to figure out strategies that align with your mission.

Audiences don’t expect perfection. They do, however, value transparency. It’s OK (and recommended) to share where you currently fall short and how you plan to remedy these issues.

5. Engage stakeholders.

Since sustainability requires real change instead of shallow value-signaling, it takes collaboration. Sustainability is a big effort, and it requires leadership outside of marketing. Engage internal teams, shareholders, supplies, and community partners in conversations and research around sustainability.

In some cases, your organizational structure may make sustainable practices difficult, like getting buy-in for a more expensive but more sustainable supplier when a company has a mandate to increase profit.

Smaller companies can consider re-organizing as a benefit corporation or achieving B Corp status to formalize their sustainability commitments.

6. Go against the grain.

In marketing, it can seem like everyone’s playing a game of copycat, using the same promotions and tactics over and over again. Posting on social media about Earth Day or International Women’s Day, for instance, is a good practice but won’t stand out against the thousands of other brand posts.

Breaking with your industry runs a risk of failure — but it could also pay off in a big way. Take outdoor brand REI, for instance. When Black Friday sales reached a peak fever pitch, the brand shocked the public by closing its stores that day and instead encouraging people to #OptOutside.

While it loses in-store revenue each year on that day, it gains loyalty from its members and employees who would rather spend time outside than in a store.

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Sustainable Marketing Examples

Need some inspiration for how to market your sustainability practices? Learn from these five brands who belong in the sustainability hall of fame.

1. Thinx

Thinx is an underwear brand whose mission is to provide sustainable solutions to menstruation and incontinence. Everything the brand puts out marketing-wise is centered around this core value.

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The brand’s social media pages feature a mix of product promotion, educational content, and mission-focused announcements.

The key to sustainable marketing is doing it in an authentic way that feels embedded in the brand, as opposed to an add-on that’s leveraged when convenient. Thinx is a great example of how to do it right.

2. Kind Socks

This clothing company was started based on the founder’s desire to find a socks company with a sustainable and ethical vision.

While most brands focus on inviting their consumers to purchase, Kind Socks takes the exact opposite approach: Asking them to spend less and more thoughtfully.

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This strategy may seem counterintuitive to many companies, but emphasizing the brand’s mission can help build trust with its audience and increase their brand loyalty.

3. Pangiai

Materials science company Pangiai wants to save the environment. Every piece of marketing the brand puts out is centered around this core mission, including this video campaign.

In it, the brand explains its mission to “reverse the cycle from the unnatural to natural, from plastic to plants […], from the new to the recycled.” What’s effective about this ad is that Pangiai describes the future it wants to see and outlines the strategies it will implement to get there.

Throughout the ad, you see Pangiai products but they’re not the focus. This tells viewers the mission drives the products, not the other way around — and that’s sustainable marketing done right.

4. Nada Duele

In the previous section, we discussed the importance of having a holistic approach to sustainability marketing.

With Nada Duele, their mission is reflected in everything: from their name, which represents the idea that products should not cause harm, to the initiatives they take part in.

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When you visit their “How We Work” section, you learn about their collaboration with a Guatemalan institute dedicated to protecting the forestry sector.

Pro tip: It’s important that the partnerships your brand takes on align with your values. Otherwise, you risk losing credibility and trust.

5. Satya + Sage

Social media is one of the best and easiest ways to implement a sustainable marketing strategy. You can share a range of content, from educating your followers on sustainable practices to sharing ways your brand is being sustainable.

In this example, the candle company Satya + Sage shares tips on how to use the seed paper that comes with every candle.

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Pro tip: On social media, in particular, pay attention to the questions your followers ask and the comments they make, as that can inform which marketing strategies you test in the future.

Sustainable Marketing and AI

As companies rush to explore how to integrate AI into every area of their business (including marketing!), it’s important to slow down and consider the holistic impacts. AI has the potential to reduce waste and the human footprint by performing tasks more efficiently, but the ripple effects are much wider.

Consider these facts and questions as you go about integrating AI:

• Carbon footprint of AI. Training and running an AI system requires a huge amount of computing power and electricity, increasing CO2 emissions. According to an MIT report, the data center power requirement in North America nearly doubled from 2022 to 2023 — outpacing the demand of over 70% of countries.
• Bias in AI systems. It’s well-documented that AI systems can replicate bias against groups like women and minorities. If you are integrating AI to interact with customers or creating marketing content with AI, consider the potential effects on these populations.
• Employee impacts. Our survey revealed that customers are paying attention to how companies treat their employees. As companies replace some functions like customer service with automation, think about your affected employees. Can you reskill them for new AI jobs or support them through a career transition?

While AI can have some negative impacts, it also has the potential to help you reach your sustainability goals.

For instance, you can build a model to analyze your systems and suggest ways to reduce your carbon footprint by optimizing your supply chain. You can also leverage an AI chatbot to educate customers on sustainable practices.

Is marketing with AI more sustainable?

I can’t give you a definite answer for whether leveraging AI is more sustainable for your brand. It really comes down to the sustainability priorities that you’ve identified and whether AI helps or hurts those.

Take Dove beauty brand, for example. One of their longtime values has been recognizing real beauty and showing authentic women’s bodies.

In 2023, Dove released an ad campaign declaring that they would never use AI-generated women in ads, because it would run counter to their values of elevating real beauty.

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While Dove may integrate AI in other ways internally, they realized it was important to state how they wouldn’t use it.

Engage customers with sustainable marketing.

From DEI to environmental impact, it’s clear to me that customers are starting to care more about where their products come from and the people behind them.

My main takeaway for you is this: Sustainable marketing isn’t just a box to tick off, it’s a whole-company practice and a cultural shift. It’s a long-term strategy that wins trust, loyalty, and customers over time.

As you consider new factors like AI in marketing and climate change, stay close to your customers to hear what they want to see from your brand.

Above all, customers value transparency and want to hear about your journey, even if you haven’t reached your goals yet. So don’t be afraid to start small and bring your customers along with you.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in Oct. 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.