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How to Elevate Your Brand to be More Sustainable

What Does It Mean To Be Sustainable?

Technically speaking, sustainability is the ability to be maintained at a certain level or rate. In simpler terms, sustainability consists of meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations, while creating a balance between economic growth, environmental care and social well-being.

How Does Sustainability Relate to Marketing?1

Sustainable marketing brings awareness to environmental and social issues. Organizations that implement sustainable marketing can help their community, the world, and their businesses simultaneously.

Sustainable marketing works by promoting attributes that your organization and your stakeholders actually value such as environmental wellness, human health, social equity, etc. By engaging in sustainable marketing, your organization will earn the trust of consumers and in turn, their loyalty. And in today’s market, brand loyalty can go a long way when combined with work of mouth advertising.

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Why is Sustainability in Marketing Important?2

Sustainable marketing can improve how organizations relate to the environment and their stakeholders. There are many benefits to sustainable marketing both for the world, and for your organization including

  • Increase in brand loyalty
    • People recognize when a brand is associated with a larger purpose and an organization cares about more than its own success. This builds trust in your brand so people are more likely to support your organization.
  • Improved employee engagement
    • Employees enjoy working for organizations that give them a sense of purpose and make them feel like they are adding value to the world. This leads them to be more satisfied with their job and to work harder towards achieving goals.
  • Increase in profits
    • Organizations reduce operational costs and become more competitive in their market which will lead to increased profits long-term. In fact, In combination with action from governments and other stakeholders, businesses that take action on climate change by adopting green policies, technologies, and strategies for growth could realize a total of $26 trillion in economic benefits.3

    • Attracting new customers

    • Implementing sustainable practices attracts new customers that share sustainable values.

Sustainable Practices To Implement4

  • Develop a larger purpose for your organization
  • Place value ahead of profit
  • Be consumer-oriented
  • Reflect sustainability in every aspect of your brand
  • Donate profits to sustainable causes
  • Source sustainable materials and/or packaging
  • Create a product that contributes to sustainable living

How Does Uptown Studios Implement Sustainable Practices?

At Uptown Studios, we have many approaches to sustainable marketing. We pride ourselves in putting our customers’ needs and wants first.

We always place value ahead of profit. We often offer to donate work to clients in need. This is typically for non-profits supporting a good cause that have little funding available for Marketing. We want to help ensure these businesses reach their audiences in order to create social change.

We aim to donate items and profits to sustainable causes. For example, each year we have a sock drive to collect socks to donate to homeless shelters and individuals in need. Profits from some of our events are donated to local organizations in Sacramento that are aimed at improving the lives of others and the community.

We also aim to source sustainable materials when creating our marketing materials, specifically for printing. When possible, we reuse marketing materials that we created from previous campaigns. For example, if we printed extra flyers for a client’s campaign and don’t end up using all of them one year, we will reuse the extras the following year to ensure we keep costs low and minimize printing.

There are many ways for organizations to be more sustainable. Start by implementing small changes that will make a difference in your community and within the world. Together, we can make a difference and work towards creating more sustainable marketing that will help the world long term.

  1. https://greenbusinessbureau.com/business-function/marketing-sales/what-is-sustainable-marketing-and-why-is-it-important-in-2021/
  2. https://www.techtarget.com/searchcustomerexperience/feature/Why-is-sustainable-marketing-important
  3. https://online.maryville.edu/blog/importance-of-environmental-awareness-when-running-a-business/
  4. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sustainable-marketing
Uptown Studios
By Uptown Studios