One of the marketing barriers to mass adoption of sustainability I identified in a recent post was saturation: sustainability has been so omnipresent people no longer register it, or choose not to.
The ubiquity of the sustainability discourse has had another effect: the dilution of the word’s meaning. As DR Wright commented about the term on another post: “That word is thrown around so much now, do we even know what it means anymore?” What an adoption barrier that is!
It’s true, at least in part. We throw the term sustainability around like there’s no tomorrow, which, of course, is precisely what the concept aims to prevent. With some business friends I avoid using the word altogether in favor of “the S-word”.
Yet despite the potential overuse, sustainability continues to mean what it has meant since at least 1987, when the Brundtland Report defined sustainability (sustainable development) as “[meeting] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs“. While meanings of words and concepts change with use, over time, the classical definition endures.
One way around sustainability fatigue may be relevance (nods to Carolina and her comment). Sustainability is a concept. Concepts are empty vessels we fill with meaning. The way to create meaning around sustainability is to break it down (notice I’m not saying dumb it down) into concrete actions individuals can take now and tomorrow, which creates relevance for people’s lives. Drink tap water instead of bottled water is one example of expressing sustainability in everyday, meaningful terms. (Concreteness is one of the brothers Heath’ rules to making messages stick.)
Another way to overcoming sustainability fatigue is realizing that sustainability is here to stay and once the talk subsides, it will be the way of doing business. Sustainable business will be just business. Sustainable marketing will be just marketing. If you adapt the S-word practices now, you’ll come out ahead of those that don’t.
Are you experiencing sustainability fatigue? How are you overcoming it?
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Hi Peter,
I could not agree more with your post – totally spot on. Sustainability as a global extraction is a hard sell. It is too much like a ‘concept’ as you said. As communicators or marketers, we need to link sustainability to what really matters to key stakeholders/audiences (e.g., health, saving money, job creation, etc…).
Sustainability is still very powerful to empower people and put more meaning into brands. The way we frame it and present is key.
Also, I believe all the past cases of greenwashing, and all the confusion around the great diversity of eco-labels do not help consumers, who therefore look at green products or companies with huge cynism.
It is our job to make it change! Cheers. P.
@Perrine: I’m adding greenwashing-induced skepticism and information overload to the list of barriers to mass adoption of sustainability. Thanks for the pointers.