2023 - the year of Sustainable Marketing - Top 10 trends

2023 is going to be a big year for Sustainable Marketing. It has been building steam over the past few years but with legislation, customer demand, and employee pressure really starting to ramp up, next year could be a year of huge change within the marketing and advertising world. 

Based on all the conversations and research Paul Randle and I have been doing over the past year, here is where we see the sustainable marketing world going in 2023:

1. Pressure will increase on marketing teams to have sustainability-aligned KPIs on top of their traditional commercially-driven targets. These could include both societal and environmental targets depending on the company’s wider sustainability focus. We think carbon targets/budgets will be the first ones to go over the line. Imagine having a £100k sales target but only having 100kg carbon to use on marketing to achieve this. We already know a few forward-thinking brands who are starting to put the wheels in motion here.
2. Sustainability measures will start being added to marketing procurement criteria meaning marketing suppliers will need to align with their clients’ wider sustainability targets in order to win business e.g. the NHS (UK’s national health service) already requires any new suppliers to have a NetZero plan and target in place otherwise they won’t even make it past the first post.
3. Brainprint will pick up speed as more and more people start to understand it and know how to take responsibility for it within their own marketing context. How to measure it may be a 2024 trend though as we are not anywhere near figuring this out right yet. 
4. Greenwashing claims and fines are going to increase and agencies are going to be dragged into the process alongside their clients. The greenwashing net will probably extend as well to include not just copy and imagery but also other marketing decisions as well such as what events you sponsor, which influencers you choose to work with, and whether your stance on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in your advertising matches what is going on internally. Making sure you have a well-educated team on sustainability and sustainable marketing is going to become key.
5. As more and more people jump on the sustainable marketing bandwagon, expect to see a lot of adverts looking and feeling the same with emotive music and dreamy settings of futuristic sustainable worlds with no forethought into how the message actually aligns with their company’s wider focus/purpose. Think of the disastrous COVID mash-up but all over again. Ensuring your marketing teams fully understand the wider organisational purpose and sustainability stance will be key to preventing this from happening.
6. Sustainability expertise/knowledge will be considered a fundamental prerequisite for those applying for Senior Marketing roles. 
7. A big divide will appear between those companies desperately wanting to talk about their sustainability credentials firing out messages with no relevance for customers and those companies that don’t communicate their credentials but find solutions for customers who are currently facing issues in transitioning to a more sustainable lifestyle. The latter will ultimately win. 
8. Pressure from fans and attendees will increase on event organisers and membership clubs who have sustainability plans in place but still accept money from companies that misalign with their sustainability stance e.g. gambling, aviation, and fossil-fuel companies. Just think of the whole debacle with British Cycling and Shell
9. The brain drain from the agency world will accelerate as individuals increasingly wrestle with the ethics of working for a company that supports the damaging activities of petrochemical companies and others with major sustainability impacts. 
10. Decarbonising a brand's entire online presence has already been gaining momentum in 2022 but 2023 will be the year that pressure will be coming down hard on brands to get theirs sorted. For many, it is one of the only shop windows to prove that brands are taking sustainability seriously.

Our advice - stop thinking solely about revenue (we’ve heard it too many times this year “we are just too busy to focus on this right now”) and start thinking about how you can train your team up in sustainability and sustainable marketing and how you can start incorporating sustainable marketing techniques into your everyday marketing.

Paul and I are here to help if you are feeling a little stuck!