A version of this story first appeared in the official website of the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (ASME). Click here to read it.

Globally, there is little doubt that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the driving force and backbone of economies, representing 90 per cent of businesses and contributing to 50 per cent of employment. Given their vast numbers, it stands to reason that meaningful change in the sustainability agenda cannot be achieved without them – and they can even be a key champion and driving force in industry transformations.

Historically, amongst SMEs, there have been few resources allocated towards sustainability, given that often limited resources must compete with other, perceivably more immediate, business priorities. There has also been minimal support to effect real or tangible practices. Now, however, there is growing recognition that prioritising resources toward sustainability drives business growth, and organisations with unclear sustainability agendas could face higher reputational risks.

SMEs are therefore increasingly on the lookout for opportunities to embrace sustainable practices – no matter how small – and incorporate them into their everyday operations. Recognising that this is not just part of good business in building resilience and driving long-term growth, they can be empowered to not just transform internally, but also impact their surrounding communities and industry ecosystems with positive social and environmental benefits.

Overcoming the “iceberg syndrome”

Talking about corporate sustainability is sometimes referred to as the “tip of the iceberg”. There is far too much time spent talking about the goals, ambitions or measures that are going to be put in place versus actually implementing the actions that address the root and delve beneath the “iceberg”. Ideally, there should be 95 per cent of the “doing” in solutions and only 5 per cent of the “talking”.

Yet, there is sometimes inertia when it comes to the “doing” – because SMEs may not know where to begin. Either there is a lack of know-how or they are confronted with multiple potential solutions, which can be just as overwhelming as having no options at all (often referred to as the paradox of choice). This inertia might be compounded by uncertainty as to how to prioritise available resources.

However, a global assessment of the future readiness of organisations has revealed that in fact, what sets SMEs apart and remains a potential to be harnessed is their ability to influence internal processes and their immediate external environments. These advantages can be leveraged and optimised to re-imagine solutions that not only benefit the environment but also the SMEs themselves.

Re-imagining solutions

There are several ways SMEs can unlock greater action to support the sustainability agenda and encourage innovation without incurring significant investment or upheaval:

a. Self-reflection

Knowing “where you are at” in the sustainable journey can help identify what can feasibly be accomplished. For instance, are you at the start of the journey, or has the board already approved a strategy? Do you have a plan for an individual, team, or someone in the organisation to dedicate time to this agenda? Who are the sustainability champions that can initiate this agenda?

b. Leveraging existing frameworks and resources

There is a growing number of platforms SMEs can leverage to support their sustainability journeys without reinventing the wheel. For instance, B Corp’s tools can help companies prioritise areas they estimate will have the most impact and relevance for their sectors, and Climate Hub’s free online course helps SMEs take climate action in seven achievable steps.

c. Spreading organisational awareness

By treating sustainability as a vector of SME growth, organisations can empower internal shifts in employee attitudes and mindsets, reinforced by strategic messaging. For example, whilst encouraging partnerships with sustainable stationery supply sources, the why of this could be communicated. It is also helpful to refer to any changes as a journey, and not in absolute terms.

d. Setting expectations

Given that time, cost and resources are often kept lean in SMEs, setting employee expectations might be required whilst changes are being put in place. For instance, letting executive assistants or management know that extra time and hours may be required to research sustainable supply chains or approve budgets might be necessary.

e. Harnessing the “multiplier effect”

As SMEs have close relationships with vendors, clients, and others in their immediate external environment, there is the opportunity to impact a wider marketplace. For instance, in a food business, there could be incentives offered to consumers if the option for recyclable cutlery is exercised, or credits provided to those who bring their own containers.

Enabling growth by giving more than you take

SMEs play a much bigger role than we realise in influencing communities and the surrounding industry ecosystems. They can easily debunk the myth that only large organisations with impressive resources can act for sustainable impact, and create even greater influence by strategically fostering thoughtful collaborations and partnerships (especially given two-thirds of ESG commitments lie with suppliers).

As brands on a mission to protect the environment with defined principles and a sustainable agenda are more inclined to attract and retain talent, this additionally builds organisational resilience whilst benefiting bottom lines, contributing to all-round sustainable growth. They have the potential to therefore impact and influence organisations of all sizes to be sustainable, and future-ready.

The post Driving the sustainability agenda is impossible without SMEs appeared first on Redhill | Global Communications Agency.

A version of this story first appeared in Campaign Asia. Click here to read it.

This year’s theme for the World Environment Day campaign is #OnlyOneEarth. It calls for collective, transformative action on a global scale to celebrate, protect and restore our planet.

This means everyone must act — even the industries traditionally least involved in climate change — and creative agencies can play a pivotal role in driving that change.

The X industry and sustainability

In late 2021, sustainability expert Solitaire Townsend asked: are ad agencies, PR firms and lobbyists destroying the climate? According to her, the X industry (where ‘X’ stands for influence) has an invisible yet tremendous influence on almost every carbon emission produced because of the narratives they create around the industries generating said emissions.

One example, said Townsend, was an award-winning Audi ad campaign that was claimed to generate US$1.78 billion dollars in incremental revenue. Ad industry sustainability networking group, Purpose Disruptors, noted that this would mean the campaign also generated 5.1 million tons of additional carbon for Audi — a staggering figure given that the entire UK advertising industry was estimated to physically produce just 1.1 million tons of carbon a year.

Influence is just a tool. It has equal capacity to destroy and to save — it just boils down to how it is used. As a fierce believer in the power of creativity to generate change, I wonder what the world would look like if all the creativity, inventiveness and knowledge of X industry companies were put towards fixing climate change instead of contributing to it. We are certainly more than capable of it.

Overcoming the Green Gap

Even though corporations are eager to experiment with more sustainable products and services, few succeeded in commercialising them and gaining mass market appeal. As a result, many companies lost confidence in the sustainable route, leading to a deceleration of the sustainability agenda.

This is partly due to what is known as the ‘Green Gap’, which is the gap between consumers’ green intentions and green actions. Paradoxically, consumers who report positive attitudes towards eco-friendly products and services rarely follow through with their wallets. One recent survey saw 65% of respondents declaring that they wanted to buy purpose-driven, sustainability-focused brands, yet only 26% actually did so.

But with over 52% of consumers worldwide interested in supporting sustainable brands, why is this happening?

Part of the reason for the Green Gap is attributed to how companies are communicating sustainability in their offerings. Many tend to highlight the carbon-saving aspect first instead of the actual product benefit to the customer. But this ignores the fact that a customer’s primary concern is the capacity for a product or service to fulfil their immediate needs.

Much of early green marketing and still some campaigns today fall into this trap. Many brands roll out campaigns and advertisements that lead with the environmental benefits of their products or services, expecting consumers to snap them up to do their environmental duty.

However, aside from a small, passionate niche of what Freya Williams calls ‘Super Greens’, people were and are largely unmoved as other factors such as price, value, effectiveness and so on take priority over sustainability.

Clearly, we need to be smarter and more creative in the ways we talk about sustainability to demonstrate why eco-friendly purchases are more than just altruism — they are the smarter choice.

Many companies tend to highlight the carbon-saving aspect first instead of the actual product benefit to the customer. But this ignores the fact that a customer’s primary concern is the capacity for a product or service to fulfil their immediate needs.

Putting the X factor into action

As an industry built upon the power of communications, we understand that proximity is important for a message’s relevance. The individual is at the centre of their own world, followed by family, community, and lastly the planet.

Messaging about habitat destruction, as gutting as it can be, will not trump messaging about personal health, social status, financial stability or happiness for most people. That is why for sustainability to become the new normal, we need to make it about people first.

One common messaging tactic is to use guilt trips or scare tactics to persuade people to change their behaviour. However, sustainability awareness often triggers a circular guilt trip that results in the consumer avoiding the subject entirely, which is ultimately counterproductive.

People already know there is a problem. Thus, it is more valuable to focus on promoting the solutions because it provides people with an avenue to act instead of giving up and walking away.

The individual is at the centre of their own world, followed by family, community, and lastly the planet. For sustainability to become the new normal, we need to make it about people first.

The message also becomes stronger if sustainability is made relatable on an individual level. Statistics are important, but consumers can find it hard to visualise what they mean to them as individuals. As a result, the global impact of climate change can feel distant to many consumers without relevant examples.

That is why it is important to frame the context — such as explaining how the carbon emissions from a single flight can affect climate change and create more extreme weather events.

Joining forces for a sustainable future

Of course, none of this works if businesses themselves are not willing to do the work and authentically champion the sustainability cause instead of simply hopping on a bandwagon. Treating sustainability like a trend is entering greenwashing territory, and that is the ultimate trap that agencies must steer their clients — and themselves — clear of.

Agencies are increasingly expected to be advisers to companies on how to navigate the sustainability agenda. This may extend beyond crafting marketing narratives and advertising campaigns to veer into product development — sustainability must be holistic to be authentic.

That extends to the agencies as well; clients will not listen to agencies that are not demonstrating a clear commitment to sustainability themselves.

This World Environment Day, remember that as the industry of influence, we too have a role to play in solving the climate crisis. We must be bold enough to shape and lead these important sustainability conversations for our clients, whilst walking the talk when it comes to our own operations.

After all, we have #OnlyOneEarth.

The post How the X industry can shape the sustainability conversation appeared first on Redhill | Global Communications Agency.

The Earth Day 2021 theme, ‘Restore our Earth’, struck a chord deep within me. Taking care of the environment has been as natural as breathing to me my whole life. It seemed like (and still is) the obvious thing to do. We keep our own houses clean, don’t we? This beautiful Earth is the home of mankind, so we all have a responsibility to look after it.

But as I grew older and saw more of the world, I began to realise that environmentalism was, in fact, not the norm in other societies. Visceral images such as massive piles of plastic heaped up outside peoples’ homes left an immediate — and horrifying — impression, but something like that didn’t happen overnight. They were and are reflections of the everyday choices we make. To this day, our beloved Earth continues to pay the price.

Choice and consequence

Every action has a consequence. When was the last time we stopped to think about what the effects of our choices would be for Mother Nature? We order lunch that comes in a polystyrene takeaway box because throwing the whole thing away after we’re done is more convenient than using our own Tupperwares and washing them after. But where does that box go? What happens to it?

I’ve seen what happens for myself. The polystyrene will crumble apart into thousands of tiny balls that enter the environment. But they never decompose. Ever. I’ve gone on beach cleanups and picked up thousands of little plastic balls. They were everywhere.

If the scale of the environmental impact that humans have on the world is difficult to comprehend, take four minutes out of your day to watch this incredible award-winning video. It really puts things into perspective and I promise it’s worth it.

To summarise (if you haven’t watched it), if Earth is as old as 24 hours, mankind has only been alive for 3 seconds. Yet we are single-handedly destroying her. We strip her of her natural treasures and pollute her life-giving resources, and wonder why entire species are disappearing and the very climate is changing. Why are we surprised? We know the problem — it’s us. Mother Nature is screaming, and we are not listening. How will we make it to the 4th second?

“But the beautiful thing is, we can choose to open our eyes and ears. We can be the change. We are the solution.”

Restoration through education

Education is a very important first step in building awareness. We need environmentalism to be taught across the board, in schools and in workplaces, and we need people to take it seriously. We share this earth with billions of others. If we each used one plastic bag today, imagine the amount of waste that would create. People need to understand the impact of their choices. “It’s only one straw,” said 8 billion people…

Understanding the why is crucial because that’s how people become genuine advocates for change — when it becomes a cause they personally believe in instead of being a trend they follow or a display of feel-good altruism. Then it becomes part of their conscious decision-making, which has a ripple effect on the communities they’re in and the businesses they support. The how will be swift to follow.

Conscious consumerism

I find that people often shy away from environmental-friendly practices because they see it as inconvenient or expensive. But if you really think about it, it’s more about a mindset shift and adjusting to new habits. It’s not inconvenient to remember to bring your own shopping bags and water bottle. Using and washing your own tiffin carrier takes just a minute out of even the busiest day. Choosing to buy fewer clothes doesn’t impact your lifestyle and even saves you money.

These are all small, incremental acts that just require tiny adjustments to how we live. They might not seem like much. But the scale of our impact isn’t measured by just one person, but by all of us. If we multiply one person’s positive actions by hundreds and thousands of others making the same choices, it becomes significant.

Sincere sustainability

Many brands have sustainability-focused messaging and have even launched products and services that are ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘sustainable’. But using organic cotton doesn’t make a fast fashion line ‘sustainable’, especially if it’s still produced in the same factories as the regular lines. Around 92 million tonnes of textiles are wasted each year, which is equivalent to a rubbish truck’s worth of clothes ending up in landfills every second.

Brands can make a real difference by thinking about sustainability along the entire supply chain — from sourcing to production, from packaging to delivery. Are materials sustainably sourced? Can we use reusable packaging materials? It might cost more on paper, but making an authentic positive impact will also attract authentic customers — and it’s an investment into the future of our world. There’s no better ROI than a safe and healthy world for our children to live in.

Introducing Greenhill

I’m a firm believer of walking the talk. I’m proud to be leading Greenhill, our sustainability initiative at Redhill. The entire concept is to give people the responsibility of making a positive difference through enabling them to take greener actions. We’re putting together a whole package of the steps we can take to reduce our collective footprint on the world. Red is our colour, but our hearts beat green.

We’re already recycling anything that can be — paper, plastic, glass etc — and we’ll shortly be in receipt of recycling bins in the office. We’ve implemented a ‘bag library’ in the Singapore office, which people can use when they go out to buy their lunches, and are buying common crockery and cutlery so that people can say no to plastic forks and spoons. We subsist on coffee (agency life) and the number of cups we throw away is shocking, so we’re also producing a reusable Redhill coffee cup made by a sustainable supplier.

We work with wonderful organisations like Seven Clean Seas to ensure we’re on the right track and to expand the authentic impact that Greenhill can have. We’re also looking to make beach cleanups a new team building activity to do our part for the environment and strengthen our bonds. And to encourage that sustainability momentum, we’re considering incentivising sustainable actions through a bottle cap ‘change board’.

“We are just a chapter in the world’s story. For there to be a next chapter for our future generations, we have to leave as little impact as possible on the world.”

When the world was put on pause in the throes of the pandemic, we saw an incredible change. In Singapore, we had monitor lizards crossing the street. Hornbills returned to nest in my building, where they haven’t been seen for years. In neighbouring Malaysia, a near-dead river came back to life. There are hundreds of these examples around the world. Without the noise and pollution of humanity, nature was able to find her voice.

This experience shows what an impact we have on the world, and what a difference it makes when we switch off. I believe that a harmonious co-existence is possible, but we need to make respectful choices and hold up our end of the bargain. It’s nothing short of a miracle that we have this beautiful Earth to shelter and flourish on. But what are we doing for her?

I’m fully aware that change takes time and that it does need to be a partnership between grassroots activists, governments, businesses and individuals. But we’re already on the right track. It has been done and we can do it again. We don’t need to wait for Earth Day to take action — every day is Earth Day. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll make it to that 4th second.

The post Restoring our Earth — one conscious choice at a time appeared first on Redhill | Global Communications Agency.