Time to own it. We’re marketers.

Is it just me, or does the word “marketing” have a bad rap in sustainability circles?

Sustainability leaders seem to respond fine to the idea of “communications” but they get a bit squeamish when we talk about “marketing.”

I get it. None of us want to feel like we’re being marketed to. We don’t want those annoying ads following us around for weeks after we casually browse a pair of shoes. We don’t want influencers with flawless skin making us feel like we need a $100 eye serum. We don’t want our every move—online and offline—tracked and used to sell us things.

But there’s so much more to marketing than manipulative strategies, annoying content, and soul-crushing ads. Smart, sophisticated marketing focuses on:

• Deeply understanding our audiences—their frustrations, fears, desires, and dreams. 
• Speaking in an authentic, human voice—that connects with people on a personal level.
• Translating complex information into simple, compelling messages—without jargon or technical terms.
• Telling stories that inspire action—using classic storytelling strategies like conflict, plot twists, heroes and villains.
• Creating a steady drumbeat of content—across different channels and platforms, so we can tell consistent, repeatable stories that reach a broader audience.
  

If you want more people to care about your company’s environmental and social programs, and you want them to take action, you need strategies like these—pulled straight from the classic marketing playbook. This requires collaborating closely with your marketing colleagues, who have spent their careers testing and honing these tactics, and know how to use them to influence people and reshape their behaviors.

But with the deep complexity of sustainability and the real perils of greenwashing, it’s easy to see why sustainability teams aren’t collaborating with marketers as closely as they could. After all, the folks who wrote about that $100 eye serum yesterday probably aren’t the right folks to write about your climate action plan today. And with your company’s in-house marketing team focused on product launches and lead generation, you may worry that the details of important sustainability targets will be misconstrued, glossed over, or over hyped.

These are valid concerns. To overcome them and find partners who can truly elevate your work, there are a few important things you should expect. And demand.

What to look for in a sustainability marketing partner.

You need a partner who:

• Understands sustainability strategy—and will ensure that any marketing strategy is consistent with your purpose, goals, and targets.
• Challenges your claims—will ask the difficult (and sometimes awkward) questions about your work and objectives, seek supporting data to back up claims, and probe source material before and during the content creation process.
• Translates jargon to human—knows how to describe complex issues in the simplest terms, and can find the human pulse within even the most technical subject matter.
• Thinks like a storyteller—can bring a compelling narrative structure to your company’s long and winding sustainability journey, and create an emotional connection with your audiences.
• Stays steady in times of crisis—will help you stay consistent to your long-term vision, values, and core messages while adjusting supporting points to meet the challenges of whatever fresh hell the world throws at us.

It’s no secret that the fresh hell of 2025 is upon us. With corporate sustainability facing increasing political pushback and legal threats, it may seem like the exact wrong time to be thinking about all this marketing stuff. But the truth is, there’s never been a better time.

As we fight for the very existence of the ideals and initiatives we hold dear, we must reach more people—people who haven’t been moved by our messages before, and in many cases, haven’t even heard our messages. And we must reach them quickly. This requires a new narrative, new language, and new collaborations. Together, we can do so much more than any of us could’ve ever done on our own—for our businesses, our communities, and everyone who benefits from our work.