Saturday was Earth Day, otherwise known as the day brands tell customers that they, too, care about the climate crisis (so long as it means you keep buying their stuff).
Over the years, the holiday has become a tentpole for marketers to share brands’ environmental commitments. This year, not so much: While some brands and organizations, like Impossible Foods and The Paper and Packaging Board, released campaigns, the atmosphere seemed quieter overall.
And even leading up to Earth Day, sustainability messaging appeared to be trending downward. Data platform CreativeX, which analyzed 2.5 million ads from more than 1,000 brands between January 2020 and March 2023, found that sustainability messaging increased through December 2022 but fell 47% in the first few months of 2023. So what’s changed?
Action expresses priorities
Anastasia Leng, founder and CEO of CreativeX, said she thinks the dip in sustainability messaging has to do with budgetary pressure. “When there’s an economic crisis and all of a sudden you’ve got less to work with than you had before, you go back to basics,” she told Marketing Brew. “Some of these initiatives, which frankly should be part of your basics but still aren’t, start to get ignored, or certainly decreased.”
As brands face pressure to drive sales in a tight economic climate, sustainability may be taking a backseat to messages that drive sales, like product promotion and cost savings, Leng said. However, she added that brands should consider the benefits of sharing their sustainability messages anyway.
“If you’re a brand for whom being sustainable is an important part of what you stand for, I believe that you should continue to promote this message even if people aren’t making purchase decisions based on that today,” Leng said, adding that brands’ ability to deliver those messages may be stronger at a time when other advertisers are pulling back.
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All in all, she said, the slowdown marks a “short-term blip,” and consumers are going to continue to look to vote with their wallets in the future, even if it may be harder for them to do so now.
Gettin’ a little tired of your broken promises, promises
Another reason brands may have been quieter this year? Increasing concerns about greenwashing and discussions around whether brands should celebrate Earth Day at all.
Nilesha Chauvet, managing director of Good Agency, told The Drum that the lack of large-scale campaigns this year “could be a sign” that regulations from authorities like the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) are having an effect, adding that “brands are more cautious and that makes it harder to be creatively braver.” Brands that have recently drawn the attention of the ASA over claims of greenwashing include Etihad, Lufthansa, and HSBC.
That doesn’t mean brands should give up on environmental announcements altogether. Adidas pledged to “replace virgin polyester with recycled materials wherever possible” by 2024 and acknowledged that “we know we are part of the problem”—a statement that was credited by The Verge as being a “breath of fresh air during the greenwashing bonanza that Earth Day has become.”