Sustainability is Good Business: An Earth Day 2022 Message from Skai’s Founders

April 22, 2022

The recent eMarketer article, How should media, advertising, and retail strategists think about sustainable technology? provides some strong food for thought on how marketers can make a real impact, both financially and environmentally, with sustainability policies.

Authored by Tensie Whelan, professor, and director at the NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, the post offers some suggestions for those in this industry who desire to make a difference. One of Whelan’s primary tips is for business leaders to think about sustainability as a business opportunity, not as a compliance or PR issue.

This is a very pragmatic recommendation as it helps us not have to choose between doing right for the world and doing right for the company’s stakeholders. The truth is that there doesn’t have to be any conflict between these two forces—you can do both at the same time if you are creative and perseverant enough to try.

For this year’s Earth Day, two of Skai’s founders have authored a post on this issue:

Sustainability is Good Business

By Alon Sheafer and Nir Cohen

Alon Sheafer (left) Chief Innovation Officer & Nir Cohen (right) Chief Technology Officer

In large organizations, the change toward sustainability in many cases is driven by C-Level executives, both because they are the ones seeing the big picture and also because green business units usually represent growth (see graph below from NYU Stern).

NOTE: Despite the fact that sustainability-marked products are 16.1 of the market, they delivered 54.7% of the CPG market growth (2015-2019).

In these companies, we see a clear sustainability-related directive and targets coming top-down. Dedicated corporate social responsibility (CSR) arms are formed to embrace and invest in this change, thoroughly reviewing every aspect of supply and production chains. Companies are measuring themselves internally on community impact, diversity & inclusion in the workplace, and other social responsibility benchmarks.

Consumers are definitely becoming more aware of sustainability as we understand the impact of our consumption habits on the future of our planet. Knowing this is our best way to influence change. Making sure we are spending our dollars buying from brands that share the same values as we do is one of the key levers consumers have to force CSR initiatives.

And consumers—especially Millennials/Gen Zs—are increasingly searching for more sustainable lifestyles. At Skai, we have seen a quantifiable rise in demand for sustainability content across verticals from our innovative market intelligence technology. This increased interest generates measurably higher search engine and social media activity via “sustainable” language. Our data science teams can model these words and phrases into taxonomies to detect trends that make it incredibly easy for companies to know exactly what’s going on in the market.

These insights enable our clients to better appreciate what matters to their customers and build CSR programs that are aligned with their customers’ sensibilities using our full-cycle methodology.

Full-cycle marketing is a growing practice that prizes the full lifecycle of the customer-brand relationship rather than individual clicks and campaigns. This is a more empathetic approach to understanding consumers—especially why & when in their lives do they turn to your brand. Because sustainability is increasingly becoming important to today’s generations, it absolutely must be addressed by CPG marketers.

Full-cycle marketing powered by market intelligence is designed to close the gap between the C-level directive and the market needs in many different areas—not only for CSR programs but also in product development, value positioning, and channel/publisher evaluation.

We hope everyone has a fulfilling and purpose-driven Earth Day this year and that businesses in the marketing industry will contribute to making the planet a better, healthier, and more sustainable place for our future generations.

— Alon & Nir