Sustainable actions are not really what makes a company stand out. Communicating those actions to the appropriate audience in an effective way is.
Enter; sustainability communications. This is how you make the world stand up and pay attention to all the great things you’re doing. Get this part of the sustainability puzzle right, and you will maximize the benefits your sustainability initiatives bring.
In this article, we’ve decided to highlight some companies that absolutely have gotten their sustainability communications right. (In our opinion at least)
Each of these campaigns offers something different, but they all utilize sustainability storytelling beautifully to strike at our emotions like a lightning bolt.
Some make us laugh, some make us cry, but most importantly, they all make us feel!
We hope they make you feel too.
Sustainability communications campaigns we absolutely love
Of course, most sustainability communications campaigns will involve a lot of moving parts. Each campaign will have multiple stages and elements, and will be conducted through various communication channels.
But we want to make this article more about the fun, emotional side of these campaigns. So we won’t be doing a deep technical analysis on every element of each campaign or anything like that. Instead, we’re just focusing on an element of each campaign that made us think; wowwwww! And we’ll talk a little bit about why we thought each one was so wow. Sound good?
Okay then! Let’s get this party started!
Patagonia: Don’t Buy This Jacket
On Black Friday in 2011, Patagonia, US-based designer of outdoor clothing and gear, published a full-page ad in the New York Times newspaper. And this wasn’t just any old ad.
Unlike pretty much every other ad ever published, this ad actually encouraged people not to buy Patagonia’s product!
That’s right. The ad showed a picture of one of Patagonia’s best-selling jackets, and ran with the title ‘Don’t Buy This Jacket’. The aim being to raise consumer awareness about overconsumption.
Within the text accompanying the image, Patagonia explained that even though the jacket in question was a ‘60% recycled polyester jacket’, it still left a significant environmental impact. They even detailed how much water was used to make it, and how much carbon dioxide was emitted during the production process!
They then pleaded with readers to not buy what they don’t need, and to think twice before buying anything.
So why do we love this campaign so much? Well, for many reasons really.
We love the pure transparency of it. How Patagonia are openly discussing the negative environmental impact of their own products, and genuinely encouraging consumers to hesitate before buying something new. (While also suggesting that although their products aren’t perfect, they are still ‘exceptionally durable’, and won’t need to be replaced as often).
We also love how this attitude perfectly aligns with the company’s mission of producing durable clothes that last, and that can easily be recycled.
And who couldn’t love the timing? Running an ad that highlights the issue of overconsumption on Black Friday? Talk about a way to stand out from the crowd and make people stop and think.
Ikea: Fortune Favors the Frugal
A meteor made of garbage uncontrollably hurtling towards the earth. But as people start incorporating small sustainable actions into their lives, the meteor gradually gets smaller and smaller with each action. Until finally, all that’s left is one single plastic bottle that easily gets put in the recycling. Quite the image, and quite the metaphor, isn’t it?
As you can see from the video above, this is exactly what happens in Ikea’s ‘Fortune Favors the Frugal’ television ad from 2021. In it, as people do little things like reusing water, growing herbs at home, re-painting old furniture, and using reusable water bottles, together, they help to reduce an impending environmental threat.
We feel this is a very beautiful and well-executed message, and it made us feel those wow-wow feelings for various reasons.
First, we love how at the start of the video, IKEA makes reference to the kind of ‘doom-filled’ climate communications that we are constantly bombarded with today. Too much of this kind of negative messaging can make even the most optimistic person feel hopeless.
But this ad very quickly says a big no-no to that negativity, by switching on some upbeat, vibey music, and presenting us with the hopeful message that we can all make a difference with our everyday actions. (The video is accompanied with the hashtag ‘WonderfulEveryday’)
We also appreciate how IKEA resisted the urge to get over-promotional here; the ad only explicitly mentions one IKEA product. This is enough to suggest that IKEA products can help people make small positive changes, without taking away from the sincerity of the ad’s message.
Overall, we just think this is an incredibly clever, attention-grabbing, well-made piece of content. And we love the inspirational, solution-based outlook it portrays.
Who Gives a Crap: Uncrap the World
‘Who Gives a Crap’ is a sustainable toilet paper company, founded in Australia, with a very big heart and a fondness for toilet jokes. (As you can probably already tell by their quite brilliant name).
Clearly, Who Gives a Crap definitely gives a crap. Because amazingly, they donate 50% of profits ‘to help everyone gain access to clean water and a toilet’. They have raised over €11 million so far!
As well as making 100% recycled toilet paper and 100% bamboo toilet paper, Who Gives a Crap are also quite famous for their cheeky, outlandish, hilarious approach to communications.
For us, there is no better example of this than their first ever television ad — the ‘Uncrap the World’ ad — which launched in 2023. Seriously, what a masterpiece this is. (Or can we say, m-ass-terpiece!?). (We’re sure Who Gives a Crap would appreciate that!).
But just look at this ad. In just 30 seconds, it was somehow able to tell us that “every day, over 1 million trees are destroyed to make traditional toilet paper”, in a way that had us crying from laughter instead of from sadness.
Because with “our planet, our future, rest(ing) upon (our) cheeks” — we know that we can do something about it. Who Gives a Crap encourages viewers to “sit down for what they believe in”, and “uncrap the world” with their “recycled loo roll”. (Can you believe it? All we have to do to save 1 million trees per day is sit on our toilets!!).
Every aspect of this ad is riddled with giggles. The clever voiceover, the incessant focus on people’s behinds, and the subtle ‘bum bum bum’ humming in the background.
Brave, attention-grabbing, memorable, and right to the point of how this company can help us solve a significant environmental issue. As we said; masterpiece!
Dove: The Code (Dove Self-Esteem Project)
Sustainability isn’t all about the environment, the social side of things is important too. And in our minds, Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign, launched back in 2004, is one of the most iconic examples of a campaign promoting positive social change.
The idea of this campaign has always been to spread the message that ‘beauty’ comes in many forms. The ‘real beauty’ ads have always featured real women as opposed to professional models, and have attempted to expand the narrow beauty standards depicted in many beauty campaigns.
If you watch the online video above from Dove’s ‘The Code’ campaign, launched in 2024, you might agree that the message Dove is trying to spread has never been more important.
The Code campaign looks at the impact of AI on beauty. In this somewhat chilling video, we learn that 90% of online content is predicted to be AI-generated by 2025. And under the video, Dove explains that 1 in 3 women feel pressure to alter their appearance because of what they see online, even when they know the images are fake or AI-generated.
The video certainly stirs up a lot of emotions. Towards the end, Dove asks ‘what kind of beauty do we want AI to learn?’, while promising that they will never use AI to create or distort women’s images.
For us, this is a campaign that made us think ‘wow’, because of how deeply pressing and important the issue is, and because of what Dove is doing to tackle it.
Through the ‘Dove Self-Esteem Project’, the largest provider of self-esteem education of its kind, they are on a mission to boost confidence in 250 million young people around the world by 2030.
Genuinely no pun intended, we think that is truly beautiful work.
Lenovo: Asset Recovery Services
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but all of the examples we’ve given so far have been business-to-consumer (B2C) campaigns.
And although business-to-business (B2B) campaigns don’t tend to be as much fun, we wanted to include one, as they can still be well-executed and important. Just like Lenovo’s online video from 2023 above, about e-waste and asset recovery services.
Why do we think this is a worthy inclusion? Because it tackles a rapidly growing issue that affects nearly every business on earth head-on, and calmly provides a solution in under two minutes.
And we love how it’s structured. First it jumps straight in with some mind-boggling facts that underline how important the issue is. 53.6 million metric tons of electronic waste is generated worldwide every year, which is more than 4500 Eiffel Towers! And the amount of waste created has increased by 21% over the past five years!
Okay, so now we know this is a real problem that needs solving. Then, stating that ‘83% of consumers think businesses should be actively shaping ESG best practices’, Lenovo suggests that helping to solve this problem — by supporting a circular economy — could be good for business.
Then they explain how their Asset Recovery Services can help businesses minimize waste and maximize circularity.
Simple but hard-hitting. Clearly presents a big issue, a solution, and how Lenovo can help other businesses thrive by being part of that solution.
As far as B2B sustainability communications goes, this effort ticks all the boxes.
Add your own sustainability communications campaign to this list with Dazzle
If you’re feeling as inspired as we were upon first seeing these campaigns, and you want to create a stand-out campaign of your own, Dazzle can help you get it right!
Dazzle is a platform that offers access to the world’s best sustainability freelancers, and we have many sustainability communications experts available.
With Dazzle, quality and a proven track record are guaranteed, as all of our freelancers are extensively pre-screened. While the process is also very flexible, because you can choose to work with our freelancers on a project-based, on-demand, or interim basis.
Contact us today, and we can send you several expert profiles within just a few hours, so that you can quickly find your perfect match.
It would be our absolute pleasure to include your future campaign in an article just like this one!
