Sustainability is growing in importance to companies’ stakeholders, including the growing number of environmentally conscious consumers. A recent survey shows 84 percent of consumers say poor environmental practices will alienate them from a brand or company –TheRoundup.
A global review confirms that 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for products or brands that work to improve society and the environment. Over the past five years, 63 percent of consumers have made significant shifts towards becoming more sustainable. And among those who have made changes, a remarkable 85 percent have adopted “greener” purchasing habits. Sustainability is a top 5 value driver for 50 percent of consumers across various categories, which means a product or service’s environmental stewardship is an important purchase criterion and is a key differentiator in the overall value proposition. Reports continue to show a lack of in-depth environmental education causes consumers to use defaults or proxies when making sustainable decisions –Simon-Kucher & Partner.
Consumers are paying more for basic consumer products and high-ticket items such as renewable energy products and services. In order to keep up this purchasing momentum, provide your community with a valuable education about the environmental issues your company is addressing and how consumers will benefit.
Promoting environmental literacy among their online community is crucial for companies offering products and services that prioritize sustainability. This includes social media followers, customers, subscribers, leads, and email recipients. Environmental content marketing plays a pivotal role in fostering long-term engagement and awareness.
Why is it important to educate your community?
It is important to educate your business’s community about environmental issues for several reasons. First, environmental issues can have a significant impact on your business, its operations, and its bottom line. For example, climate change can lead to extreme weather events that disrupt supply chains and damage infrastructure, while air and water pollution can harm the health of employees and customers. By educating your community about environmental issues, you can help them understand the risks and take steps to mitigate them.
Second, educating your community about environmental issues can help you establish your business as a responsible and sustainable organization. This can improve your reputation and foster trust and loyalty among your customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
Third, by educating your community about environmental issues, you can help raise awareness and encourage action. This can have a positive impact on the local and global community and can help drive positive change for the environment.
Environmental literacy for businesses provides a well-informed employee base. You can learn more about Environmental Literacy in the workplace here.
Why environmental literacy is important for environmentally forward companies.
Educating your business’s community about environmental issues is an important part of being a responsible and sustainable organization. It can help protect your business, improve your reputation, and drive positive change for the environment. Environmental literacy allows employees, leads, and customers to make more informed choices that minimize harm to the environment and, many times, improve their quality of life overall. This might involve selecting sustainable materials, optimizing supply chains, or adopting energy-efficient technologies.
Does your online community need to be educated on important environmental topics you’re solving?
If you have an environmental company or have sustainable initiatives, your community will absolutely benefit greatly from incorporating education on the important environmental topics your company is solving.
Unless you have the time and massive budget to hire a marketer with a technical, environmental science degree and experience coupled with policy and marketing experience, your team will be learning as they go. If you ask your marketing team how they stay informed, they may say they depend on the information from your engineers, your impressive sales team, and the series of industry articles that can be overwhelming to follow. While this is how most companies operate, injecting environmental education into your company’s content marketing will allow your company to stay competitive and reach those B2B and B2C decision-makers searching for their answers online.
How to educate your community on important environmental topics
Here are some actions you can take to educate your business’s community about environmental issues.
Develop educational materials, such as informational brochures, posters, or videos, that explain the environmental issues that are most relevant to your business and its operations. It’s easy to get lost in creating the best material for your audience, whether B2B or B2C. One of the ways your team could never go wrong is by doing a content audit and finding ways to insert education into your online content, which can also be implemented in your print content.
Educate, including hosting workshops, seminars, or other events that provide information and resources on environmental issues. These can be open to the public or targeted to specific groups, such as employees, customers, or suppliers. In one of the first tradeshows the A.R. team exhibited, we took the opportunity to collect data to find out that a high number of professionals in Los Angeles want more helpful environmental content to help them make better decisions. The team upcycled wine corks and made tiny succulent plants with a magnet attached to hand out to the recipients. The A.R. booth attracted the biggest crowd out of the entire show, which brought the CEO of the organization to our booth, which turned into sales. This gave the A.R. team brand awareness and a major opportunity to introduce the company in the most memorable way.
Share information and resources on environmental issues through your business’s social media channels, email newsletters, and other communication channels. Educational stats and facts made into digestible graphics are one of the best and easiest ways to inform and engage with your community on the environmental issues your company solves. Learn the reasons why the solar industry shares facts and stats.
Encourage your employees to become advocates for environmental issues and provide them with the tools and support they need to educate others.
Partner with local organizations, such as environmental groups or schools, to develop and implement educational programs or projects.
Support environmental organizations through financial donations, employee volunteering, or other forms of support. This can help raise awareness and drive positive change for the environment.
Overall, there are many actions you can take to educate your business’s community about environmental issues. The key is to develop a plan, take consistent, ongoing action to provide information and resources and encourage others to take action.
How to develop an educational content strategy for Partnerships
Why is it important to educate partners? Partnerships are a must for environmental marketing efforts. However, we need educated partners so that their marketing department can speak intelligently on the environmental topics the partnership addresses. We want our partnership to avoid the pitfalls of greenwashing and rise to the level of educators and change makers. The only way to accomplish this and have a successful partnership is through an established educational process tailored to your company’s partnerships.
Ways to educate partners
You can take several actions to educate your business partners about environmental issues. Here are a few ideas.
Organize a training or workshop on environmental sustainability for your partners. This can be an in-person or virtual event, depending on your preferences and the needs of your partners.
Provide educational materials on environmental topics, such as guides, articles, and videos. You can share these resources with your partners via email, website, or social media.
Encourage your partners to participate in environmental initiatives, such as recycling programs, carbon offset projects, and conservation efforts.
Work with your partners to develop and implement sustainability policies and goals for your business. This helps ensure that your partners are committed to environmental protection and are taking steps to reduce their environmental impact.
Share success stories and examples of other businesses successfully incorporating environmental sustainability into their operations. This can inspire and motivate your partners to take action.
It’s time to educate
When you’re bringing innovation to your industry that solves an environmental issue, you need educated investors, community, staff, and marketing team so they can thoroughly understand the problem your solution is solving. Sustainable brands have an opportunity and responsibility to add education to their internal and external marketing efforts.
A.R. Marketing House is a team of environmental content marketers ready to educate your community members. Contact us to start your environmental content strategy.
