As a student that spent my time at UBC studying development as it pertained to Global Health & Nutrition, I was immediately drawn to the inclusion of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the center of several of the conversations we have been having in Sustainability Marketing; the SDGs provided a framework for which development projects I studied were evaluated against. Sustainable Brands’ Matthew Yeomans makes the argument that the SDGs should just as much be applied to businesses and their plans for sustainable action, which in turn offers more genuine “storytelling opportunities to win the trust of society”. He identifies two major struggles faced by sustainability marketers today:

  1. One one hand, some businesses keep smaller-scale sustainable practices to themselves due to a belief that consumers won’t care
  2. On the other hand, sustainability professionals are often uncomfortable with current sustainability marketing practices due to marketing initiatives not being sufficiently linked to data and research

The key with tying in the UN SDGs with sustainability marketing practices is the comprehensive data and metrics that exist. By encouraging businesses to align their sustainability goals with the SDGs, marketing/communications departments can use these metrics and data to develop sustainable storytelling.

Coming back to an earlier blogpost where I discussed Simon Sinek’s “start with why” concept, I fundamentally believe that creating a genuine emotional connection with a consumer to be one of the most profound ways to engage them. With authentic storytelling, consumers are able to generate connections to businesses with actual values that align with their own.

Companies can even take this a step further by encouraging consumers to look into the core SDG that business is aiming to contribute to, displaying a real commitment to the matter at hand. Yeomans’ suggestion to businesses seems like an obvious one that provides significant benefits to both consumers and businesses themselves.

http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/marketing_comms/matthew_yeomans/why_you_should_align_your_brand%E2%80%99s_sustainability_effo