Can we afford to be ethical?

by Gemma Smyth, Founder & Managing Director, &Smyth Creative Communications

As the urgency to save our planet becomes more and more prevalent, the reality is that we are also facing a huge rise in the cost of living which is putting heightened pressure on society as a whole. So, the looming question on the minds of many business owners and consumers is, can we afford to always make the choices that are most ethical and least damaging to our environment?

But when we think about it, the bigger question is, can we afford not to?

This week I attended a number of events and discussions which gave me a chance to reflect inward on what our business, and the communications industry as a whole, can and should be doing in order to best address the needs of people and planet which are often mistakenly considered to be competing realities.

At this week’s PRII Annual Conference, Ella Minty, Issues, Crisis and Reputation Advisor and founder of the #PowerandInfluence network delivered a keynote address which was a straight-talking and hard-hitting exploration of whether or not brand trust – which is fundamental to the role of the communications industry - is actually important to consumers.

Trust
Ella outlined how for businesses, being liked does not always equal being trusted and while consumers may say that they don’t trust a company, many of these companies still manage to survive and be profitable. She said,

“We like to think we are ethical but there is a fundamental difference in what we would like to do, versus what we can afford to do.”

This sentiment was also explored at an event this week hosted by Purpose Disruptors Ireland, a voluntary organisation which acknowledges the role the advertising and communications sector plays in promoting consumerism and whose vision is to “reshape the advertising and marketing communications industry to only promote attitudes, lifestyles, behaviours and brands aligned with a net zero world by 2030.”  Speaking at the event, Colette Henry of Droga5 highlighted that the “say-do” gap is often at play when it comes to consumer behaviour and that we need to analyse consumer actions as much as sentiment.

According to Ella Minty, consumers will only be moved to engage with a business if that business delivers on what they have promised. This promise could be anything - from value to efficiency, quality to ethical claims - depending on the consumer's priorities. She believes that a pledge to do something is not enough and therefore businesses and PR practitioners should only talk about what they have delivered, not what is planned for the future.

In a questions and answers session after her keynote, she was asked how we can reconcile the concept of trust and profit. Ella responded that she believes that both concepts can coexist and that businesses can have trust and make a profit, but it’s what you do with your profit that is key. She said,

“There is nothing wrong with making a profit if we use that profit responsibly and ethically and do not use it to hurt anyone or the planet.”

Language

On the second day of the PRII conference, Padraig McKeon, President PRII interviewed Solitaire Townsend, Chief Solutionist & Co-Founder at Futerra and Sustainability Expert who discussed the importance of the communications industry keeping up to speed on the ever-evolving language of climate change.

She highlighted how we need to continue to study and understand the language of the moment and that COP27 brought terms and initiatives such as the ‘loss and damage mechanism’; ‘just transition’; and ‘climate-justice’ more into focus.

She also talked about ‘degrowth’, the concept which is rising in popularity and refers to putting a limit on what we produce.  However, she believes that the reality is that we are not there yet as there are billions of people in the world who still need more food, more medicine and more infrastructure.

People Power

In his interview, Padraig McKeon also asked Solitaire Townsend if we should be concentrating our efforts on leadership or citizens when trying to move the dial on climate change.

Solitaire suggested that we need to communicate with both but that ‘people power’ should not be underestimated and that the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report showed that a collective effort to make small changes across society could save 5% of global emissions.

On the topic of ‘people power’, the Purpose Disruptors Ireland event shared details of the “Good Life 2030” campaign which encouraged the advertising industry to develop a vision for what a good life could be in 2030, if we make the changes necessary to reduce emissions.

The initiative saw UK advertising agencies take eight weeks to work on a brief to produce a TV ad with “The Good Life” as a client. One of the advertisements shared was created by McCann Manchester which shows how the future affects each and every one of us and how it is up to all of us to make change happen.  While the content has not been rolled out in a consumer-facing campaign, it shows how the brief challenged the advertising industry to take a citizen-centred approach to the issue and similar initiatives should be welcomed across the marketing-communications industries. View here:

"It's Me, You" feat. Alice Levine by McCann, Manchester

Key takeaways
To conclude, in distilling the many viewpoints and conversations throughout the week, my key takeaways for communications professionals include:

• We need to work with our clients to encourage them to say less and prove more i.e. in place of pledges we need to communicate action

• For both our clients and audiences alike, we need to proactively work to make buying less not feel like a loss

• We need to move from talking about our audiences as consumers to treating them as citizens of our planet

• We need to support our clients to do better by asking what products or services they can offer to continue to have a profitable business, but with a lower carbon footprint

• We need to continue to explore how the communications industry can be part of the solution

To close with the words of Solitaire Townsend,

“Everyone in our industry needs to ask themselves ’How can I integrate climate solutions into what I do?’. And we need to ask this consistently in order to make a real impact.”