Over the past year, environmental sustainability has become one of the most discussed issues in advertising, marketing and media. Whether it’s new allegations of greenwashing, commitments to climate goals or innovations to make a lower-energy, lower-waste existence more possible for the people who live on this planet, it’s undeniably the most pressing issue of our…
Working as a TV producer meant that Lindsay McCormick had to spend a lot of time living out of a suitcase. Much of that life included squeezing toiletries into a quart-size bag. A longtime vegan trying to live a low-waste lifestyle, McCormick was frustrated that the only travel toothpaste option required a throwaway, plastic container….
More than a month after COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, audiences might be forgiven for being tired of marketing messaging telling them about the climate crisis and how some companies claim to be improving their behavior. Well, one stunt has been produced for ski resort Aspen Snowmass to visualize the effects global warming is having on…
It might not be the biggest trend this holiday season, but consumers are getting more comfortable with the idea of secondhand gifts. That’s good news for online resale platforms. Companies like Grailed, thredUp and The RealReal are reporting an uptick in traffic and sales this year as consumers look for greener gift options and attempt…
Sustainability has become a buzzword in 2021–and for good reason. But as with any buzzword, the meaning of the term has begun to get fuzzier as its popularity grows. While it conjures a green-hued respect for the environment for some, for others it expands to include things that ensure the long-term viability of a business…
The year is 2025, and the air is filled with ghosts. As a grandmother in her local diner, fans at a soccer field, teenagers on a school trip and revellers at a bachelorette party swap disposables for reusable containers, the specters of plastic bottles float away on the wind. This is the vision that the…
Brands know they need to talk about how they’re addressing issues of climate change. But a new study shows that the large communications agencies they employ aren’t simply crafting responses about efforts to “go green.” Rather, many of the largest PR firms are actively working to reshape the terms of the debate set by climate…
I am a 20-year veteran of the marketing communications industry, with a career-long focus on helping to elevate social and environmental issues. Since resigning from my role as executive vice president at Edelman in 2015, I have continued to collaborate with large agencies but watched with an increasing sense of unease as the problems that…
Black Friday might be the biggest shopping day of the year for Europeans, but the event could also become one for consumer giving too–or at least that was the view of a Finnish clothing company that pulled a stunt to highlight the need to combat loneliness in the country. Instead of using the event to…
Consumers at Christmastime essentially want two things: to consume and to feel good about it. And with an entirely new patch of grey hairs dedicated to the pandemic, we’re all in desperate need of a bit of feel-good positivity this year. So it’s little wonder that we’re seeing a flurry of cause-driven advertising hit our…
In 2019 Havas New York CEO Laura Maness was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, listening to a fireside chat led by MediaLink’s Michael Kassan, Salesforce leader Mark Benioff and former Unilever CEO Paul Polman. Expecting a discussion about technology, Maness was surprised when the group instead talked about environmental initiatives and supply…
With environmental summit COP26 in Glasgow now over, car manufacturer Volvo Cars U.K. (VCUK) has revealed the outcome of a climate conversation campaign “#ZeroOmissions.” It hosted an upfront conversation during the length of the event about what the automotive industry needs to do beyond the idea of making electric vehicles. Devised by Grey London, the…
As our economy moves toward more environmentally friendly ways of powering itself and our lives, electric vehicles are going to be critical for places without access to mass transit–which describes the vast majority of the U.S. Realizing how necessary that transition would be, Scott Mercer founded Volta Charging over a decade ago. The EV charging…
A wide variety of conversations have been sparked by world leaders’ negotiations at COP26 these past three weeks. Much attention has been given to brand leaders who deliberated over their corporate responses to the outcomes of the United Nations Climate Change meetings and agreements. There was also a great deal of lobbying by businesses designed…
America Recycles Day was established in 1997 by the National Recycling Coalition to encourage sorting used plastics, papers, aluminum and other materials into municipal recycling containers where available. And while the intention behind recycling is good–to keep more materials out of the landfill and give them a second life–the reality is much more complicated, according…
Edelman, the world’s largest public relations agency, will review its operations and client roster to align with a new sustainability strategy. The announcement comes after the conclusion of COP26, the United Nations summit on climate change in Glasgow. It also arrives on the heels of a campaign that targeted Edelman for its PR work on…
It’s not unusual for a company to pepper its regular customers with emails about promotions, new offerings and other tidbits of news. On notable occasions, shoppers will even get one of those heartfelt “A message from our founder” emails. The anxious early months of the pandemic saw quite a few of those, in fact. But…
To most people, it’s a cute and heartwarming tale of a boy and his friendship with a crash-landed alien who he introduces to Christmas traditions, before she blasts off back to her home planet. To read the anti-woke online sentiment, however, you’d think the John Lewis festive ad was a physical assault on viewers’ eyes….
Tea time can be a relaxing moment of respite for many, but the process can also be very time consuming or even wasteful, depended on which kind of tea one uses. Lifelong tea drinker Sashee Chandran first noticed the drawbacks of using tea bags while working in Silicon Valley, like the weakened quality of the…
An open letter has been signed by sustainability organizations and advertisers which aims to send a message to climate change summit COP26’s presidency and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as well as the world’s largest technology platforms including Facebook, TikTok and Twitter to tackle the spread of climate mis/disinformation. With an…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
