Building a world that’s truly sustainable--in both human and environmental terms--is an urgent challenge for us all.
Some organizations pursue this goal through the private sector; they produce products and services using sustainable materials and methods, and they treat employees humanely and with dignity. Other organizations pursue this goal in the non-profit sector, providing direct services or working to change public policy. Still other organizations operate as hybrids of for-profit and non-profit models.
All such organizations, whether for-profit or non-proft, strive to hone their strategies and communicate the benefits of sustainability to a sometimes-skeptical public. For-profits face the challenge of communicating a dual message to their customers: Whether the product is ice cream, carpet, CFL’s, cleaning products or something else, they must show that their products are superior in performance and value. Companies with sustainable products must counter the common perception that if a product is “green” that means it costs more and doesn’t work as well. At the same time these companies must show that they operate according to triple-bottom-line principles. These stories are difficult to combine and convey, since they are of a fundamentally different nature.
Another critical challenge facing for-profits is to expand the market for sustainable products and services: they know that selling a super-premium product to a tiny niche market is not sufficient to change the planet.
Non-profits face equal challenges of strategy and communication. They must strive to reach past the progressive and environmentalist base and explain sustainability in terms that resonate with across all demographic groups and in all parts of the country. The communications challenge is perhaps greatest with white, working class Americans. Although such Americans need a more fair and just economy as much as any group in our society, many mistrust deeply the groups that champion such reforms.
These special challenges require something other than the usual solutions. Neither the conventional non-profit framing and communications strategies nor the conventional for-profit marketing and promotion tools are adequate to the task. We need a fusion, a synthesis of the most powerful techniques of both realms.