Why sustainable marketing?
Climate change is real. Companies must react and act proactively. Consumer fears and expectations as well as EU directives, such as increased transparency requirements, the growing demand for ESG reporting and the need to integrate sustainability into the entire marketing supply chain, are increasing the pressure to fulfil this responsibility. Because: sustainability is one of the issues of the century that we need to solve now.
Many companies are already highly active in making their production chains, distribution channels, and processes more sustainable and reducing their CO₂ emissions.
What often still lacks: The effective communication of these measures.
In addition to successfully communicating sustainability efforts, marketing itself can be made sustainable.
This includes sustainable production of marketing assets, CO₂-reduced media deployment, and sustainable digital solutions.
Through sustainable marketing, you can not only credibly convey your eco-social messages but also systematically reduce the ecological footprint of your marketing and thus contribute to transparency and reporting obligations.
*Customer survey sustainabil Media 2023, Facit Digital I **Study THE GREEN NETWORK and Biesalski & Companie I ***Customer survey sustainabil Media, Mediaplus
From strategy to implementation - our range of services is fully integrated.
#THEGOODLINE bundles the Serviceplan Group's offer to holistically integrate sustainability into the marketing mix. Customised to individual needs, it can be applied in a modular fashion along the entire sustainability journey of any company. The offer includes all of our products and services in the areas of strategy, communication, production, media and digital solutions.
Together we will find out which building blocks are right for you or how we can develop a systemic solution across all areas.
The first step in the sustainable transformation of your marketing. How do you want to be perceived by customers and partners? Which legal requirements and regulations will need to be considered in the future? These and other central questions will be clarified in this phase together.
We analyze your current situation and define the goals that you want and need to achieve.
Anchoring sustainability firmly at the core of your brand while keeping the marketing supply chain clean is one of the greatest challenges for companies. How do you develop a strategy that meets both your needs and the legal framework?
We support you in developing an appropriate sustainability strategy and value proposition and implementing it together with you.
A brand that reduces CO2 emissions is not only environmentally friendly but also increases its attractiveness to customers and talent.
We help you align your productions and marketing activities from the outset to reduce emissions while keeping all eco-social aspects in view.
The resulting messages convey this to your target audience and bind them to your brand in the long term – an important step towards sustainable marketing.
Targeting sustainable and emission-minimized media at your audience is one of the most effective levers. Our expertise lies in minimizing CO2 emissions across all channels while simultaneously increasing efficiency.
We help you reach your audience efficiently and with low emissions, as marketing still accounts for about 3.5% of global annual emissions.
The path so far has been right and important. One of the key questions in this phase is: How can you manage to operate resource-efficiently and sustainably in the long term?
The key lies in an organizational culture that involves all employees, even redesigning the technical infrastructure available in your company to be more emission-efficient with our support, and maintaining the achievements sustainably.
Let's have a chat:
We are Top 5!
We are proud that our integrated offering ‘The Good Line’ of responsible solutions was included in Ad Age Best Of 2024 as one of the top 5 agency projects for sustainability in 2024.
Our work shows the impact we can create together with you. With Jack Wolfskin, for example, we developed a customised communication plan that aligns the company's sustainability values with customer expectations.
Our Sustainability Insights: #THEGOODLINE
How does a brand become sustainable? Our CSO Stefanie Kuhnhen knows exactly which steps are important, how to integrate sustainable values into the brand essence and how to communicate them. The great thing is that there are already many ways to take action.
Data is essential in order to derive conclusive recommendations for action - especially in terms of sustainability. Our colleague Sandra Nötzel from Plan.Net Group explains the impact of holistic data sets and how they support fleet managers in successful electrification with Chargylize, for example.
Fewer emissions through maximum efficiency - sounds too good to be true. But it is possible with sustainable end-to-end production. In our video, our colleague Alexander Nagel from Serviceplan Make shows how the holistic production process not only creates a consistent and credible brand experience, but can also prevent the suspicion of greenwashing.
Is sustainability unsexy? We don't think so - quite the opposite: everything is on the move and it's not just the Supply Chain Act that requires action. One crucial point is communication with customers, media companies and all market players, explain Agnes Ley and Florian Ecker from Mediaplus.
‘Whether it's about telling memorable, legally secure sustainability stories or avoiding the core KPI CO2, we offer customised and integrated solutions - just as you need them.’
Chief Strategy Officer and initiator TheGoodLine
Serviceplan
Our Partners
OCELL is an innovative ClimateTech start-up from Munich that is revolutionising forestry with digital technology and advanced AI. With climate-resilient forest management plans and over 700,000 hectares under contract, OCELL is the market leader in forest software and focuses on regional climate protection projects in Europe.
Butterfly Effect Consulting is a leader in sustainable transformation, combines profitability with sustainability and develops future-orientated business models. The company supports the implementation of regulations such as LkSG and CSRD and integrates sustainability data into corporate strategies. With its extensive experience and global network, it sets new standards in sustainable corporate management.
osapiens develops innovative software-as-a-service solutions that help companies to implement ESG requirements automatically and securely. The AI-based osapiens HUB ensures compliance and transparency along the value chain. Companies use it to master ESG challenges, fulfil reporting obligations such as CSRD, EUDR and LkSG and make their processes more sustainable.
Further information can be found in our FAQs
Any other questions?
The principles of sustainable marketing are eco-social and based on two pillars: the narratives for products and services, and the eco-social implementation of these narratives. What stories do brands tell? How do they sell their products? What do consumers experience at every touchpoint? Based on the answers to these questions, the narratives are transformed using a holistic sustainability strategy. These new marketing narratives help to shape our society sustainably. The holistic consideration and implementation of the sustainability strategy within the company positively impacts the entire supply chain.
Together, based on your current status and requirements, we define the steps for sustainability marketing:
- Rethink – Developing an eco-social marketing strategy
- Change – Transforming your narratives for legally secure and captivating communication internally and externally
- Make – Eco-social production of all marketing activities and assets
- Launch – Using sustainable media for your brand, products, and services
- Sustain – Long-term eco-social transformation and leadership of your company and all platforms
Sustainable marketing has the power to change our society. Therefore, it is crucial for all companies, especially:
All companies with large marketing budgets. Large publicly listed companies with more than 500 employees, subject to CSRD requirements from 2024. Large companies with more than 250 employees on average annually or €50 million in turnover/€25 million in total assets, subject to CSRD requirements from 2025.
Use your budgets to support the necessary societal change and data-driven reduction of the core KPI, CO2.
Greenwashing: When companies engage in greenwashing, they portray themselves as environmentally friendly without actually being green. This can involve false claims, obscuring facts, lack of relevance in communicated topics, absence of proof points, unclear statements, unsubstantiated claims, or the use of unrecognized labels.
Greenhushing: Greenhushing refers to companies implementing environmental protection measures but failing to effectively communicate these actions and disclose them openly to customers and stakeholders.
Eco-Friendly Marketing: Eco-Friendly Marketing is a holistic approach that places ecological responsibility at the heart of marketing strategy while positively influencing consumer awareness and behavior. Key features and goals of Eco-Friendly Marketing include environmentally friendly products and services, sustainable production processes, transparent communication, packaging, and distribution, as well as education.
Sustainable Branding: Sustainable Branding describes a brand that defines sustainability as a core value and has integrated it comprehensively into the company.
By communicating transparently, honestly, and specifically. Or more specifically: By ensuring that companies are specific, verifiable, accurate, and understandable in all their messages, and by successfully engaging people with fascinating brand stories.
Companies can strengthen awareness for sustainability while pursuing their commercial goals by gaining the trust of customers. A fundamental requirement is that the public perceives the company as a fair brand. How can this be achieved? Best through communication on equal terms that aims not to educate but to touch. With engagement formats, brands can inspire their customers towards an environmentally conscious lifestyle while strategically placing their own sustainable product developments and innovations in public discourse.
Sustainable marketing helps communicate and promote a company's CSR initiatives. CSR forms the foundation for authentic and credible sustainability marketing. To remain future-proof and meet the requirements of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), companies must prioritize sustainability in their organizational development. Traditional CSR as it has been understood until now is no longer sufficient for this purpose.
Sustainable marketing supports sustainability goals within the framework of the CSRD. It also helps promote a regenerative business model that is profitable in the medium and long term.
You can measure success on the communication front by enhancing eco-social image elements, thereby establishing your brand as uniquely positioned in this domain. On the marketing supply chain side, you can achieve data-driven reductions in the core KPI CO2.
Due to credibility concerns and upcoming regulations such as the Green Claims Directive from 2026 and the Unfair Competition Act (UWG) in Germany, communications must now avoid making false claims. Despite this, more than 50% of sustainability-themed campaigns currently engage in such practices. Thus, the primary challenge in implementing sustainable marketing strategies is to critically evaluate marketing practices for honesty and transparency, and to develop genuine proof points accordingly.
