1st January, 2021
Recently, I've been experimenting with the idea of Eco-consciousness being like this big, global, aspirational brand in the ranks of Apple and Nike. From 2013 to 2018, this brand experienced a 29% revenue growth, 2.3% increase in market share and a significant increase in brand awareness. Nielsen projects that by 2021, Eco could dominate up to 25% of the entire consumer market — for perspective, that's less than 3% short of what Nike has in the athletic footwear department.
It's no shock how virtually every company, regardless of their history, is now fighting to get a share of the Eco momentum. From co-branded product lines to collaborative marketing campaigns, Eco is omnipresent and culturally inescapable. Yet, I've also come to wonder if this is the best brand strategy for sustainability.
Sustainability has long been defined by deep greens and shades of beige-brown. A google search on "sustainable products" returns a sea of earthy wooden sameness. Grounded in minimalist philosophies and the material realities of eco-friendly products, the aesthetic is meant to be an antidote to the overly-branded consumer market. But with minimalism itself becoming a form of commodified luxury and consumer brands releasing "earth-friendly" alternatives in their full beige and green glory, this palette has stretched far beyond its humble material origins — it has become the visual identity of Eco itself.
In that vein, every time a company decides to release a green product line or launch a marketing campaign in the olive green leafy aesthetic, they are co-opting a story of sustainable living that's already woven into our cultural fabric. The Eco brand thus gets strengthened, and all of the visual and verbal heuristics associated with Eco are further pinned into our heads.
With direct visual association to trees and the earth, the Eco aesthetic is meant to connote nature. When you pick up a beige shampoo bottle with a leaf plastered on it, you're wired to feel like you're holding a piece of the earth — even if it is just as plastic as its neon yellow neighbour. From the lens of self-congruity theory, opting for the eco-branded product is an opportunity for proclaimed environmentalists and naturalists to manifest their self-concepts and express themselves as "better, more responsible humans". In that sense, Eco's brand heuristics work on conscious consumers very much the same way Apple's aspirational branding works on the devout iOS fan.
Eco has also become akin to a luxury brand in the sense that many have an aspiration towards it, yet do not feel motivated or positioned to pursue it on a daily basis. Occasionally, one might decide to "go green" and have a vegan dinner, but for most people, plant-based eating is an unfulfilled aspiration. Despite rising environmental awareness and positive attitudes towards sustainable companies, eco-"alternatives" often come as a feel-good "bonus" rather than an imperative norm. It's like sustainability is something you can choose to put on and take off.
At first, Eco being like a widely displayed and desired brand might sound like every earth devotee's dream. But there is one important distinction between aspirational consumer brands and Eco — the former never aims to be all things to all people, while the latter can't afford not to be.
Adidas doesn't care if you wear Adidas to the office, as long as they dominate your active life. Gucci doesn't care about where you eat, as long as you take your Double G purse with you. Meanwhile, we need sustainability to be integrated into every part of our culture — we need it to be "all things". Even the most pleasant and uncontroversial brand would encounter a fatigued audience if its messaging is pushed at that scale. Hardcore eco-spenders might remain receptive to the 100th green-leaves-on-a-beige-background “Go Green” campaign, but for most of the world's population, there is a limited mental space reserved for the Eco. In a way, by assuming an identifiable and iconic brand image, Eco is constantly put in competition with other consumer aspirations.
Strong brand identities can also alienate customers as much as they unite them. For luxury brands, this is not a problem — so what if a Chanel perfume commercial fails to resonate with the rural housewife? The fact that she could not imagine herself wearing it is exactly what makes the perfume expensive. Even for a brand as loved and omnipresent as Apple, its near-mythical secrecy and sleek modernity can feel overly pretentious to some. Not that Apple should care — after all, perceived exclusivity is part of what makes their aspirational brand strong. Yet in the case of Eco, this exclusivity turns the brand purpose on its head.
When big, omnipresent brands like Nike and Starbucks run into the danger of brand fatigue and growth stagnation, one of their strategies is to debrand. In 1995, Nike removed their name from their logo and kicked off another decade of monstrous growth. Localisation, one of Starbucks' most critical expansion strategies, is also in essence an act of removing the company from the product. By making their brand presence more subtle, these corporations widened their appeal and made more room for consumer-brand identification. You don't have to become a "Starbucks lover" as defined by the corporation — Starbucks is a part of whatever identity you carry, as defined by you.
While the Eco brand doesn't have an HQ office the same way Nike and Starbucks do, an effort to debrand might be just as powerful. And by that, I mean consciously detaching the principle of sustainability from the colour green, the recycling icon, the beige and brown earthiness, and the way-overused leaf graphic that seemingly never fails to make any product look just a bit greener.
Paper boxes and wooden spoons aside, there is no good reason for eco-friendly products and campaigns to look like they all follow the same brand guideline. Green and beige might look more like nature, but bright flashy red could also evoke relentless love for nature. Clean minimalism might be philosophically aligned with sustainability, but there's also nothing inherently unsustainable about chaos — in fact, the Earth is largely chaotic outside of the West's colonial imagination of a pristine nature. Rather than constantly perpetuating a separate, aspirational identity of what sustainability should look like, perhaps it's better to focus on exploring what sustainability can be within every aesthetic, personality and culture. Maybe, it's time to debrand the Eco Lifestyle, and work on empowering everybody to live a sustainably in their own terms. The future of sustainability is not green, but filled with every colour in the human imagination.
In many ways, this era of debranding is already happening. Alternative protein brands like Impossible Foods consciously craft their environmental messaging to be sans leaves or greenscapes. From the chunky, neon sneakers by Trash Planet to Elvis and Kresse's red firehose bags, there is also an immense amount of creativity in the world's many sustainable small businesses. Yet when most people think of eco living, they still think of paper boxes, green lettering, pristine mason jars, minimalist hemp totes.
More thoughts next week — on how this relates to greenwashing.
