A group of 70 businesses raised over £50m for charities and good causes in the UK through corporate cause related marketing programmes in 2002, according to Business in the Community’s 2002 Tracker. Up £17m on the previous year, the research shows a strong growth in initiatives supporting health charities, which represent half the overall total. The £50m figure includes over £25m of funds leveraged through staff, customer and supplier fundraising. Companies also made gifts in kind, from £3m of airtime dedicated to charities and good causes on Classic FM radio station, to Ford Motor Company donating a car and Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s raffle prize draw. Employees donated over 65,000 hours, or £13m worth of staff time. The largest single initiative was Tesco’sRace for life, which raised £17m for Cancer Research. BITC launched the results of its Cause Related Marketing Tracker on September 23. Contact Laura Small, BITC, on 020 7566 8796 (http://www.bitc.org.uk)
Cods walloped
Unilever’s attempts to become more ocean-friendly are being hampered by consumer taste for threatened species such as cod and haddock, according to the company’s recent Sustainability report for 2002/03. British consumers, unfamiliar with sustainably sourced hoki and other species, prefer the old favourites. In addition, the process of certifying fish stocks as sustainable, overseen by the independent Marine Stewardship Council, has taken longer than expected. Contact Mike Haines, Unilever, on 020 7822 6805 (http://www.unilever.com)
The good life
Four-fifths of UK consumers prefer to purchase goods and services from companies that are socially and environmentally responsible, according to the Social Market Foundation. Research by SMF – which examines the role of consumers in driving CSR in the recent paper, Race to the Top – finds that over a fifth of people would choose the ethical option, even if it was more expensive. Only one in fifty shoppers, however, say they have enough information to judge the ethical position of companies.
The findings back up recent figures from MORI, which reveal that nearly half (47%) of the UK population believe companies do not respond to public concerns on social and environmental issues – despite the fact that more than eight in ten say a company’s social responsibility is important when making their purchasing decisions. Contact Beth Breeze, SMF, on 020 7227 4409 (http://www.smf.co.uk); Nicky Louth-Davies, MORI, on 020 7347 3127 (http://www.mori.com)
Filling the void
Policies for sustainable consumption, a new report from the Sustainable Development Commission argues that current increases in consumerism do not result in a concomitant rise in standards of life satisfaction. The report, published on September 17, also says current levels of consumption cannot be maintained and will lead to greater inequality, environmental damage and debt.
Feeding into this emerging public policy debate is the Fabian Society’s paper, A Better Choice, which pushes the government to focus on quality of life and sustainability, not economic growth and consumption. Published on August 18, the report rests on the premise that improving the quality of people’s lives does not automatically mean increasing their consumption. Contact Tim Jackson, Sustainable Development Commission, on 020 7944 4964 (http://www.sd-commission.gov.uk); Roger Levett, Fabian Society, on 0117 973 2418 (http://www.fabian-society.org.uk)
Tell it like it is
Changing Patterns: UK Government Framework for Sustainable Consumption and Production marks the government’s starting point for a long-term programme to deliver commitments made at last year’s World Summit on Sustainable Development. It was launched on September 25. Key proposals include considering the whole life-cycle of a product, from design to disposal, to help reduce its effect on the environment; and enabling consumers to receive more information on products and services.
Meanwhile, the Advisory Committee on Consumer Products and the Environment, a government watchdog, says in its latest report that government should develop a set of graded labels for homes, cars and domestic equipment that would rank brands according to their environmental profile. The report, entitled Towards Sustainable Products: a Contribution to the UK Government Strategy on Sustainable Consumption and Production, was published on September 11. Currently a company only has a legal requirement to perform an environmental impact assessment when planning construction of new physical infrastructure, but not for the products it sells. Contact ACCPE Secretariat, Defra, on 020 7082 865 (http://www.defra.gov.uk)
Winter of discontent
Mobile phone operators are pre-empting a backlash from regulators and child protection groups over the increase of pornography on mobile phones with a draft industry code of practice. Published in early August, the code stipulates that mobile operators must provide access control tools on mobiles to prevent unauthorised users from viewing adult or other unsuitable material. Users who wish to have unrestricted access to the internet from their mobile phones will have to prove that they are over eighteen. They will also provide ratings on content services they offer themselves. Child protection groups want operators to give an ’18’ rating to online chat rooms. Contact Contact Richard Poston, MM02, on 01753 628039 (http://www.mm02.com)
Giving with one hand
The National Consumer Council has warned students to avoid being seduced into applying for a credit card because of gimmicks such as free cameras and book tokens. APACS, the credit card industry’s representative body, says it is developing information that will go on promotional leaflets highlighting the features of different credit cards. This will enable people to compare interest rates, charges and restrictions, as well as any special features such as free gifts. Contact Siobhan Wilson, NCC, on 020 7881 3057 (http://www.ncc.org.uk)
in brief
The Ethical Marketing Group recently released the second edition of its Good Shopping Guide. The 290-page book carries ethical ratings across 60 household products and services, examining them according to issues such as animal testing and workers’ rights. Contact Kat Alexander, TGSG, on 020 7229 2115 (http://www.thegoodshoppingguide.co.uk)
Editorial Comment
The latest information on cause-related marketing from BITC not only shows continuing strong growth; it also reveals the genre is moving on from the days of ‘tuppence to charity if you buy this product’. It is tackling a bigger range of issues and in more innovative ways with more in-kind contributions and by involving staff and customers more.
However the sums reported here are still small beer, whether compared to the total monetary amounts of corporate community contributions or in relation to the size of the actual social issues they are trying to address. One reason why CRM has not taken off big time is that marketing managers are too canny to take at face value these surveys – which people keep commissioning and we keep reporting – purportedly showing consumers will overwhelmingly switch to the ethical brand. They may say that, but they don’t do it.
Consumer resistance to doing the right thing is dramatically demonstrated by Unilever UK’s admission that it can’t meet its fish sustainability target through market mechanisms alone. Right on cue comes a clutch of government or government-inspired studies about sustainable production and consumption (beware a new acronym to add to your CSR lexicon – SPC). In Briefing, we’ve previously argued that NGOs really shouldn’t keep beating up on companies alone, without recognising that consumers are the real driving force.
Now a more sophisticated approach is emerging from these government studies, with practical ideas for all parties to address so-called market failures: things like better information for consumers through trustworthy labelling, using the tax system to include ‘external’ costs and create a level playing field, and stronger signals from government about increasingly tight environmental regulation so encouraging capital markets to invest in new products and new companies.
The government’s SPC framework is well worth a read, but readers of Briefing will be disappointed that it is still so focused on environmental issues, albeit dressed up in the language of sustainability. There’s little discussion of the impact that poverty has, for example, even in the affluent west, in driving unsustainable patterns of consumption. The language may be of triple bottom line, but they are still separate lines, with little thought to the role of business in creating the wealth that can fund social and environmental action.
The ultimate bottom line is clear, however: increased eco-efficiency is simply running to stand still – allowing us in the west to consume more without doing increased damage. Without fundamental changes in consumption patterns, we won’t actually reverse the damage, still less allow the rest of the world to catch up. The ultimate cause-related marketing challenge? Persuading us to buy less.
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