What a Sustainable Branding Agency Actually Does
The work starts with an audit of what a brand can show. Two studies explain why buyers' green intentions fall short and what makes an environmental claim believable.
Answer to the question
What does a sustainable branding agency do?
A sustainable branding agency builds a brand's identity and messaging around claims the client can evidence. It audits what is documented, writes specific wording, uses independent verification where it exists, and plans for the gap between what buyers intend and what they buy.
Key takeaways
- Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink argued in Your Money's Worth that buyers cannot check technical claims alone and need independent testing, which is the logic behind verifying a brand's environmental statements.
- Louise Hassan, Edward Shiu and Deirdre Shaw reported in 2016 that few ethical consumption studies measure both intention and behaviour, and their clothing case study found a large gap between the two.
- In a 2014 experiment with 233 participants, Lucy Atkinson and Sonny Rosenthal found that specific arguments built more trust in an eco-label's source than general ones.
- In the same experiment the source of the label, government or company, mattered only for low-involvement products.
- The agency's usual first step is a register that sorts every statement into documented, under way or only an aim.
A sustainable branding agency does the work any branding agency does, naming, identity, messaging and packaging, with one added discipline: each environmental or social statement the brand makes has to trace back to evidence. Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink argued in Your Money's Worth that a buyer cannot check technical claims alone, and that the remedy is independent testing. The agency works in the space between what a company can show and what it would like to say.
What a sustainable branding agency audits first
The first task is an audit, not a logo. The agency asks for the facts behind every statement the client might want to make, covering materials, sourcing, energy, packaging and supplier practice, and for the name of whoever has checked each one. The answers sort into three groups: documented, under way, and only an aim. Documented items can be stated in the present tense. Items under way can be described as work in progress. Aims can be stated as aims, with a date, or left out. The sustainable branding agency then turns the sorted list into a claims register that every later asset, from packaging to a web page, draws on.
Chase and Schlink gave the reason this comes first. In their account, the more technical the facts behind a product, the easier it is for a seller to describe its merits in ways a buyer cannot test. Environmental facts are technical in that sense. A shopper cannot see the sourcing of a fibre or the energy behind a carton. The authors treated the buyer's difficulty as a gap in technical knowledge, not in intelligence, which is why they proposed a laboratory instead of a lecture.
The brand-side counterpart of the independent laboratory they called for is third-party verification, where a recognised scheme exists for the claim in question.
With the register in place, the creative work proceeds as it would anywhere. Naming is tested against the evidence, so a name that suggests purity or neutrality is adopted only if the register supports what it implies. Identity and packaging carry the documented claims in the plainest form that fits. Messaging is written line by line from the register, and a new line goes back to the register before it goes to print. When a supplier or process changes, the register changes first and the copy follows.
What research says about green buying
Buyers who say they care about ethical sourcing do not always buy accordingly. The gap is documented. A 2016 paper in the Journal of Business Ethics, by Louise Hassan, Edward Shiu and Deirdre Shaw, reviewed studies of ethical consumption built on the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour, and found that few of them measured both intention and behaviour, which limits how precisely the gap can be sized. Their own case study, on ethical clothing buying, found a large gap between what people intended and what they did. The authors called for longitudinal studies that follow intention into behaviour over time.
For a sustainable branding agency, the finding changes what a brief can assume. Stated concern in a survey is a starting point to test against actual purchases, not a forecast of sales. A sensible plan puts the better option where the choice is made, keeps its price and format plain, and lets the claim sit beside the product instead of replacing it. Choices made in front of other people are a separate case, covered in Going Green Where Someone Can See You.
Eco-labels carry much of the weight, because shoppers cannot check green claims for themselves. In a 2014 experiment, 233 participants saw labels that varied in three ways, in work by Lucy Atkinson and Sonny Rosenthal published in the Journal of Advertising: whether the label's argument was specific or general, whether the label came from a government or a company, and whether the product was low or high involvement. Specific arguments consistently built more trust in the label's source. The source mattered only for low-involvement products, where company labels produced more positive attitudes.
The practical reading concerns wording. A specific statement gives a buyer something to weigh, while a general one gives nothing to weigh. Who stands behind a label, it appears, matters differently for everyday purchases than for considered ones. A sustainable branding agency therefore writes the specific version of each claim, names what stands behind it and treats the label's source as a choice to make product by product. How colour and pack cues shape a first impression is a separate matter, taken up in Does Green Packaging Look Healthier.
Questions to put to any agency
A brief for a sustainable branding agency can be reduced to a handful of questions, which also make a fair test of any sustainable branding agency's process.
- Which of our statements can be traced to a document, and who checked it?
- Which are aims, and how will they be worded as aims?
- Is there a recognised independent scheme for this claim, and should we use it?
- What does our own purchase data show, as against what customers say they intend?
- Is each statement specific enough for a buyer to weigh?
What the agency cannot change
A sustainable branding agency can reword, redesign and restructure how a brand speaks. It cannot change how a product is made. If the audit finds little that is documented, the honest output is a smaller claim, a plan to earn a larger one and an identity that does not promise more than the evidence supports.
A smaller claim that is documented also shows the client which supplier or process would need to change to earn the next one. That is slower than a campaign, and it leaves the brand with statements it can repeat for years. Once the claims are sound, whether a stated purpose moves buyers is a separate matter, covered in Does Brand Purpose Move Buyers.
Many engagements close by handing the finished claims file to the client's own team, which keeps the checking going after the project ends. The file records who verified each statement, when it was last reviewed and which assets use it, so a new hire or a new agency can pick it up without starting the audit again. A brand that keeps the file current can answer a buyer's question about any claim in minutes.
Common questions
What does a sustainable branding agency do?
It builds a brand's identity and messaging around claims the client can evidence. The work starts with an audit of what is documented, moves to specific wording and independent verification where it exists, and plans for the gap between what buyers intend and what they buy.
Why do green intentions not turn into purchases?
Research on ethical consumption finds a gap. A 2016 paper reported that few studies measure both intention and behaviour, and its case study on ethical clothing buying found a large gap between the two. The authors called for longitudinal research.
Does an eco-label make buyers trust a claim?
In a 2014 experiment with 233 participants, specific arguments built more trust in the label's source than general ones. The source of the label, government or company, mattered only for low-involvement products.
How much does a sustainable branding agency cost?
Fees depend on scope: the number of products, the depth of the evidence audit and how much independent verification is involved. A good agency states those drivers before it states a figure.
Sources
Chase, S., & Schlink, F. J. Your Money's Worth. Seed book; vault hub Books/Your Money's Worth.
Hassan, L. M., Shiu, E., & Shaw, D. (2016). “Who Says There is an Intention–Behaviour Gap? Assessing the Empirical Evidence of an Intention–Behaviour Gap in Ethical Consumption.” Journal of Business Ethics, 136(2). doi:10.1007/s10551-014-2440-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2440-0
Atkinson, L., & Rosenthal, S. (2014). “Signaling the Green Sell: The Influence of Eco-Label Source, Argument Specificity, and Product Involvement on Consumer Trust.” Journal of Advertising, 43(1). doi:10.1080/00913367.2013.834803 https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2013.834803