In 2019, I was searching online for companies like my own with a materials science bent. I stumbled across a colorful corporate site with opening images of rustling, bright red autumn leaves, fresh waterstrained strawberries, and a morning runner crossing a long-span bridge. I read on and learned their purpose – to purify, protect, and enhance. This organization must be doing a lot of good, I thought. They must have a direct hand in environmental protection and management. I was surprised to learn it belonged to the Ingevity Corporation, a US-based specialty chemicals manufacturer and a former division of WestRock.3

Being a curious sort, I asked myself what exactly was going on here? How could a chemical company market itself as a green company, and where were the photos of their plants and smokestacks? Either they were doing something very leading edge, or they had laid down a fresh, bright coat of greenwash. These questions – and the need to learn more about how sustainability and purpose intersect with marketing – turned into research and writing, which has formed this book.

In our sustainability-centric world, it is simply not enough to claim to recycle your paper at your head office. The stakes are too high. Customers, employees, investors, and the communities in which we live and work have become increasingly savvy and demanding. In this new context, you need to be able to tell and stand behind the story of your organization. To develop a compelling story, you must begin with discovering where you stand with the environment and sustainability. Once you have that figured out, your organization’s fundamental purpose and its big picture reason for existence will become crystal clear.

Over the course of this book, we’ll explore sustainability’s essentials, the trends it’s creating, and our new playing field. I’ll then introduce you to a simple model for determining your impacts, best practices for engaging others in this work, and finally, putting your purpose-driven marketing into action to grow sales, retain talent, and attract investment.

In this first section of four chapters, we’ll give you the background to expand your view of the issues and what’s possible for you as a business. The new imperative for purpose-driven marketing is being driven by converging social and technology trends that you can harness to start developing your story. Let’s begin with sustainability itself.

PROTECT YOUR LONG-TERM VIABILITY

Why have an organization’s sustainability profile and purpose become so crucial? And why are leaders rushing to reset their purpose? I believe it has as much to do with the risks around their long-term viability and relevance as anything else.

Of course, you can’t be sustainable unless you know what the word means, so let’s look at the definition. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, there are two.4 The first is “the quality of being able to continue over a period of time,” and the second is “the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time.” Both consider this dimension of continuity. The definition used in business circles is typically the second, with its reference to eradicating environmental harm. Few would attempt to argue against the importance of the environment in long-term success. However, let’s focus on the first definition and your organization’s long-term viability.

The first definition, the ability to continue over time, is of course a quality that is essential to a successful company. A McKinsey study of companies listed in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 revealed that the index’s average corporate listing was for less than 18 years.5 That compares to 61 years in 1958. The turn rate is increasing, and the question is: will your organization be viable in 20 years, let alone 60?

In June 2018, the iconic General Electric (GE) left the bluechip S&P Dow Jones Index. In August 2020, Salesforce, Amgen, and Honeywell all joined, replacing historic blue-chip companies Exxon-Mobil, Pfizer, and Raytheon Technologies.6 Prominent names have left the index, and none of its original companies remain. With business life expectancy shrinking, leaders have become very aware of the gathering forces that can disrupt their markets and demand for their offering. The opposite is true as well. With an increasing churn in businesses, you can develop and expand your influence across an industry ecosystem as the key players are always on an unstable footing. There is opportunity. It takes a great deal of work to remain viable over the long run.

And what are the core attributes of long-term performance? Again, to McKinsey. Their well-regarded Organizational Health Index (OHI) links organizational health and performance assessment to certain high-performance characteristics.7 These consists of nine elements, including leadership, innovation, external orientation, and capability. However, these characteristics can be rolled up into three essentials – the ability to set direction, the ability to execute plans against that direction, and continuous organizational renewal. Their work demonstrates that organizations ranked in the top quartile of the OHI are twice as likely to outperform their peers (based on the EBITDA/sales percentage’s financial measure8 ) than the bottom quartile of the OHI. The organizations likely to succeed over the long run experience negative disruption more sparingly, execute on their core strategies, and adapt and renew as change occurs.

So, if this is the path to long-term viability, can we use it as the primary definition for sustainability? What does this mean in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG), two terms we often use as a stand-in for sustainability?

From my perspective, this definition means that other factors related to an organization’s performance and attributes may supersede or carry equal weighting to ESG used in more conventional definitions of sustainability. Limiting ecological harm may be a prerequisite for sustainable operations in some cases; however, it encourages a much broader perspective than this.

I’m convinced that sustainability in this context and finding our purpose as organizations are linked; that the drivers for creating or challenging your organization’s purpose emanate from requirements, threats, and opportunities for long-term organizational health. And, if we consider the narrowing average lifespan of organizations due to the pace of disruption, you have greater urgency than ever to press on.

Thinking broadly and considering long-term viability as a central theme will help you work through this section and into the concept of impact and societal benefits in future chapters. So, let’s begin with a look at the factors involved in actually challenging your viability.

USE DISRUPTIVE FORCES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

The disruptive forces that transform society also act on your organization today. You should pay attention to these dynamics. Any one of these could be responsible for changing your business from beneath you.

It stands to reason that a thoughtful exercise to establish or reset your purpose and role in the world must consider what is happening in a broader global context. Understanding the macro trends and determining the resultant threats and possibilities they create can form part of your marketing advantage; however, you must be aware of the pressure points.

Each sector, industry, and organization has a unique set of disruptive forces acting on it at any one time. It would be impossible to present a full menu here. However, let’s do a quick tour of some of the trends across five key areas.

1. Information management: We have seen advances in the development and proliferation of high-speed computing, data processing, user-friendly graphics and devices, and less expensive, more reliable connectivity, transmission, and storage solutions. Connectivity developments have moved us to real-time and predictive analytics, where meaningful information and options are provided directly to decision makers. Innovative digital products, processes, and digital solutions often enhance or replace their traditional counterparts.

2. Industrial technology: With robotics, drones and automated operations, remote process and condition monitoring, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, we have improved production and service efficiency as well as worker safety. Technology has made renewable power, long-life batteries and fuel cells, lightweight and recycled materials, packaging, and 3-D printing available on a scale not previously seen. We have experienced the benefits of intelligent networks, high-speed infrastructure, and efficient land and air transportation systems.

3. Environmental management: Progress has been made in resource conservation, recycling and composting, waste elimination, and pollution controls. Our energy demands are increasingly being addressed by wind and solar renewables, biofuels, nuclear energy, electrification, hydrogen development, natural gas, and LNG. Carbon capture and transport, industrial and residential energy efficiency, and effective heating and cooling systems have also helped to reduce our impact. Developments in desalination, as well as water treatment, storage, and transport have supported increased supply and access to clean water.

4. Social development: Social outcomes have been improved by rapid urbanization, migration and mobility, medical treatments and designer pharmaceuticals, virtual health and diagnostics, and remote education. We have also moved aging populations, inclusion and diversity, freedom and human rights, data and privacy protections, and social media to the forefront of political conversations and policymaking. Our aspirations in this regard have influenced social norms and preferences, legislation and regulation, consumption patterns, and buying behaviors.

5. Economic development: Some of the trends in this area are higher degrees of competition, trade agreements and tariffs, fair trade, industry regulation, national and regional security, economic sanctions, living wages and standards, alternative currencies, taxation policy, and micro-financing. The expansion of the middle class, large-scale retail, e-commerce, and logistics developments have reshaped where and how business is done.

As you read through these descriptions, I expect that you recognized a few that have already impacted your organization and may even challenge its potential viability over the long run. Make a note of these. When we discuss the key issues in your industry and organization in Chapter 8, we will be working with them.

A final comment on macro trends as they relate to purpose. Your effort to establish or reset your purpose is a clear signal to stakeholders that you are serious about communicating your reason for operating and your contribution to society. If you are serious about sustainability, you should take the time to understand and address your disruptive forces.

ADOPT A BROAD SUSTAINABILITY FRAMEWORK

If we accept that sustainability equates to long-term viability and that disruptive forces are coming at us from all sides, it appears the best sustainability framework would be broad and comprehensive. It should be wide enough in scope to deal with both our ability to stay viable and to grow despite or because of these forces.

The selection of a narrow sustainability framework has the potential to bypass or minimize foundational areas. The result may be that, in pursuit of fewer goals and metrics, the organization fails to develop the capability to address others and increases its risk profile.

So, what should be considered in a broad sustainability framework? I believe there are five critical organizational elements. They are outlined below with a brief description of the general traits.

1. Vision, direction, and alignment: Develop and articulate a future state you want to achieve given the environment, as well as the essential strategies to achieve it. Provide guidance, align resources, and ensure people understand their role in helping to achieve the vision.

2. Position, value, and sentiment: Identify and deliver a proposition that meets current or future customer requirements. Create value, demand, and a customer experience to ensure loyalty to support expansion.

3. Resilience, adaptation, and renewal: Protect and manage the organization and its resources as well as risks from disruptive forces across economic and market cycles. Ensure agility when it comes to change and the capacity to reinvent business and organizational models.

4. Innovation, inventiveness, and improvement: Create and commercialize unique or enhanced solutions and business processes – a commitment to continuous improvement, efficiency, and waste elimination.

5. Management, accountability, and consequences: Set and monitor objectives and targets to ensure implementation of strategies. There should be clear mandates, responsibilities, and oversight mechanisms in place.

Selecting a model focused solely on narrow definitions of ESG, CSR, or specific elements based on your sector may be more attractive based on its simplicity and appeal to particular stakeholders interested in the content. However, it is possible to be a top performer in these areas and have a business with significant gaps and risks in some of the elements mentioned above.

ANCHOR PURPOSE IN YOUR REAL IMPACT

I believe that the starting point for discovering your purpose is with the products, services, and solutions that your organization provides to others. This can be expanded upon based on your business type and market. For example, a professional services firm’s starting point may be its unique advice, counsel, and the support it provides to clients.

Using your actual fulfillment areas as your starting point guarantees that the impact opportunities and societal benefits are credible, authentic, and will resonate with your stakeholders, which is an excellent foundation for your purpose.

Determining your purpose seems straightforward in practice, but it is complicated and near impossible without a roadmap. Don’t worry, however – I’ll be outlining a color-coded roadmap in later chapters.

As with other processes, you can imagine it going a few different ways. The first is lengthy and involves several parties. Consultants, surveys, interviews, analysis, summaries, presentations, and meetings are combined to figure it out. We have seen this play out before. The second is short with few parties involved. An individual or a small group runs an expedited process and decides. Once completed, they declare and communicate the purpose.

Either of these methods can produce good results. But, if you apply the techniques and best practices outlined in this book, you can make a good run at it on your own.

Let us move the concept of ‘how and who’ to the side for the time being and focus on its starting point. Where exactly should you start the process, whether it’s large or small? And what questions should you ask to arrive at the answer you are looking for?

What’s important to remember is that your purpose is driven by all sorts of factors: the opportunities your organization creates for employees, its value for customers and suppliers, and its contribution to the broader community. And, as you’ve seen, it’s essential to be aware of the disruptive forces and to have an overall sustainability plan in place. The best place to start, however, is with your own products and services.

Let’s return to Ingevity. You can see how they’ve used their products and services as the foundation for their purpose. The first part of their purpose is to ‘purify.’ They have an activated carbon product line used in automotive, water treatment, and natural gas applications to help air purification.9 Their line of Nuchar® activated carbon is attached to fuel tanks to capture hydrocarbon emissions over the vehicle’s life. They have been used in more than one billion canisters since 1975 and they have helped recover more than 10,000 metric tons of fuel each day, preventing harmful emissions from escaping into the environment. Over the course of a year, their products result in the recovery of more than 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline per year.

Now, let’s imagine you are interviewing for a job with Ingevity’s operations. You aren’t familiar with its products and services and you ask two different hiring managers what exactly the business does. The first says: “We manufacture carbon products.” The second says: “We purify the environment. Our carbon products reduce gas vapor release in vehicles. Each year we recover the equivalent of about three billion gallons of gas.”

Each response is accurate, but each one elicits a different response. One tells you what they do, and one tells you why they do it, using the product’s impact and purpose. So, we can see that if you have a purpose based on your actual product and services, it changes how you talk about your organization and its overall effect on people. As a leader, you be should be aiming to capture this in one or two lines. This is purpose-driven marketing.

The appeal of your purpose extends beyond job seekers. All stakeholders want and need to be associated with organizations with a substantial impact and a clear purpose. But before we define this, we need to take a step back. Resetting your purpose requires an understanding of the trends and disruptive forces acting on your organization. The following chapter will examine the global environmental situation and how it can shape our view