Sustainable Marketing and Growth Strategy

Sustainability

Our Global Sustainable Transformation Practice helps brands embed sustainability and inclusion into marketing strategies to drive growth, strengthen consumer trust, and deliver measurable brand impact. In 2024, we partnered with 965+ organizations worldwide, guiding them through sustainability transformation that resonates with consumers and accelerates business performance.

Our Four Pillars of Sustainable Transformation

Strategic Sustainability Framing

Position sustainability opportunities at corporate, portfolio, and brand level to create competitive advantage and align with consumer expectations.

Sustainable Marketing Activation

Build meaningful storytelling and campaigns that connect sustainability with brand purpose and consumer engagement.

Impact Measurement

Develop metrics and frameworks to track progress and demonstrate brand impact and value-led implementation.

Circularity and Sustainable Innovation

Support strategies that embrace circularity, reduce waste, and create long-term value for both brands and society.

86%

of consumers say we need urgent action to address climate change.

65%

of consumers say it’s business's responsibility to solve climate and environmental issues.

90%

of marketers say sustainability agendas should be more ambitious.

94%

of marketers believe it's part of their job to push sustainability.

How we’ve helped our clients

BrandSustainability

BrandSustainability

BrandSustainability provides a clear understanding of brands' sustainability credentials and how efforts in this space contribute to brand building. And it identifies where to focus to leverage sustainable marketing as a powerful contributor to brand equity. This unique, industry-first solution provides the necessary guidance on the often-missed critical step of Brand strategy and positioning on sustainability; filling the insight gap between the understanding of the changing landscape and brands’ activations.

BrandSustainability helps you take sustainable marketing to the next level by answering these key questions:

  • How is your brand truly perceived on sustainability?
  • Is your brand at riskmitigate?
  • Does your brand leverage sustainability perceptions to boost its equity
  • How can you tell your sustainability story in a way that contributes to your equity?
  • What is your most efficient route to market to make gains and avoid loses?
  • What are the best routes and opportunities to sustainable innovation for your brands vs. competitors?

Key Features

Measure brand sustainability perceptions

Measurement is the starting point of taking better decisions for the brands and, in this incredibly important space, current methods are insufficient, not to say misleading. We measure your brand and competitors Sustainability Score to equip you with the most accurate KPI for a brand on sustainability – it is a validated measure against levels of rejection and adoption a brand faces.

Leverage Kantar’s Meaningful Different Salient Framework

By integrating Kantar’s Meaningfully Different and Salient framework, BrandSustainability assess the impact of your brand perceptions on sustainability on brand equity.

Find your path to brand building and growth through sustainability

Optimize brand sustainability strategy: positioning, go-to market approach, and innovation opportunities to resonate more deeply with consumers whilst building your equity.

Brand Inclusion Index

Brand Inclusion Index

Brand Inclusion Index focuses on people’s perception of a brand’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), giving a voice to people who tend to be excluded by brands. This solution also comprises a ranking of inclusive brands, as well as a diagnostic tool for category-level insights, crucial for inclusion marketing.

Key Features

Learn from brands leading on inclusion

Understanding expectations for diversity, equity, and inclusion is key to effective inclusive marketing. The Brand Inclusion Index helps brands assess their DEI perception, offering essential insights for brand inclusion strategies.

Closing inclusion gaps

The Index identifies populations your brand needs to focus on, highlighting areas for improvement and strengths to celebrate. This helps close inclusion gaps and enhances inclusive marketing efforts.

Insights for brand inclusion

Utilise insights from the Brand Inclusion Index to craft campaigns that resonate with diverse audiences, improving brand perception and fostering an inclusive environment.

Sustainability Sector Index

Sustainability Sector Index

antar’s Sustainability Sector Index offers invaluable insights on sustainability, derived from 32,000 interviews across 42 sectors in 33 countries. This data helps you understand what sustainability means for your sector, how consumers perceive your brand, and how to build trust and leadership in this crucial area.

Key Features

Develop a sustainability strategy

Shape your marketing guiding principles around sustainability. The Sustainability Sector Index enables you to prioritise key topics, ensuring your brand focuses on what matters most to consumers and the planet.

Become a sustainability leader

Identify and leverage the factors that will have the most significant impact. By understanding consumer perceptions and expectations, your brand can position itself as a sustainability leader, driving meaningful change and building lasting trust.

Sharpen your activations

Utilise detailed insights on sustainability issues to enhance your brand strategy. The Sustainability Sector Index provides a clear roadmap to sharpen your activations to maximise engagement in terms of messaging, tone and targeting.

NeedScope for Purpose

NeedScope for Purpose

Powerful purpose aligns with emotion. With NeedScope we help you integrate purpose seamlessly into your brand in a relevant and irresistible way. Purpose isn’t an afterthought. It should align with your brand cohesively — from its functionality to its emotive core.

Key Features

Identify purpose opportunities

Identify the best purpose opportunities to build your brand’s positioning. NeedScope helps you pinpoint the most impactful areas to focus on, ensuring your brand purpose aligns with consumer expectations.

Sharpen brand purpose activities

Sharpen your brand’s purpose activities to be consistent with your brand positioning. Our insights ensure that your brand’s purpose activities are aligned and coherent, enhancing overall brand effectiveness.

Execute differentiated brand purpose

Execute your brand purpose in a truly differentiated way. With NeedScope, optimise your brand positioning and ensure your brand stands out as a leader among brands with purpose.

Sustainable Innovation

Sustainable Innovation

Think strategically to move swiftly in the right direction. Plan to spread your initiatives across various types of innovation to maximise impact. We help clients design and develop meaningful and distinct propositions, applying lean innovation principles to move quickly.

Key Features

Focus on the Value-Action gap

Overcome barriers to sustainable behaviour using our proprietary approaches for idea development and validation. Our methods ensure that your innovation for sustainability translates into real-world impact.

Support through the entire process

Our consulting toolkit offers holistic development and validation throughout the entire innovation process. We provide comprehensive support to ensure your sustainable innovations are successfully implemented.

Commercial and conscious

Our innovation mindset delivers sustainable financial value while creating positive societal impacts. By balancing commercial goals with conscious practices, we help you achieve innovative solutions and establish your brand as a leader in sustainability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Sustainable Marketing?

A: Sustainable marketing integrates environmental and social values into brand strategy and communication. It goes beyond campaigns to embed sustainability into the core of business operations, ensuring also long-term value for both society and the planet. Sustainability perceptions contribute up to 10% of cumulative brand value in the Global BrandZ Top 100. Yet, businesses are leaving an estimated $600bn on the table by not fully leveraging sustainability for growth.

Q: Why is Sustainable Marketing important for brands today?

A: Consumers expect brands to take meaningful action on sustainability, and this expectation is now a key driver of purchase decisions. Kantar data reveals that sustainability perceptions not only enhance brand equity but also allow brands to command a premium. Furthermore, 90% of marketers believe sustainability agendas need to be more ambitious, and 94% agree that bold experimentation is essential to deliver transformative change. Authenticity and transparency are no longer optional—they are critical for earning trust and loyalty.

Q: What is Sustainable Innovation in marketing?

A: Sustainable Innovation means creating products, services, and business models that drive growth while reducing environmental impact and promoting social responsibility. It embeds sustainability into the innovation process, helping brands stay competitive and meet consumer expectations.

Q: What is Inclusive Growth in marketing?

A: Inclusive growth ensures that marketing strategies represent and engage diverse consumer groups across gender, race, age, ability, and identity, while driving equitable access and representation. Kantar’s studies show that 75% of consumers globally say diversity and inclusion influence their purchase decisions, and progressive advertising delivers up to 16% higher sales uplift compared to less inclusive content.