Sustainability Marketing That Sells, Not Just Signals
Grounded is a B Corp certified sustainability marketing agency that treats sustainability as a driver of business performance and commercial innovation. Most sustainability marketing favors purpose over performance, and brand reputation over measurable ROI. Read on to find out more about our approach to commercializing sustainability and closing the gap between brand, sustainability and business performance.
What is the Goal of Sustainability Marketing?
Sustainability marketing is the practice of promoting products and services that deliver a verifiable, net positive impact on people and planet — and doing it in a way that drives commercial growth rather than merely brand or corporate reputational credit.
It is not cause marketing and it is not an ESG report with nice images and better typography. Done properly it ‘activates’ sustainability claims by connecting them to a category need or growth driver at exactly the right stage along the path to purchase - changing buying behavior and driving purchase intent.
The discipline of sustainability marketing splits into three jobs to be done.
- Making a claim that is true, provable and motivational
- Translating that into purchase intent at the moment that matters.
- Measuring the triple bottom line impact and ROI.
of people say they are prepared to take action to live a more sustainable lifestyle³
of people are actively changing their behaviour³
THE INTENTION-ACTION GAP
97% Say They Want To.
Only 13% Actually Do.
According to the WFA / Kantar Sustainable Marketing 2030 Report, 97% of people say they are prepared to live and buy more sustainably, but only 13% are actively changing their behavior.
That 84-point spread is not an awareness problem — it’s a marketing and behavior change problem, and it is where most sustainability marketing fails and falls into the intention-action gap.
This is resulting in huge lost business opportunities for brands. According to the latest NYU Stern's Sustainable Market Share Index, Branded products marketed as sustainable now hold a 25.4% market share and products marketed as sustainable achieved a 5-YR CAGR of 10.9% vs. 4.0% for the total CPG market and just 2.2% for conventionally-marketed products.
Transform Purpose into Profit
The demand is real and it is growing faster than the conventional market. Consumers say they want to buy and live more sustainably...but companies can’t commercialize their commitments fast enough to make it so. Hence the intention-action gap.
Finding and then closing that gap between brand, sustainability and business performance is what we do here at grounded, through an approach that we call ‘Sustain-Agility’. It connects your brand’s point of difference and reasons to believe to sustainability goals and commitments in order to drive purchase intent.
And, it can be delivered in a workshop format in just one day.
When brand marketing teams see sustainability as reputational and don't embed sustainability goals, commitments or regulations into their brand and business planning - it creates misalignment, tension and ultimately inaction. That’s called Greenhushing.
Or, when they rally behind unverified claims to score a PR headline, the fallout can be even more paralyzing. That’s Greenwashing.
Sustain-Agility connects the WHY of purpose into the WAY of profit - translating high-level corporate sustainability goals, into the core of your brand strategy and positioning. It aligns teams and resources - revealing the insights most relevant to consumers to build trust, differentiation and competitive advantage - especially at retail at the point of purchase.
THE APPROACH
How We Do It: Sustain-Agility
1. The BPP
We start by articulating your belief, purpose and core commercial pursuits - looking at product claims, attributes and PODs, go to market strategy and consumer engagement platforms along with how you currently evaluate 'impact'
2. Archetyping
We use brand archetyping to connect your brand narrative to the most motivational claim - to ‘activate’ the BPP and deliver the desired brand experience. Archetypes help shift from story ‘say’ to story ‘do’ There are 52 of them – so we’ll find the right one to activate your brand and tell your sustainability story.
3. The 5Rs
The 5Rs is run as a team workshop to deconstruct your product or brand proposition and decide what elements or assets to re-use, reimagine, reduce, remove, or reinforce. It's a structured, collaborative and creative approach that helps align cross-functional teams around the hard and soft points of your product and brand equity...so we know what we need to dial up, dial down (or discount altogether).
4. Validation
Using our own fully licensed white-label testing platform, we can quickly validate claims, concepts and consumer response - picking apart which narratives, concepts, ideas, claims or messaging are resonating best and driving purchase intent.
Sustainability Marketing That Worked - Our Case Studies
See how leading brands worked with Grounded to connect purpose to profit and become more 'sustain-agile' through sustainability marketing.
Whistle PIg Whiskey + Pit Viper
Celebrating a new solar powered whiskey that’s so bright you’ll need shades to drink it.
The LYCRA Company — Keep in the Loop
A circularity call-to-action that invited an entire apparel industry to shift to more sustainable and renewable fibers
Regeneration — Turning Cans into Pans
Creating a whole new range of household products and accessories from re-claimed and recycled materials
iDesign — Nature’s Order
Transforming a plastics based home storage solutions business into an Amazon category sustainability champion.
Connect the WHY of Purpose to the WAY of Profit
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about sustainability marketing
Sustainability marketing involves promoting products and services that have a verifiable, net positive impact on people and planet. It goes beyond green claims — it connects a brand's purpose to consumer needs, drives purchase intent, and helps businesses build a flywheel of impact where profit and purpose reinforce each other.
By identifying and closing the intention-action gap — the space between what consumers say they want and what they actually do — a sustainability marketing strategy can shift behaviour at scale. It aligns brand purpose with consumer need states, driving more sustainable purchasing decisions while growing market share.
A sustainability marketing agency focuses specifically on marketing sustainability — helping brands communicate their environmental and social credentials effectively. A sustainable marketing agency is any agency that operates sustainably itself. The best partners are both: agencies that practice what they preach and have deep expertise in purpose-driven marketing.
A report satisfies a stakeholder. It doesn;t change consumer behavior. The report is an input to sustainability marketing, not an output or substitute for it.
By building the claim to survive them. The EU Green Claims Directive, UK CMA guidance and FTC Green Guides are the standard we design to.
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) typically refers to a company's voluntary initiatives to improve social or environmental outcomes — often reported separately from the core business. Sustainability marketing goes further by embedding these commitments into brand strategy, product development, and consumer communications in a way that drives commercial value.
A sustainability marketing agency specialises in connecting your brand's sustainability credentials to consumer behaviour. They combine research, strategy, and creative execution to help you communicate authentically, avoid greenwashing, and build campaigns that drive both impact and profit.
The opposite. Our first act is to undertake a landscape assessment to figure out the job to be done and identify what you can say that is useful, truthful and compelling. Greenwashing is a claim without proof architecture; we provide the proof architecture, and the purchase intent.
The intention-action gap varies enormously by category — which is measurable. We size yours against your competition before recommending a strategy or a solution.
Then we will tell you, and we will help you find a brand or product story that is true and can move the needle.