Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Welcome to the new blog from the CR + Sustainability team in London. We thought about giving you our predictions for the year, but with so many lists out there, you are probably sick of them already.  When we were discussing it, we kept coming back to five areas that fascinated us and we wanted to watch develop in 2012.

So here are our ‘ones to watch’.  They may turn out to be trends or they may not.  What we will aim to do over the course of the year is to write about how they change, grow or whatever…

1. Austerity living takes off

We wonder if this is the year, that living differently in an age of austerity becomes cool.  In our minds, this is not about depriving yourself, it’s about living in a way that saves you money, but can be fun and makes you feel good because it was smart.  It could be sharing more things rather than buying, splitting weekly shops with friends to save money and avoid throwing anything away or making money out of the things you no longer need.  We may have already seen some signs of this in the study by Young and Rubican published just before Christmas.

2. Companies exploring new business models

Last year we saw companies explore how they can find additional or new revenue streams from sustainable business models – things like new business models from the Co-operative, with its energy company and Recyclematch, launching an  eBay-like market for industrial waste, as well as start-ups like in.gredients, (soon to be launched),  which  will be the first package-free and zero waste grocery store or Dyesol (formed in 2004), a supplier of solar technology that has integrated solar cells into fabric,  such as backpacks and tents to give access to portable sustainable energy solutions. More examples are in WWF’s Green game-changers report.  Old models of consumption are no longer fit for purpose and we think we will see more renting, less ownership, reselling and making money out of waste…

3. Activists teaching us how to be creative…

Over the past couple of years we have seen activists such as Greenpeace, 38 degrees and AVAAZ use social media and other digital channels, to successfully protest in creative and innovative ways. Greenpeace had a taste of success in June 2011, when it was announced that, “the most-watched-ever advert to hit YouTube was Volkswagen’s “The Force”. Activists are teaching us all how to drive change through creativity. We see groups replicate previous successful campaigns, for example, one of the original spoof hijackings of Exxon Mobil, was so popular that, now when a brand enters a crisis, someone copies the idea and sets up another fake account for the brand they are attacking. When we find ways to get attention, we expect others to use these techniques. We now even have organisations like The Yes Men running a hub to teach other activist organisations how to creatively gain attention through media pranks and stunts. It will be interesting to watch how this grows over the next year, what else we can learn from activists and what other creative ways of protesting comes through…

4. Sustainability benefitting from the recession

Times are tight for companies and individuals, whether or not we fall back into recession.  We’re all having to make do with less and make that go further.  This is good for sustainability, so maybe tough times will help build the case for sustainability for both businesses and for individuals.  Will organisations think twice about cutting back a team who can help deliver efficiency and cost savings? Or companies who invest in this area succeed in making their businesses more robust?  Ironically this could be an opportunity for the leaders to push harder and get even further ahead. On the other hand, it may force a race to the bottom with companies simply offering cheaper and cheaper goods regardless of the environmental impact.

5. A new game changer emerging in 2012

For many years the sustainability business leaders have been companies such as M&S, Unilever and SAB Miller .  It seems to us that it is time for another leader to emerge.  We have a hope that it will come from the tech sector.  As we can see from Greenpeace’s Greener Guide to Electronics, tech companies are moving in this direction. Treehugger this month reported from CES 2012, that “consumer electronics manufacturers have a long way to go before the industry can be called “sustainable”… But companies have come a long way in even just the last few years in designing for recyclability and efficiency”. With risks piling up around areas like the supply chain and e-waste, 2012 could be an opportunity for a game changer to emerge.