Marketers urged to intensify sustainability initiatives at 2023 WFA Conference
By Oghale Mafuru
In line with global sustainability initiatives to reduce carbon footprints in the world through eco-friendly practices, marketers have been urged to adopt the regenerative mindset with an all-encompassing operational framework centered on value optimization for all stakeholders where safety and well-being of all is prioritized over organizational bottom-line.
Speaking during the 2023 Global Marketers Conference of the World Federation of Advertiser, WFA, Rupen Desai, a renowned marketer, stated that regenerative mindset is the biggest opportunity for professionals and should be reflected across the value chain of businesses in furtherance of the sustainability development goals and in the interest of future generations.
He added that the language of growth and sustainability needs to change from incremental improvement on carbon reduction to a more deepening impact where business decisions revolve around value for the business, people, community and the planet.
“What are we making, what are we making of, how are we packaging it, what value will it have on the environment? The only responsibility for the company is money for the shareholder; we are all creative human beings so we have mastered the art of profit over everything else. Over the last 50 years, we have built a beautiful language called consumerism. We sell sugar in a plastic bottle and make it a symbol of happiness. We tell consumers, to be happy, consume more and consumers do that for us by consumption.
While urging marketers to be more intentional with their sustainability initiatives, Rupen Desai stated that actionable steps towards sustainability can be attained through radical and systemic changes accompanied with effective measurement systems and data utilization.
“WFA statistics says 74% of consumers would not care if the brands disappeared from their lives today. This means that 74% of the work we are doing, is almost giggle, garbage in garbage out. That work is adding 28% more carbon to each individual carbon footprints. We have to start by asking ourselves if what we do is adding value or extracting it. In all our businesses, we must admit that while there has been a huge effort at sustainability. For the last ten years, we all have been part of some program, at best; the mindset is let do a little less harm. Let’s continue to extract, grow and destroy the world, can we also promise them that in 2050 we will kind do our carbon footprints which is just a little mindset of do less harm”.
“Can we think of regenerative mindset in the way we do business and marketing where all stakeholders prosper and not just the shareholder? Challenging industries to make a positive handprint on the world, not just minimize its footprints. Everything I do, every superpower I use and decision I make, does it add value back to the world or does it just abuse, use and take value from the world? So, if we accept regenerating thinking as the new language that all of us need to use as super powers, it will mean systemic change, not just incremental, not just make promises. We need a radical change” he stressed.
The WFA Global marketers’ conference is the biggest gathering for marketers around the globe. This year, marketing professionals across the globe gathered in Istanbul to discuss new challenges and ways to mitigate them and optimize growth for their businesses.
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