News • 08/10/20

The word sustainable is a dinosaur (and four other things John Grant told us)

Wooden dinosaur figures face each other on a bright windowsil.
Wooden dinosaur figures face each other on a bright windowsil.

5 things we learnt from author and strategist, John Grant.

We were lucky enough to hear from author and strategist, John Grant, today as he spoke at the Investors in the Environment Awards.

Here are five things we heard:

  1. The word sustainable is a dinosaur. Sustaining is the least we can do. We need to forget being sustainable and be regenerative instead.
  2. For inspiration on how to move from sustainable to regenerative, keep an eye on #brewdogtomorrow. Brew Dog has committed to becoming net zero by 2030.
  3. Be as transparent as possible with your data and your plans, explain where you’re focussing and why. Don’t stop at environmental impact data, share as much as you can on things like salaries and benefits too.
  4. There are new Ps of marketing (old Ps). The first two are Purpose (just selling stuff, growth, and profit doesn’t count) and Parity (green products and services can’t be worse than their non-green counterparts, you used to be able to get away with it, but not anymore).
  5. The last three are Participation (get people involved, like this); be Pointed (talk about it directly and often, like this); and Partnership (you often can’t make the really big changes on your own).

John has a new book out called Greener Marketing (it’s ace). He’s also done LOTS of other stuff and was a big support to our co-founder, Nyree, when she was first starting out in her career (thanks, John!).