Sustainability brand

Sustainability branding is the process of creating and maintaining an identity of a specific product, service, or business that reflects special added value in terms of environmental and social benefits.

[1][3] A brand is able to evoke positive or negative feelings, especially in the context of sensitive social and ecological issues.

[5] Sustainability Brand Positioning and positioning in general is part of the brand identity and value proposition that is to be actively communicated to the target audience[6] and can be described as an iterative process, consisting of deliberate and proactive actions aimed at the definition of distinct consumer perceptions.

Marc Stoiber [8] summed them up in The five Cs of Sustainability Branding:[9] Consumer Facing, Competitive, Core, Conversational and credible.

In general, a good brand name should consider three areas:[11] memorability (distinctive short name, evoking emotions...), strategic fit (they should relate to the actual product; ability to expand to other brands) and legal (legal protection under trade mark law etc.)

It is not related to the product (electric vehicle) but to much wider social and ecological issues (depletion of natural resources, CO2 emissions...), which the company addresses or rather offers the solution for.

Entering a saturated market such as the one for conventional household detergents with a sustainability brand might prove extremely difficult.

[16] Sustainability brand names can also succeed if they achieve to create a product category for themselves where there is virtually no competition yet.

According to Belz and Peattie [1] four main options for development are possible: To create a sustainability brand it is furthermore important to adopt the right channels for marketing according to Lauterborns five Cs.

[1] With promises of sustainable and ethical practices in the fashion industry on a rise, businesses attempt to market according to these requests.

[18] Companies like H&M and Zara have been called out by the Norwegian Consumer Council for failing to provide genuine information on why their brands are eco-friendly, thus leading to false marketing claims.