Small steps, big change: A list of CSR resources for B2B marketers
Over the past 12 months, we’ve worked hard to make Digital Radish more conscientious through our CSR initiative, Roots of Change. From switching to sustainable energy providers to working with external partners and independent vendors, we’ve made a range of incremental changes to help us work more sustainably.
But it can be tricky for B2B marketers to know where to start when it comes to CSR on both an individual and business level. That’s why we wanted to share some handy resources for those who might be thinking about starting their own CSR programme, or even adding to it.
Whilst this isn’t by any means a complete list, we did find all of these links really helpful along our journey as we try to become a bit better for our staff, our communities and beyond.
When we spoke to Michelle earlier this year, she wowed us with lots of practical tips on how we could be a greener agency. As well as being the author of Sustainable Marketing, she devised the 100 Points Sustainable Marketer Challenge for ‘Can Marketing Save The Planet’ – a dead easy way to benchmark your sustainability progress.
Phil is a co-founder of Cooler, an organisation that encourages low-carbon innovation and thinking among businesses. He’s also part of The Carbon Literacy Project, a UN-acclaimed organisation that aims to educate and advise businesses on their impact on climate change.
#ChangeTheBrief Alliance is a not-for-profit partnership between agencies of every size and type – media, creative, design, PR – and their clients, learning and acting together to directly address the challenge of the climate crisis by promoting sustainability via every channel available to them.
Organisations thinking about CSR are often driven by something more than making money. There are books by Simon Sinek (The Infinite Game), Ranjay Gulati (Deep Purpose), and Dan Pontefract (The Purpose Effect) that explore the ways in which purpose, not profit, drives businesses forward.
We also love Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations, which champions concepts like decentralised decision-making, purpose-led business practices and self-management – in short, a lot of the forces that shape our own and many others’ CSR goals.
Some other great books on sustainable marketing include:
- Sustainable Marketing: How to Drive Profits with Purpose – Michelle Carvill, Gemma Butler and Geraint Evans
- The Ethical Business Book: 50 Ways You Can Help Protect People, the Planet and Profits – Sarah Duncan
- Sustainable Marketing: A Holistic Approach – Mark Peterson
- Greener Marketing — John Grant
We also want to highlight a couple of great conversations. This one is between Alena Kuzniatsova and David Hardisty, two experts who offer lots of practical advice for how marketers like us can work more sustainably. Similarly, a recent podcast featuring McKinsey’s Sinem Hostetter breaks down the process of how B2B businesses can define and measure a greener approach.
Other great podcasts include:
Who sets the standards for sustainability in B2B? Without quantifiable benchmarks, it’s hard to know how “well” you’re doing or what you should be aiming for. That’s why we’ve found advice from a range of experts and institutions so useful as we try to get a sense of what best practice looks like.
- The Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides
- The Sustainable Marketer, a training course from CIM
- UN Sustainability Development Goals
- B Corp
- The Carbon Literacy Project
- IPCC
- Global Optimism (they also have a great book called The Future We Choose)
Whether it’s on an individual level or as an agency, it’s safe to say the vast majority of B2B marketers care about climate change, D&I and social responsibility. But knowing where to start or what steps to take can often feel overwhelming. We hope that the resources we’ve shared here have at least sparked a few ideas and given you some tools to use to get the conversation moving forward within your team.
If you’ve got any great resources you think we should include in the blog, drop us an email at hello@digitalradish.co.uk and we’ll add them in!