Tim Stübane Horizont
The Corona pandemic has dominated the agenda for months, but since the situation has eased somewhat, the issue of climate protection has come back into focus. The flood disaster and recent heat waves show that time is pressing. A rethink is already taking place in many companies. Tim Stübane, one of HORIZONT’s talking heads from now on, explains in his first column what the comeback of the climate protection issue means for companies and how agencies can support their clients in this process.
We can travel again, visit restaurants again, meet people. We can allow ourselves that - as a brief summertime sigh of relief. Because there was something else, wasn’t there? Climate change! After a brief media respite, this topic is suddenly catching up with us again. The accelerators are the heat waves in Canada and the USA and, above all, the terrible flood disaster here in Germany.
In any case, a goosebump program continued on the climate protection stage!
- The USA returns under Joe Biden to the Paris climate protection agreement and pulls even China and Russia with it.
- The German Constitutional Court makes a spectacular ruling: The state must protect future generations from climate change and may not shift burdens onto future generations. “Business as usual” is no longer an option. This means that German policymakers must improve their laws by 2022 and the economy must cut CO2 emissions much faster than planned.
- And: 17,000 climate activists defeat Europe's largest oil company Shell in The Hague. If the ruling becomes legally binding, Shell will have to reduce its emissions by 45 percent (!) by 2030. And not only its own, but also those of its customers such as airlines, gas stations & Co.
- And what’s more: the EU Commission recently presented an ambitious, comprehensive restructuring of the European economy towards more climate protection in Brussels.
- But investors are also putting companies under massive pressure: Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, is forcing companies to become climate neutral. According to Fink, climate risks are investment risks.
All this makes it clear that a radical rethink is taking place - in society, among investors and regulators. Companies must increasingly realize that they will no longer get away with trampling the environment underfoot. Business as usual is no longer accepted.
What does this mean for companies and their brands?
Companies are under massive pressure to change. Many will have to transform their business models. Companies and their brands will have to develop a different attitude toward the world and act accordingly. They will have to account for their behavior. And they must do so publicly in order to avoid even the suspicion that they are doing nothing or too little for the environment.
Consumers have set out on their journey. Thanks to Corona, many are rethinking their lifestyle and consuming more critically. According to the IFH study, 80 percent have already consciously given up something, and for almost half of them a more sustainable lifestyle is the decisive factor. These people also expect brands to act conscientiously and decisively. According to the Better Brands 2021 study, even more responsibility is attributed to brands than to science and research.
At the same time, consumers miss real brand role models. Some studies, such as best4planning or Meaningful Brands, attest to the extreme interchangeability of brands. They are simply dispensable, depending on the study half or even three quarters of all brands. Currently, according to BetterBrands, no industry meets the high demands of consumers. Contrary to common expectations, these are not only Millennials, but also older generations.