Sustainability and Software – Your Basic Know-how for Green Marketing and MarTech

From recycling programs to the use of environmentally friendly materials in office buildings – the topic of sustainability is becoming increasingly important, including in companies. This is where the principle of green marketing comes into play.

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o question, sustainability is not a short-lived trend for companies, and certainly not a hype – and that applies to marketing just as much. Sustainability management and communicating your carbon footprint are a must for corporations and larger brands in the 2020s. But how can you communicate in a truly transparent way without being accused of greenwashing? A sustainability software or CSR software can help you with that. More on that in a moment; first, it’s about this question:

What exactly does green marketing mean?

Simply put, green marketing or eco-marketing is the marketing of products or services that promotes the company’s products or services in an environmentally friendly way. Marketers actively promote and discuss their company’s sustainable and environmentally friendly policies.

To tap into the trend of green marketing, companies are turning to a marketing strategy that helps them win over today’s consumers, address their social responsibility, and thus influence their purchasing decisions. Terms such as “organic,” “environmentally friendly,” “recyclable,” or “sustainable” on products and packaging play a major role in this.

The goals of green marketing are:

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz Implementing sustainable business practices

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz Demonstrating social responsibility

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz Reducing costs (packaging, transport, energy/water consumption)

In the tradition of green marketing, brands bring environmentally friendly products to market or create a corresponding product image by using eco-friendly packaging or promoting climate-neutral production and regional distribution.

Why is there no way around the topic of sustainability in marketing?

Green marketing is a strategy that focuses on developing sustainable measures and improving services and products, with the aim of reducing the impacts of climate change. This strategy has become particularly important in recent years as global warming continues to progress and its accompanying effects, such as devastating wildfires or flood disasters, increasingly affect a large part of the population.

These and other events are leading consumers to become increasingly aware of the environmental impact of their actions and, in particular, the actions of companies.

People are therefore becoming more and more discerning when it comes to:

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz which products they buy

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz which companies they buy from

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz how consumption affects their lives and the environment

Sustainability has become an increasingly important topic. As a marketer, it is therefore essential to actively engage with green marketing. After all, in the end, customers choose the companies that best represent their individual interests and their own outlook on life!

So what’s the benefit of communicating sustainability?

Green, environmentally friendly products are a win-win. With the right marketing, companies can benefit from their sustainable actions in several ways. Three key benefits are:

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz Opening up a new market:
Green marketing allows you to reach new target groups who previously didn’t buy the product due to a lack of sustainability.

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz Increasing brand loyalty:
Companies that are the first in their industry to offer a green product or a green service benefit enormously from green marketing. This helps them stand out from other companies that are not yet producing sustainably.

Matchilla - Matching-Plattform und Marktplatz Helps the environment:
Green marketing not only enables companies to generate more profit and win loyal customers. Companies that keep their promises can help slow climate change and protect the environment.

Communicating sustainability is a sure-fire recipe for success these days. Especially among millennials and Gen Z, sustainability ranks very high in their value system, and eco-friendly love brands are now in high demand.

What technological support is available for green marketing, and how does MarTech help?

Technological support in the field of green marketing comes in the form of sustainability software. Such software helps companies manage all the data generated in their operations—from production and building maintenance through to management—in order to assess their sustainability and their impact on the environment. To achieve this, vast amounts of data must be collected from utility bills, the energy and water consumption of facilities, fuel costs, and other sources. The software then analyzes this data to provide dashboards for performance management and benchmarks for optimizing efficiency, ensuring compliance, and maintaining corporate responsibility.

By analyzing operational data with the help of sustainability software, it can also be used profitably by the marketing department: on the one hand, you can use the reports created in the software directly for communication (you create websites, landing pages, posts, etc. from the results). On the other hand, you can adapt and refine your green marketing strategy based on the insights you gain from the software.

Sustainability is a practice that offers a long-term outlook on a company’s well-being and longevity, but it also represents a commitment to social responsibility—being successful as a company while also improving the environment for future generations can and must go hand in hand nowadays.

Here you can find out more about CSR software and how technologies can help you and your company increase social responsibility and support green marketing.

Conclusion: Green marketing is not just a short-lived trend

These days, anyone who isn’t “green” has a hard time – because consumers are increasingly placing greater value on environmentally friendly products. In times of Fridays for Future, it has become ever more essential to market products as sustainable, since many people want to keep the negative impact of their own actions as low as possible.

Green marketing has therefore become an essential part of the marketing strategy of many companies. There are many ways to make your company’s marketing greener and more environmentally friendly, including through sustainability software. While customers use green marketing to deliberately choose a product marketed as sustainable, companies themselves are increasingly focusing on integrating sustainable aspects. This creates new potential for green marketing, and our environment benefits too.

How to easily find the right CSR software

Are you convinced that you can improve your sustainability with software? And are you therefore looking for suitable CSR software – but don’t feel like combing through the usual lists and embarking on an extensive research process? Then simply start the matching with the providers that are most relevant to you for CSR software!

Just fill out our MatchAssistant and we’ll take care of the rest for you! Only a few minutes of your time to take a big step closer to your new sustainability software.

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About the author

Ulrich Theves is Head of CSR Matching at Matchilla and is deeply involved with technical solutions (i.e., software and tools) in the field of sustainability. He has one of the best overviews of the market and shares his expertise in MatchZINE.

In unserem Glossar zu Nachhaltigkeit, ESG und CSR erklären wir die wichtigsten Begriffe und Regularien.

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