In today’s day and age, there is a huge divide among people as to how we should handle the severe global climate crisis. Brands play a huge role in this divide as they influence their consumers to devote their time and money to the environment by shopping their products. Many advocacy campaigns provide information on what they are doing to help the climate crisis, but they neglect to motivate their consumers to take action. So what can brands do to transform the world ahead of us and create meaningful messages that will help our future generations?
In this article from the New Yorker, we are asked the question: What are we doing now that our descendants will need to apologize for? If companies continue to greenwash within their campaigns, then future generations will be negatively impacted. Brands are failing to disclose information to their consumers, and therefore are negatively impacting the future of brand responsibility within the climate crisis. When the company ExxonMobil used greenwashing campaigns to mislead their customers and investors, the company deceived the public by leading them to think the company focused on clean energy development. In reality, ExxonMobil was increasing the production of fossil fuels that are a leading cause of climate change. If brands continue to act comparably to ExxonMobil, the climate crisis will quickly get worse than it already is.
Instead, brands need to take responsibility for their actions and do something to positively impact the global climate crisis. In this article published on Forbes, Enrique Dans explains how Corporate Social Responsibility Is Turning Green, And That’s A Good Thing. As the impact of climate change becomes more and more prominent, the environmental impact of brand responsibility is exceedingly important. Prioritizing brand responsibility in the climate crisis can not only help a company to gain more consumers, but it will also affect millions of people in generations to come.
Although it is difficult for brands to go green, due to the expense of it as well other limitations of becoming eco-friendly, brands who show their environmental responsibility can change the future of our world. As for consumers, it is important to buy from brands that are using their influence to make an environmental impact. As we move into the future, we have to take a step back and look at how brand responsibility truly affects the climate crisis and make decisions that will positively impact our future generations.