Marketing is a key link between you and the end users in your value chain. Their activities affect the rest of the supply chain. For this reason, it is important to provide feedback to your marketing team on any activities that may undermine value chain sustainability, such as promoting unnecessary consumption. There is also an opportunity to work with marketing to inspire sustainable behaviours among customers, like normalising product stewardship10 and increasing demand for sustainably sourced products.11 Consider co-creating guidelines with your marketing team to encourage positive marketing practices. These can be further formalised as a ‘responsible marketing code’.12
EXAMPLE: IKEA promotes customer behaviour change
IKEA promotes customer behavioural change around sustainability through its “Live Lagom” online community platform. The platform provides a space to share stories, tips, and examples around sustainable living with customers.13, 14 In addition, on Black Friday, IKEA Canada chose to forego offering customer discounts. Instead, they invited customers to sell back used IKEA products at double the usual rate to signal their support for creating a circular business model.15
