Can a marketer ever be a messiah?

The banquet hall of a Mumbai five-star hotel began filling with CMOs well before the appointed hour. They had come to hear Simon Clift, a former global CMO at consumer goods corporation Unilever. But as the much-anticipated session was delayed by more than an hour, many marketers slipped away after exchanging the usual pleasantries. The ones who left probably had an uncanny intuition that uncomfortable questions would come at them later in the evening. And for which they probably had no concrete answers. One such question that Clift tossed up was, “Can marketers save the world?”

Most corporations have well-charted sustainability mandates. Unilever’s vision for 2020 is to double turnover and halve its environmental footprint. Reckitt Benckiser, in 2012, launched betterbusiness — a strategy for sustainable innovation with three headline targets for 2020: one-third net revenue from more sustainable products, one-third reduction in water impact, one-third further reduction in carbon footprint.

However, as a senior executive from Hindustan Unilever admits, many of the initiatives currently address only 30 per cent of the problem.

If one looks at a product’s cradle-to-grave journey, it begins with sustainable sourcing of raw materials and moves on to efficient manufacturing and distribution practices. These account for only about 30 per cent of the environmental impact. For instance, the environmental impact of water and energy used for manufacturing is only 3-5 per cent of the total pie. Logistics accounts for another 2-3 per cent and the vendor base makes up 20-22 per cent. But a massive 70 per cent of impact is out there in consumer homes — the way consumers use products through their lifecycle, and dispose of the packaging and product waste.

That’s where marketers fail, and sometimes even mislead, the consumer. As influencers of consumer behaviour, marketers could go a long way in creating responsible consumers. Unfortunately, they do exactly the opposite at times, says a management consultant who prefers anonymity.

Most marketing messages tend to encourage wasteful behaviour. In the toothpaste category, while dental experts will largely agree that a pea-sized portion is enough for an adult, most marketing campaigns show paste spread the entire length of the toothbrush. Even evolved consumers who pay a premium for energy-efficient durables get caught on the wrong foot.

Consumer-generated waste is a ticking time bomb. In a developing country such as India, newer sources of waste are being generated as we speak. Colas or other carbonated beverages were once sold in glass bottles that were recycled. Now, they mostly come in PET bottles.

A Coca-Cola spokesperson points out that 66 per cent of PET bottles in India get recycled. The company claims to be playing a major role in increasing that score.

Cellular phones are a gigantic source of e-waste. Even until 18 years ago, India had only a few thousand cellular phone connections. Today there are a billion-plus (800 million active) subscribers in India, according to Cellular Operators Association of India's estimates.

Considering that many users, even at the lower end, change phones every 2.5 years, a huge mound of e-waste stares us in the face.

Mobile phone maker Nokia points to a global survey showing that 44 per cent of old mobile phones are lying in drawers at home and not recycled.

A Nokia executive says that if every mobile phone user across the world recycled just one unwanted phone at the end of its life, it could prevent mining of nearly 2.4 lakh tonnes of raw material. She adds that the energy saved and the cut in greenhouse gas emission would be equivalent to taking four million cars and their emissions off the road each year.

A major challenge since the start of Nokia’s voluntary mobile phone recycling programme in 2009 is that consumers do not completely understand ‘recycling’ or associate it with mobile phones, she says. “Moreover, there is an intrinsic attitude of clinging to old items because of emotional attachment.”

The surprising part is that Nokia’s recycling efforts are getting the best response not from top-end consumers, comprising 5 per cent, but from the middle class. We have also had better response from smaller cities as compared to metros, she says.

Recycling is just one part. The other, and more important, side to the story is that very few companies actually market products and services that can help save the world. Some companies are taking baby steps in that direction.

In the past, Hindustan Unilever has tested low water-usage detergents and is currently test-marketing Magic, a washing additive that lowers detergent use, in South India. Tata Chemicals has a range of I-Shakti unpolished dals that claim to cook faster than the polished variety, saving precious fuel.

In other categories, marketers are shying away. Dry shampoos are an accepted category in the West, but a leading FMCG marketer says the Indian market may not be ready yet. Seema Arora, Executive Director, CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development, says it’s still early days for companies to come up with eco-friendly solutions and products. “There needs to be more awareness. The history of marketing is 300-400 years old. Sustainability issues came to the fore only five to 10 years ago,” she observes.

Can marketing afford to wait any longer? By 2050 — and many who are reading this will live to see that day — the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) estimates that the human population will require the size of three earths to feed consumption on Planet Earth. Will marketers mend their ways?