What is a sustainable brand?

Concerns about climate change, toxicity, and waste have begun to influence consumer behavior around the world. The share of those looking for environmental protection from brands is increasing, and this is pushing companies with a wide variety of products to produce and consume more sustainably.

A global survey of 20,000 customers by food brand giant Unilever found that one in three (33%) people choose brands they believe are good for the environment.

Corporate Social Responsibility or «CSR» is more than just a way for brands to stand out. Sustainable branding is becoming an expectation for today's consumers. Companies that combine their mission and purpose with sustainable values ​​and support environmental and social goals in ways related to their business can greatly influence the public's willingness to buy, invest and work for them.

The Sustainable Brands conference outlined the main characteristics that a roadmap for any green company should include:

• System-wide brand influence.
• Net positive products and services.
• Goals beyond profit.
• Regenerative operations (recycled materials and environmentally friendly processes).
• Transparent and proactive governance.

What problems exist

A study by McKinsey Fashion on Climate study shows that the fashion industry accounts for 4% of global emissions, of which 70% comes from mining, «especially energy-intensive manufacturing, preparation, and processing of raw materials».

Intending to reduce the negative impact of the industry on the environment, 32 major global fashion and textile companies, from H&M and Gap to Burberry and Chanel, have signed Fashion Pact.

The initiative, led by parent company Gucci and French elite house Kering, aims to achieve zero carbon footprint by 2050 and invites the industry to offer «regenerative» approaches to agriculture, including eliminating batch-based intensive farming sources.

To protect the oceans, the pact calls for a reduction in the use of single

In 2015, the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and selected 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have become a benchmark for the entire world community. They link three elements of sustainable development - economic growth, social challenges, and environmental protection.

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) has classified the existing environmental labels into three typologies – Type I, II, and III - and has specified the preferential principles and procedures for each one of them. The picture below outlines this taxonomy and gives some examples of ecolabels:

What are they and how exactly do they contribute to solving global problems?

Eco-labeling is a graphical display of a set of environmental information about a product or service, meaning that the product has a lower impact on the environment than similar products and/or is produced using environmentally optimal technologies. Eco-labeling can also be defined as an environmental marketing tool. Strict eco-certification standards motivate manufacturers to make their production more environmentally friendly and provide consumers with a simple and understandable tool for choosing products.

Environmental labels exist in all countries of the world. The most reliable of these are type I eco-labels (ISO 14024). They consider the entire life cycle of a product: from the extraction of raw materials to packaging processing. Most of these eco-labels around the world are united in the Global Eco-Labeling Association (GEN).

To obtain an eco-certificate, companies must:

• Carefully use natural resources and reduce waste, use recycling water supply systems and return possible waste and rejects into the production cycle. This is the transition to sustainable consumption and production patterns (SDG 12).
• Monitor electricity consumption. It is a contribution to the fight against climate change (SDG 13).
• Use wood products from sustainable forest management (SDG 14).
• Recultivate land in the development of quarries for the extraction of mineral raw materials. It is a contribution to the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity (SDG 15).

What is the scale?

According to the global Ecolabel Index, eco-labels are now used in 25 industries in 199 countries. At the moment, there are over 400 different eco-certificates.

On the one hand, the coverage of various industries by eco-standardization is a positive trend: more and more manufacturers are getting the opportunity to “green” their activities. On the other hand, the growth in the number of similar documents and eco-labels in one industry can confuse, especially among ordinary buyers.

The demand for eco-products has increased not only at the level of ordinary buyers, but also at the state level. Today, many countries have developed the practice of "green" public procurement: the presence of an ecolabel is a significant advantage for tenderers. But there is also another side of the coin. As a result of the increasing demand for eco-products, unscrupulous manufacturers began to unreasonably declare the environmental friendliness of th

What is Sustainable or ESG Investments?

Responsible investments, or ESG investments, allow you to take into account environmental, social, and governance factors in the investment decision-making process. When making investment decisions, economic agents focus not only on the steady growth of the company’s financial performance but also on non-financial information related to the principles of these firm's activities in the areas of environmental protection and social responsibility.

What ESG factors do investors care about?

In modern conditions (interest in climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, the fight against corruption, the fight for gender equality, and so on), the practice of applying socially responsible investment criteria will continue to s