Wim Vermeulen - The Responsible Business Index and the Financial Moat of Trust

In Part 1 , strategist Wim Vermeulen explained why the traditional marketing playbook of exaggerating benefits completely backfires when applied to sustainability. Now, we address one of the most pervasive myths circulating in boardrooms: the idea that the public has developed "climate fatigue" and simply wants brands to stop talking about environmental issues. According to Wim's ongoing data collection with the University of Ghent, this assumption is completely wrong. Consumers have not tuned out. In fact, corporate silence is actively making them anxious. The Reality of Climate Anxiety "There is no climate fatigue," Wim states bluntly. "People are highly concerned, and their stress levels are rising as the physical impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss become part of daily life. What marketers misinterpret as fatigue is actually a profound sense of isolation and disappointment." The data shows that everyday citizens feel completely alone in tackling the transition. They recognise the sheer scale of the crisis and look to policymakers and businesses to lead the way. However, public trust in politicians to execute this transition is disastrously low, hovering around just 9% in certain regions of Europe. Naturally, consumers look to the next most powerful institutions: corporations. Trust in businesses to drive meaningful change can reach as high as 83%. Yet, precisely when consumers are looking for corporate leadership, boardrooms have gone completely dark. The Trap of Greenhushing Terrified of strict green claims regulations and desperate to avoid public accusations of greenwashing, corporate legal departments have enforced a policy of "greenhushing", quietly continuing sustainability investments behind the scenes while scrubbing all mention of them from public marketing materials. Wim warns that this silence carries an incredibly high commercial cost. When consumers see a political class they do not trust and a business community that has gone completely silent, they are left with a terrifying question: Has the problem been solved, or is nobody capable of solving it? This vacuum creates profound anxiety, which quickly morphs into deep distrust of silent brands. Conversely, it creates an unprecedented commercial opportunity. The businesses willing to step into the light and communicate openly will capture a massive wave of consumer support. But to do that safely, they must design their messaging around the six indicators of credibility. The Six Drivers of Sustainability Credibility Through rigorous testing, Wim’s research identified six specific levers that determine whether a sustainable narrative will be accepted or rejected by the public: Honesty: The undisputed heavyweight. Is the claim transparent, admitting limitations rather than pretending to be flawless? Commitment: Is this a core, long-term business transformation, or a superficial, short-term marketing campaign? Urgency: Does the brand demonstrate that it understands the immediate timeline of the climate transition? Shared Value: Is it clear what is in it for the individual consumer (such as affordability or quality) and what is in it for wider society? Clarity of Proof Points: Are the facts accessible, easy to digest, and verifiable? Relevance: Is the message tied to immediate, tangible human needs, rather than abstract, corporate net-zero targets? The old paradigm of screaming "We will be net zero by 2042!" across a billboard is dead. Consumers do not understand abstract carbon metrics, and they reject narratives built around scarcity and sacrifice. To move the market forward, brands must learn how to construct validated, audience-centric storylines. In Part 3, we will explore the Responsible Growth Model, examine why Tesla’s reputation is cratering, and look at the hard correlation between audited responsibility and direct sales impact.

In conventional advertising, exaggeration is practically part of the job description. For decades, agencies have operated under a script perfected in the 1950s and 60s by industry pioneers like David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach: dramatise the benefit. Take a product attribute, magnify it, and turn it into a compelling narrative. Think of a standard toothpaste commercial. The voiceover confidently promises that your teeth will be crystal clear within two weeks. As consumers, we have spent a lifetime learning to decode this language. No one literally expects their teeth to replicate a diamond, and nobody returns a tube of toothpaste demanding a refund when they do not. We understand the unwritten rule: the benefit has simply been dramatised. But when you apply that same 1950s advertising script to sustainability, the system completely breaks down. I recently spoke with Wim Vermeulen , an award-winning strategist, author, and partner at the sustainable communication agency Bubka . Wim’s career began in traditional advertising, but six years ago, as the first wave of massive corporate sustainability campaigns began hitting the market, his gut told him something was fundamentally wrong. To figure out what, he teamed up with the University of Ghent to run a massive scientific study, testing 100 sustainability campaigns for effectiveness. What they discovered exposes the fatal flaw in modern green marketing. The Only Metric That Matters When Wim and the academic researchers crunched the data from those 100 campaigns, they expected to find a variety of creative factors driving success. Instead, they found that effectiveness was almost entirely dictated by a single, monolithic variable: credibility. Unlike conventional advertising, where consumers willingly tolerate exaggeration, sustainability communication operates under a zero-tolerance policy. Because sustainability campaigns are dealing with systemic, real-world crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, using the old "dramatised benefit" script triggers immediate scepticism. If a brand overpromises or wraps its message in corporate hyperbole, the audience does not read between the lines; they simply stop believing. In sustainability, you are either credible or you are greenwashing. There is no grey area. Introducing the Net Credibility Score (NCS) To help brands navigate this high-stakes landscape, Wim and the University of Ghent developed a framework called the Net Credibility Score (NCS) . Operating on a similar logic to the traditional Net Promoter Score, the NCS provides an objective benchmark for trust. You measure the exact percentage of consumers who genuinely believe a campaign's narrative, subtract the percentage who do not, and the resulting figure gives you your benchmark. The results across different European markets reveal a highly sceptical public. In Belgium, the average baseline benchmark sits at roughly 30. In the hyper-critical market of the Netherlands, the benchmark drops to just 15. If a sustainability campaign cannot score above these baseline numbers, it is not just wasting ad spend; it is actively damaging the brand's reputation. Perceived Honesty vs Internal Intent The core takeaway from Wim’s initial research is a brutal pill for marketers to swallow: honesty is not defined by your internal intentions; it is defined by consumer perception. It does not matter if a sustainability team spent three years meticulously crafting a carbon-reduction initiative with the best intentions. If the final marketing campaign feels dishonest, exaggerated, or vague to the average consumer on the street, it is functionally dishonest. In Part 2, we will look at why the corporate panic known as "greenhushing" is fueling consumer anxiety, and examine the six core indicators that determine whether the public will actually buy into your sustainability story.

 In the final part of our series with food brand consultant Mia Hartwell, we look beyond carbon metrics. While calculating greenhouse gases is vital, the food industry possesses unique social, agricultural, and cultural complexities that require a much broader lens of accountability. We also look at the real-world success stories: the brands successfully transforming sustainability from a corporate metric into a premium consumer desire. Escaping "Carbon Myopia" in Food In many sectors, sustainability reporting has fallen victim to "carbon tunnel vision." But in the food system, carbon is only one piece of an incredibly intricate puzzle. "As soon as you try to calculate Scope 3 emissions in food manufacturing, you hit a massive, opaque web of global suppliers," Mia notes. "It gets incredibly complicated, very fast." Because food is deeply social, its sustainability footprint naturally expands into biodiversity, soil health, community resilience, and food waste. Mia highlights a shocking statistic to illustrate the low-hanging fruit available to everyday consumers and brands alike: In the UK, the average person wastes the equivalent of three full meals every single week. By tackling food waste through industry redistribution initiatives, brands are not just cutting carbon; they are actively addressing social issues like regional hunger and supply chain inequity. Sustainability in food cannot be reduced to a single data point on a spreadsheet, it is inherently holistic. Three Rockstar Brands Making Sustainability Aspirational When embedding these deep values into a brand, Mia emphasises that sustainability must never feel like a compromise. It cannot be something a marketing team "sorts out later." It must supercharge the commercial proposition. Here are three brands Mia highlights as masterclasses in making sustainability highly desirable: 1. Hotel Chocolat: Premiumising the Indulgence Chocolate is an indulgent, premium purchase. Hotel Chocolat brilliantly utilises its packaging to elevate that experience rather than detract from it. While you enjoy the product, their on-pack messaging clearly communicates their ethical cacao sourcing, ingredient upcycling programmes, and compostable materials. It alleviates consumer guilt and reinforces the premium, crafted perception of the brand, allowing it to command a clear market premium. 2. Bold Bean Co: Making the "Boring" Aspirational Historically, heirloom beans might have been viewed as a dry, unexciting pantry staple. However, Bold Bean Co took a naturally sustainable, low-carbon, healthy food and turned it into a cult-status culinary object. They focus heavily on provenance, clean sourcing, and soil health, but they ladder it all directly up to one thing: unmatched taste . They made sustainability cool, beautiful, and delicious. 3. Wildfarmed: The Rockstar Farmers Fixing soil health through regenerative agriculture sounds like a dry, academic subject. Wildfarmed completely flipped the script by creating a literal "rockstar brand" around regenerative flour. With bold, counter-cultural visuals, celebrity backing, and an energetic, disruptive narrative, they made soil restoration feel exciting, relevant, and revolutionary. Every Job is a Climate Job Ultimately, Mia’s mission is to empower the individuals sitting inside these corporate structures. Through her consulting work and her role as a leader of She is Sustainable , a volunteer-run Community Interest Company supporting women working across the green sector, she emphasises that real change requires human confidence. "Every job is a climate job," Mia says. "But if you are working in food, you have the leverage to make more of an impact than almost any other industry on Earth. If you can bake sustainability directly into the heart of your commercial positioning, show how it drives sales, and give your team permission to care, that is where you win." This concludes our series on the sustainable food revolution. To ensure your marketing strategy is resilient enough to survive the changing climate, keep your eyes on the soil, your messaging transparent, and your brand rooted in trust.

In Part 1 , food marketing and sustainability consultant Mia Hartwell outlined the sheer scale of the food industry's environmental footprint. But knowing a problem exists is very different from marketing a solution, especially at a time when consumers are feeling an intense financial squeeze. Next, we dive into the balancing act facing food marketers: managing short-term cost pressures while building long-term consumer trust. The Cost-of-Living Dilemma vs. Long-Term Resilience Right now, food marketers are operating in a pressure cooker. Prices are soaring, supply chains are volatile, and consumers are hyper-focused on their immediate household budgets. In this climate, dedicating resources to sustainability can easily feel like a luxury a brand cannot afford. Mia argues that this short-term view is incredibly dangerous: "Without creating sustainable products right now, we simply will not have a business model in the long term," she warns. "If the climate crisis keeps accelerating, the ingredients will not be there to put on the table. Sustainability is not an environmental add-on; it is foundational business resilience ." The challenge is unlocking the commercial value of that resilience today. According to Mia, the secret lies in building a protective moat of consumer trust, an asset many brands are currently leaving on the table due to fear. The High Cost of Staying Silent (Greenhushing) With the regulatory crackdown on greenwashing, many brands have chosen to enter a phase of "greenhushing" , doing good work behind the scenes but staying completely silent in their marketing out of fear of getting things wrong. Mia views this as a massive missed opportunity. Marketers frequently point to the "say-do gap," noting that while consumers say they care about the environment, they rarely pay a premium for green products at the checkout counter. Mia explains that this is not because consumers do not care; it is because they view sustainability as a baseline requirement: "Consumers expect you to be getting on with it. They are not paying more for sustainability because they assume you should already be doing it. If you are silent, they will assume you are doing nothing, and that opens up an immediate space for distrust." If a brand is proactive and transparent about its eco-journey, it builds a reserve of goodwill. If a supply chain crisis hits later down the road, a trusted brand survives; a silent, disconnected brand gets punished by the market. The Convergence of Health and Planet For brands wondering how to start communicating these complex ideas without alienating budget-conscious shoppers, Mia points to an accelerating trend: the intersection of human health and planetary health. Consumers naturally connect "good for me" with "good for the planet." "Brands that are already talking about health, whether it is boosting fibre, clean protein, or hitting your weekly 'plant points', are in the best position to talk about sustainability," Mia explains. By framing sustainability through immediate consumer benefits like taste, health, and freshness, environmental initiatives stop feeling preachy and start feeling desirable. This is exactly where concepts like regenerative agriculture are gaining mainstream traction, connecting the consumer directly back to the health of the soil their food was grown in. In our third and final part , we will look at how to avoid "carbon tunnel vision" in food reporting, and analyse three brilliant food brands that are turning sustainability into a premium, aspirational asset.

When we talk about sustainable marketing, we often fixate on the digital grid, electric delivery fleets, or supply chain auditing. But there is a massive, tangible monster we interact with multiple times a day, often without a second thought: the food on our plates. I recently sat down with Mia Hartwell , a brand and sustainability communications consultant specialising in the food sector. Mia has spent her career working with iconic names like Jordans Cereals , a brand legendary for its early commitment to nature-friendly farming, and today, she helps food brands navigate the tricky intersection of commercial marketing and planet-saving initiatives. Our conversation revealed why the food system is the absolute ultimate leverage point for anyone wanting to make a dent in the climate crisis. The Flip of the Switch: A Critical Conversation About Plastic Mia did not start her career with a rigid sustainability mandate. She was a pure marketeer, driven by a deep love for food, brand building, and consumer innovation. But a single, brief conversation behind the scenes fundamentally disrupted her career trajectory. "I was working in brand innovation, and I had a critical conversation with a colleague one day about packaging," Mia recalls. "Packaging in food is so tangible. We eat breakfast, we unpack lunch, it is everywhere. But I had not given much thought to what it was actually made of." Her colleague looked at her and said plainly: "You do know that this packaging just gets burnt, right?" She was referring to the flexible, non-recyclable plastics holding the product. For Mia, that was the ultimate catalyst. "An absolute switch flipped," she says. "I realised that as food manufacturers, we are producing incredible food that can be grown sustainably, but the packaging footprint is devastating our world. I needed to pivot from being a sole marketeer looking after a brand’s metrics to seeing brands as vehicles for real global change." The Food System: The 30% Invisible Giant If you want to solve global sustainability issues, you have to look at the food industry. Why? Because the data is staggering: The Emissions Profile: Food production, encompassing agriculture, processing, manufacturing, and global transport, contributes to roughly 30% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. The Symbiotic Risk: While food production actively drives climate change, climate change is simultaneously destroying the predictability of agriculture. Floods, droughts, and degraded soil mean that without sustainable restructuring, food brands will not have products to sell in the near future.  The Social & Health Impact: Sustainability is not just carbon; it is people. Currently, about 65% of the UK population is living with overweight or obesity , and chronic diseases are rising. The food system touches land use, water pollution, biodiversity loss, and human health every single day. Are Marketers the "Evil Masterminds"? With statistics like these, it is easy to point fingers at marketing teams for driving overconsumption of unhealthy, highly packaged foods. The media often paints food marketers as malicious geniuses plotting to hook the public on addictive products. Mia, however, vehemently rejects this narrative. "I have never been in a product development room where people are sitting there plotting to cause widespread obesity or environmental collapse," Mia says candidly. "People in this industry are incredibly well-intentioned. Marketers want to delight consumers. But the issue is unintended consequences. " When optimisation is focused solely on taste, shelf-life, and immediate commercial profitability, the long-term systemic impacts are frequently overlooked. In Part 2, we will explore how food marketers can balance the current intense cost-of-living crisis with long-term brand resilience, and why staying silent about your green credentials, "greenhushing", is a massive commercial mistake.

Most organisations begin their sustainability journey for one reason - they have to. Regulation arrives, reporting frameworks tighten, claims scrutiny increases, and legal risk rises. Compliance forces action, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Dr Sayed Elhoushy sees compliance as a legitimate entry point, but only if businesses recognise what comes next, because compliance is a beginning, and not a destination. The danger of stopping at reporting Across Europe and the UK, regulatory pressure is intensifying. The implications of frameworks like green claims regulation, advertising scrutiny, and evidence-based environmental communications are reshaping sustainability marketing. This is forcing businesses to examine language more carefully, which is long overdue. Sayed highlights a critical issue: over 50% of environmental claims have historically contained vague, misleading, or unsubstantiated elements. That’s not just a communications problem; it’s a trust problem, and once trust erodes, rebuilding it becomes exponentially harder. The four-question green claims filter For organisations trying to communicate responsibly, Sayed offers a practical framework. Before making any sustainability claim, ask: 1. Are we using loaded buzzwords? “Sustainable” “Green” “Eco-friendly” “100% natural” These terms trigger scrutiny immediately. 2. Do we have evidence? Not assumptions Not intention Evidence Data, methodology, verification, traceability. 3. Has this been independently checked? For larger organisations, internal validation is no longer enough; third-party verification matters. 4. Have we considered the full sustainability picture? This is where many brands fail. The palm oil paradox Sayed pointed to one of sustainability’s classic examples. A retailer launches a “No Palm Oil” campaign. At first glance, it appears environmentally responsible, deforestation concerns are real, consumer support follows, but deeper analysis reveals complexity. Removing palm oil may: Harm smallholder farmers Disrupt local economies Shift demand to potentially less efficient alternatives Create unintended supply-chain consequences This is what sustainability professionals call spillover effects, where solving one problem can create another, and marketers must understand these dynamics before communicating solutions. Sustainability is not single-issue optimisation This is perhaps the most important mindset shift, as many organisations still approach sustainability through isolated metrics such as carbon, packaging, water and waste. Each matters, but sustainability is inherently systemic. As Sayed reminds his students, true sustainability requires balancing: Environmental outcomes Social outcomes Economic outcomes Success in one dimension cannot justify harm in another. This is where simplistic claims collapse. From compliance to transformation One of Sayed’s most useful teaching tools is the POST framework: Problem - define the real challenge Opportunity - identify where positive change can emerge Strength - assess capabilities already available Transformation - c reate actionable pathways forward The final step is the one most organisations skip - transformation. Because transformation requires more than reporting, it demands redesign, new thinking, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic courage. Why marketers matter here Historically, sustainability has often sat in specialist teams, but transformation cannot happen in silos. It requires marketing, operations, finance, product, and leadership to speak a common language. This is something Sayed is actively building through sustainability marketing education at Queen Mary, helping students understand that sustainability is not a departmental responsibility. It’s an organisational capability. The next phase The brands that thrive in the next decade will not be those best at sustainability storytelling; they’ll be the ones best at sustainability redesign. Communication still matters, but communication must follow substance. The question for every marketer is no longer: “How do we talk about sustainability?” It is: How do we help create business models worth talking about?

Marketers love behaviour change, and it’s baked into the profession. Every campaign, every funnel, every piece of messaging ultimately aims to influence what people think, feel, or do. But sustainability marketing has often misunderstood what meaningful behaviour change actually requires. Sustainability marketing is more than changing behaviours Too often, sustainability marketing defaults to instructions such as, use less, buy differently, travel less, and consume responsibly. The logic is straightforward in that if people change, systems improve. But as Dr Sayed Elhoushy argues, this framing misses something crucial. People do not make decisions in isolation; they make them within systems designed to shape those decisions. Unless we change those systems, behaviour-focused sustainability campaigns will keep underperforming. The “blame the household” trap Food waste offers one of the clearest examples, where households are often identified as the biggest source of consumer-level food waste. This has led to endless campaigns focused on better planning, smarter shopping, improved storage, and creativity with leftovers These might be useful, but nowhere near sufficient. Sayed’s work with residents in Tower Hamlets revealed that many people already want to waste less. They feel bad when food is discarded. The issue is rarely indifference; it’s friction. Promotional structures encourage overbuying Packaging sizes exceed realistic household needs Retail environments reward quantity over sufficiency The waste happens downstream, the design happens upstream, and that distinction changes everything. Sustainability often feels abstract One reason many sustainability campaigns fail is that they communicate globally to people who live locally. Messages framed around “saving the planet” often struggle because they lack immediate relevance. The problem feels too large, distant, complex and uncontrollable. Sayed emphasises the need for localisation and personalisation as people engage when sustainability becomes tangible: The waste in their kitchen. The flood on their street. The supermarket queue shaped by overtourism. The challenge for marketers is translating planetary complexity into human immediacy. Design for easier decisions The most effective sustainability interventions often remove decision complexity altogether. Stroodles edible tableware doesn’t ask consumers to evaluate sustainability trade-offs; it eliminates the trade-off. This reflects an essential shift in mindset: Instead of asking: “How do we persuade people to make better choices?” Ask: “How do we redesign the system so better choices happen naturally?” That’s a radically more effective behavioural strategy. Beyond campaign thinking Sustainability marketing has to mature as behaviour change cannot live solely inside communications teams. It must connect with: Product design Operations Supply chain Commercial strategy Customer experience Otherwise, campaigns become performative overlays on unchanged systems, and consumers notice. What marketers should do differently Three questions can transform sustainability communication: 1. What friction are we ignoring? If people aren’t changing, look beyond motivation, examine structural barriers. 2. Are we asking too much cognitive effort? Decision fatigue kills sustainable action - simplify. 3. Can we redesign rather than persuade? The highest-leverage intervention is often systemic - not communicative. The future belongs to marketers who understand this, not as message creators, but as architects of behavioural ecosystems.

For years, sustainability and marketing have been framed as uneasy bedfellows. One pushes for reduced consumption; the other, supposedly, exists to increase it. This tension has shaped countless conversations inside boardrooms, classrooms, and agency strategy sessions. Can marketing ever truly be sustainable? When I recently spoke with Dr. Sayed Elhoushy, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Queen Mary University of London, he offered a deceptively simple answer: It depends entirely on how we choose to practise marketing That distinction matters more than most organisations realise The overconsumption accusation The criticism isn’t unfounded Traditional marketing has often operated as an amplification system for overconsumption, encouraging people to buy more, upgrade faster, replace sooner, and equate ownership with identity. Seen through this lens, marketing has undeniably contributed to environmental pressure. Sayed ’s own sustainability journey began with witnessing this firsthand. During field training in a large hotel early in his career, he encountered industrial-scale food waste leaving restaurant kitchens every day; the scale shocked him. That moment became the beginning of his research into sustainable consumer behaviour and food waste reduction, work that now informs his teaching and published research. But his conclusion wasn’t that marketing should be abandoned; it was that it should be reimagined. Marketing as a behaviour-shaping discipline If your definition of marketing is “advertising designed to sell more products,” sustainability and marketing will always clash. If your definition is broader, i.e. creating, communicating, and delivering value, then marketing becomes one of the most powerful tools available for sustainability transformation. That’s because marketers understand: Behavioural triggers Narrative framing Habit formation Social norms Cultural meaning-making These are exactly the tools sustainability requires. The challenge isn’t whether marketing belongs in sustainability; the challenge is whether marketers are willing to evolve their role. The food waste lesson One of Sayed’s most revealing examples comes from food waste research conducted with communities in Tower Hamlets. On paper, households are responsible for around 60% of food waste at the consumer level. That statistic seems to point to an obvious solution of changing consumer behaviour. But when speaking directly with households, another story emerged. People weren’t carelessly wasting food, but they were consistently buying more than they intended, even when entering supermarkets with shopping lists. The real culprit was a retail environment engineered to influence purchasing decisions through promotions, layout design, visual cues, scarcity framing, and behavioural nudges. This reframes the problem entirely. It’s not simply about educating individuals; it’s about recognising the systems that shape them. That’s where marketing becomes central. Stop responsibilising the consumer One of the most damaging tendencies in sustainability communication is what might be called responsibility dumping. You’ve seen it: Fly less Waste less Buy better Recycle more Choose wisely None of these messages is inherently wrong, but the problem is when they imply that sustainability failure rests primarily with individual consumers. As Sayed notes, people are increasingly fatigued by being told they alone must solve systemic problems. Eventually, communication fatigue becomes disengagement, then scepticism and then outright resistance. This is one reason sustainability messaging so often fails, not because audiences don’t care, but because they feel unfairly burdened. A better model: redesign the system One of the most compelling examples we discussed was Stroodles. Rather than persuading consumers to make “better” decisions around single-use plastic cutlery, the company redesigned the product entirely by creating edible utensils. No behaviour-change lecture required, no guilt-based messaging, no decision fatigue, just a fundamentally better system design. This is sustainability marketing at its best, not persuasion, but transformation. The marketer’s new brief The future of sustainability marketing is not about making unsustainable systems sound responsible. It’s about helping organisations redesign value creation itself. That means asking harder questions:  Are we solving the problem upstream? Are we changing products, not just campaigns? Are we reducing decision friction? Are we creating behavioural ease? Are we designing for better defaults? This is a fundamentally more ambitious role for marketing and a far more meaningful one. The marketers who embrace it won’t simply communicate sustainability, they’ll help create it.

In the final part of our conversation with Deepa Rao, we look at the end-game of digital sustainability: accountability. If you think your 100-page sustainability report is gathering dust on a shelf, think again. The AI is reading it, and it's looking for contradictions.