Sustainability Symposium 2024: Existential Solutions - Ashlee Piper

00:00:04:19 - 00:00:39:04
Mike collignon: All right. Our next speaker is a returning guest of the symposium. Ashley Piper is a sustainability expert, author, and speaker whose work has been featured on 270 plus television segments on numerous well-known shows. Piper's best selling book, Give a Shit, Do Good Live, Better Save the Planet. It's been hailed as the sustainability Bible by celebrities and reviewers she's consulted on sustainability practices with many well-known companies, has been a cabinet level adviser to two Massachusetts governors and a spoken at the UN.

00:00:39:06 - 00:00:54:22
Mike collignon: South by Southwest. And Ted Piper is also the creator of the No New Things challenge and is a professor of sustainability marketing. So, Ashley, welcome back to the Symposium. It's good to see you again. Well, I'll see you at the moment, but I will see you.

00:00:54:22 - 00:00:56:06
Mike collignon: There you are.

00:00:56:09 - 00:01:13:25
Ashlee Piper: Hi. Thanks so much, Mike, for that. Really. I mean, every time I come here, which this is my second time, I'm very excited to be a repeat, a repeat offender at Greenville. Me? You guys always give me the most illustrious and wonderful introduction. So I really appreciate that. And to follow Shia too. I mean, come on, forget about it.

00:01:13:25 - 00:01:32:06
Ashlee Piper: That's just so much awesomeness. So hello everyone. Good afternoon. And I'm going to share my screen. We'll see with varying success if that works. Will one of y'all let me know? Oh, okay. Great. Here we go. I'm.

00:01:32:09 - 00:01:45:10
Ashlee Piper: Why not just start at the very beginning of this? You know what I'm saying? All right, everyone, so I do have a deck here. We're going to keep it fun and lively here. At least that's my goal. Can everybody see everything all right?

00:01:45:12 - 00:01:46:25
Mike collignon: I'm assuming. Good.

00:01:46:27 - 00:02:10:16
Ashlee Piper: Someone will give me some kind of something here. So I'm going to go ahead and get into it. So we're going to be talking about from distrust to delight. I'm going to just move this all the way down here. And this is really talking about consumer stuff. So as you guys lovely. The lovely introduction kind of touched on I'm Ashley Piper, I'm a sustainability expert.

00:02:10:17 - 00:02:32:24
Ashlee Piper: I do a lot in media around teaching people how to live more sustainably and just bringing more awareness to sustainable living. And you mentioned my No New Things challenge. I actually just inked a book deal for the second book in 2025 around no new Things. So I'm really excited about that. This is a picture of me with lots of flowers that are drawn around there, so hopefully that brightens your day.

00:02:32:25 - 00:03:08:21
Ashlee Piper: Certainly was a was a fun picture to include. So let's go. What are we going to be talking about today? So one, if you attended last year and you maybe participate in or attended my session last year, you might remember that we talked a lot about generational marketing, kind of with a broad brush. We talked about marketing and communications to all of the generations that kind of are still in that purchasing category in sustainability today, I'm going to be talking more squarely about Gen Z and millennials, and I'll get more into the rationale as to why that's going to be our area of focus for today.

00:03:08:24 - 00:03:28:17
Ashlee Piper: So we're going to talk about that. And then we're also going to talk about eco anxiety and apathy, how widespread it is, how it's going to impact the way that you are going to communicate and connect with customers and potential customers. We're going to talk about the state of consumer skepticism, which is increasingly important to understand the different nuances of.

00:03:28:17 - 00:03:59:04
Ashlee Piper: And then Sarah's great title here, Transforming Distrust into delight. And then, of course, I want to give plenty of time for questions and answers as well. Look who's talking Gen Z and millennials. So I am an elder millennial myself, and it might seem that these two generations have significant chasms, but actually they have a lot more in common than we might think, especially when you're talking about or marketing or communicating about a sustainable good service or virtue of your organization.

00:03:59:07 - 00:04:19:06
Ashlee Piper: So just to give a little clarity, a lot of there's almost like no standardized timeline for these generations. But as you can see, here's the millennials, the Gen Zers, we're kind of standing strong from 1981 to about 2012. And here are some of the similarities. And of course, there are going to be similarities because they're only a generation apart.

00:04:19:06 - 00:04:44:01
Ashlee Piper: But the reason why this particular session is focusing on Gen Z and millennials is because these are the generations that care the most. And when I say the most, I mean overwhelmingly the most about climate change. So recent survey of Gen Z and millennials, 60%. So they consider climate change to be a critical threat. And 37% of those say that it is their top concern.

00:04:44:02 - 00:05:13:19
Ashlee Piper: Number one concern. So over pandemic, over economic downturn, over defense and war. Number one concern is climate change. That is statistically incredibly significant. The other thing that's very important to remember about these two generations combined, as she also touched on, is that their collective purchasing power will surpass that of boomers around the year 2030. So obviously, as these generations get older, their purchasing power is going to become a lot more potent in the domestic and the global consumer marketplace.

00:05:13:24 - 00:05:42:19
Ashlee Piper: But also, and not to be grim, boomers are going to be transitioning some of their own wealth to these generations through inheritances. And so Gen Z and millennials are set to inherit about $68 trillion in wealth, transferring from boomers to them by the end of this decade, which is extremely significant and important to remember. And so these generations also really require that companies exercise social responsibility beyond just contributing to the economy.

00:05:42:22 - 00:06:07:14
Ashlee Piper: Older generations, as we kind of touched on in last year's session, really, we're fine to allow organizations and companies to exist in a vacuum to be like, okay, this company provides a good or service that's pretty high quality. So that's fine. And they're contributing to the economy by providing jobs and making things right. That's no longer good enough for Gen Z and millennials.

00:06:07:14 - 00:06:34:07
Ashlee Piper: They're really looking for organizations and companies to be almost like a person, almost personifying qualities that human beings have, that we appreciate. And they're looking for companies to have significantly more courage than they've ever had before, to step out of what their kind of normal roles and responsibilities are, and really step up to be a participatory and change making, change making entity in society.

00:06:34:07 - 00:07:00:20
Ashlee Piper: So they're looking to companies to address systemic injustices, even if those don't necessarily seem, at first blush, like they matter to the companies. You know what the company is actually doing. They expect companies to meaningfully pursue activism, regeneration, circularity, transparency. These aren't just kind of like nice to have most Gen Z and millennial consumers, as we'll see kind of as we get further into this presentation, really expect this.

00:07:00:20 - 00:07:26:07
Ashlee Piper: And these are the delineating and differentiating qualities that all other things being equal, will make these consumers go over to another company that they feel is acting in a way that's more commensurate with these expectations. These generations also have an automatic suspicion of more established companies. So long gone are the days when it's like, well, my grandfather, my father really loved this company.

00:07:26:07 - 00:08:02:14
Ashlee Piper: We always bought this brand, XYZ brand, right? And that doesn't cut it with Gen Z and millennials especially doesn't cut it with Gen Z. There's none of that kind of inheriting brand loyalty from family members, you know, especially older generations with these younger generations. And I think part of that is one kind of just a, a distrust of the status quo, business as usual, folks who might be older, but also these are generations that grew up with the startup, which really wasn't a phenomenon or anything that older generations had been as exposed to.

00:08:02:15 - 00:08:24:01
Ashlee Piper: It certainly wasn't to the level that it is now. So there is an attitude or an openness to the freshness of a new company, of something new. And you see that overwhelmingly in the way that Gen Z and millennials purchase things. New companies are actually seen in some ways as potentially more trustworthy than Old guard, more established companies who may have more of a track record.

00:08:24:01 - 00:08:50:05
Ashlee Piper: So that's an important thing to remember. And just as these generations want humanness in the way that companies conduct themselves, they also want humanness and storytelling and humility in their marketing to these generations. Vulnerability. And I mean kind of in all its forms, like, hey, your company wasn't able to actualize that particular sustainability goal. Or maybe they kind of fudged on that claim and it was a little bit misleading.

00:08:50:09 - 00:09:14:16
Ashlee Piper: These generations are very interested and seeing courage and vulnerability and companies stepping up and saying, you know what we built on that we really messed up on that because they see that as being something that builds trust, like showing that you're kind of flawed, that something didn't go according to plan. And being really communicative and transparent about that is considered a positive for these generations.

00:09:14:24 - 00:09:34:10
Ashlee Piper: They also have broader, more unwavering requirements for representation and inclusivity. So this tokenism stuff is not going to work, and it's much broader as far as they want to see that your organization, i.e. the people who work for you, are a reflection of the diversity of the consumer base that you intend to serve. They want to see it in your marketing.

00:09:34:10 - 00:09:56:21
Ashlee Piper: They want to see it in the language that you use. They want to see reflections of themselves in pretty much every way that your organization conducts itself. And that's something obviously that's much different than older generations as well. And these folks are much more likely to embrace a fewer but better kind of ethos. So they tend to favor minimalism, portability, this perceived kind of freedom of digital nomadism.

00:09:56:21 - 00:10:19:06
Ashlee Piper: So millennials especially, are kind of the ones who tend to be downsizing a bit more doing the van life thing. And they really opt for that, like by once, by better, you know, kind of ethos that really is aligned with sustainability issues. So it kind of does seem to fit and trend with that. So a lot of similarities between these generations, but obviously some changes or differences as well.

00:10:19:09 - 00:10:42:13
Ashlee Piper: Gen Z here makes up a pretty good percentage of the US population and the global consumer population. And they're buying power is still going pretty strong. Obviously they're younger, they're not yet entering the job or they're just entering the job market. They haven't had time to build up that purchasing power and kind of financial stability. Millennials obviously are going to be outpacing them in that just because they've had significantly more time to do that.

00:10:42:13 - 00:11:08:26
Ashlee Piper: And the future purchasing power of millennials is estimated to be about $1.4 trillion and account for 30% of retail sales. So a pretty significant piece of the pie there. One way they are similar is is, but maybe to differing degrees, is that they are both willing to spend a lot more on sustainable goods and services. All other things being equal, they will spend more money on a product or a service that has significant sustainable cred to it.

00:11:08:26 - 00:11:34:19
Ashlee Piper: And they're eco conscious to the point of changing their buying habits. So we know that in the demand for consumer goods that have some sort of sustainability virtue attached to them, especially multiple sustainability credentials, for instance, are going to be much more attractive to these generations because, you know, we've seen the demand out there. They both also experience climate anxiety, which we'll get to in a little bit more breadth in a moment.

00:11:34:21 - 00:11:53:02
Ashlee Piper: But they experience it slightly differently. So Gen Z much more intensely experiences climate anxiety. And it's a much more personal experience for them as well because they look at their future and see, holy smokes, you know, is there going to be the ecosystem here? Are these cities still going to be available as weather going to be habitable in certain places?

00:11:53:02 - 00:12:18:01
Ashlee Piper: So they're seeing the physical manifestations of climate change, and it makes their lives feel incredibly frightening, to the point where what they're seeing and what they're experiencing and the anxiety they're experiencing is actually moving them to change their plans or their hopes around family planning and the kinds of jobs that they might have. So you see polls that have Gen Z saying, I don't think I'm gonna have children because I'm afraid enough for my own future.

00:12:18:01 - 00:12:44:02
Ashlee Piper: I don't even know what the future holds for them. Or they're looking at jobs that, for instance, might be located in a place or might be a particular set of responsibilities that are going to enable them to have a little bit more job security as ecosystems and our planet change, whereas millennials feel somewhat are very concerned about climate change, a good amount of them, they're very attuned to climate change, but they see climate change less personally and more as an issue for their children.

00:12:44:02 - 00:13:16:01
Ashlee Piper: So in some ways, that makes it feel even higher stakes for them, because they're deeply concerned about the life or the planet that they're leaving for their kids. A way that we see that they're very different is that Gen Z obviously born as digital natives, they are habituated to incredibly high touch communication, information sharing, and they're exposed to a lot of misinformation, too, because so much is this fast moving swirl of social media and kind of internet, high touch communication, whereas you have millennials who are raised in lower and emerging tech, but they're still fluent in high touch tech and social media.

00:13:16:01 - 00:13:36:07
Ashlee Piper: So this actually makes millennials incredibly well suited to multi-generational marketing roles because they're straddling those two worlds. And thus a lot of times they know how to speak to a variety of audiences. Not saying Gen Z can't or other generations can't, but they just kind of have that lived experience of being in two technologically very diverse worlds and harmonizing the two.

00:13:36:10 - 00:13:57:18
Ashlee Piper: Both are very interested in activism. Right now, the polls are actually showing that though Gen Z tends to be kind of branded the young activist type of group, millennials are slightly more likely to be involved in climate activism, and I think the reason why this doesn't seem intuitive at first blush is because the term activism is kind of oblique, right?

00:13:57:18 - 00:14:17:10
Ashlee Piper: You can do activism like protesting, you know, down the street, or you can do financial activism, like donating. So I think in some ways, millennials, obviously, because they are more financially stable, they're going to be able to kind of financially contribute to organizations. And that in and of itself is also activism. This is something really important to remember.

00:14:17:11 - 00:14:45:26
Ashlee Piper: Gen Z is the generation that has grown up being almost auto didactic when it comes to consumer goods and communications. They are used to doing their own research. They like to do it. So they're much more they're much more likely to scrutinize a purchase that they make over the course of days and research into it. And this is important to remember as we move through this presentation as well, because Gen Z, they're the researching generation.

00:14:45:26 - 00:15:22:17
Ashlee Piper: They'll go ahead and of their own volition, start researching whether or not your company's sustainability claims are for real. This is the generation that's not only going to catch you if you're not being transparent or authentic, they're going to communicate it like a wildfire on social media, and they're going to call you out. So this is a very important kind of chain of events to remember, is that Gen Z is incredibly dedicated to doing their own research and pretty judicious about the purchases that they make, whereas millennials still do a little bit of research, but they're much more the impulse shoppers 70 to the tune of like 76% who do it often.

00:15:22:20 - 00:15:48:27
Ashlee Piper: So they're a little bit less likely to go dig in and research whether or not, for instance, a marketing claim around net zero is correct or you're making good on that, but Gen Z, they will. And then Gen Z is less concerned about privacy. They're kind of more willing to give over their information, but they prefer a self service kind of situation as opposed to in, in, in house customer or in person customer service experiences.

00:15:48:29 - 00:16:12:27
Ashlee Piper: And then you have millennials who actually kind of have a bit of a holdover from older generations. They really they really value kind of fast, high quality, personalized, positive customer service experiences. They're less likely to be into, like a self-checkout or an AI chatbot, helping them to fix an issue with a vacuum. Right. But they're much more allegiant to their privacy.

00:16:12:27 - 00:16:18:19
Ashlee Piper: They're much more tight fisted when it comes to handing over their information.

00:16:18:22 - 00:16:44:21
Ashlee Piper: I kind of call Gen Z the real influencers here because, well, one, they are the influencer kind of social media generation. But though they might not yet have reached the status where they are, you know, just because of where they are in life and their age, having a lot of purchasing power relative to other generations, they will significant amount of influence in their households that crosses multiple generations.

00:16:44:21 - 00:17:14:00
Ashlee Piper: So they've been kind of deemed the most disruptive generation ever. And they can influence the purchasing choices and the values, which is really meaningful of millennials, Gen Xers and Boomers. So that's something to also remember. A lot of them potentially are still living at home. And so their sentiments and their activism and their research and their communication of that to their family members, of their household members is, of course, wearing off onto them or is is wearing on to the other family members.

00:17:14:01 - 00:17:47:24
Ashlee Piper: They're also the most diverse and culturally fluid generation. So traditions, systems and norms are not automatically accepted. This is the same thing as like, oh, my grandfather loved this company, so I love this company. No, they look at everything as on the table to be questioned, dismantled and reinvented and their must more likely to boycott brands because of inaction or unaligned values to Gen Z, especially, not taking a stance and not taking action are considered taking a stance and taking action.

00:17:47:26 - 00:18:19:16
Ashlee Piper: So let's talk about eco anxiety, because who doesn't love that makes us feel really good. But it is. It's a it's a tough topic, but it's an important one to understand because it has evolved so dramatically in the past 20 years. I'm sure there are a lot of folks on the call who have been working in sustainability for a very long time, and when, myself included, when we used to bring up, hey, climate change is going to have significant psychological, emotional, psychosocial impacts that we haven't even begun to understand.

00:18:19:18 - 00:18:50:14
Ashlee Piper: People would laugh at us. They would say, no, it's fine. It's not. Not a big deal. Everybody will, whether it it's okay. And now it's to the point where ICO anxiety has many names and it actually has a clinical designation as well. So you might hear climate anxiety, eco anxiety, solar, which is kind of a mix of Latin and Greek words that basically mean like an nostalgia elements, a grief for a changing environment that you once knew climate doom, climate grief, eco distress.

00:18:50:14 - 00:19:13:18
Ashlee Piper: I'm sure there will be many others that are added to the lexicon here as this phenomena evolves, but 72% of people who are kind of in this 18 to 34 category said that negative environmental news, which obviously we see a lot more of nowadays affects their emotional well-being. And 75% have said that their future feels frightening because of climate change.

00:19:13:20 - 00:19:39:23
Ashlee Piper: A 2020 survey found that Gen Z and keep in mind this is in 2020, found that Gen Z reported more distress from climate change than from Covid, which, if you're talking 2020, Covid was kind of very significant piece of uncertainty in the world. So to still take a poll and say, oh no, I'm I'm much more distressed about climate change than I am about this global pandemic is pretty important to remember.

00:19:39:25 - 00:20:05:17
Ashlee Piper: A 2021 global survey, which is actually the largest of its kind to date, a very significant sample size, found that 45% of young people said that climate anxiety negatively impacted the way they eat, work, sleep and all these other aspects of their daily lives. So this worry had transformed into this debilitating anxiety, basically kind of followed them around throughout their entire lives and stymied the way that they do things, the way that they operate now.

00:20:05:17 - 00:20:32:15
Ashlee Piper: Social listenings, kind of one of the the most powerful ways or the most accurate ways that we can determine how quickly this idea of eco anxiety is either being experienced or spreading. And so eco anxiety, the hashtag for that just on TikTok alone to date, has 78.4 million views on TikTok. That's not nothing. And worldwide, Google searches for climate anxiety or eco anxiety, this one blows my mind.

00:20:32:17 - 00:21:06:24
Ashlee Piper: Increased by 4,500% in just five years. So this shows this has entered the guys. This is like part of the collective experience now and some key takeaways. So therapists are actually seeing an extreme increase in people who are seeking clinical assistance from them, with their primary reason being climate anxiety. They've seen a huge uptake in it to the point where it's actually becoming in certain psychology schools, an area of focus.

00:21:06:24 - 00:21:37:11
Ashlee Piper: So it's if that's happening, you know, that this is swirling and that it's getting more and more. And what we've seen in granted, the studies out there are pretty preliminary. This is still a burgeoning field, but that one of the best ways to treat kind of climate anxiety is collective action or individual action. The collective action has been shown to actually be more helpful, perhaps because it feels like you're moving forward and also you're building a community, or you have that sense of solidarity.

00:21:37:12 - 00:22:05:01
Ashlee Piper: But the combination of the two individual actions say, I'm doing something like starting to recycle, starting to compost, eating less meat, whatever that might be, and I'm complementing that with some kind of collective action. I attend a protest. I am part of a group that does beach cleanups, whatever it might be. Those two have actually had really preliminary IT positive clinical signs that it was climate anxiety for these younger generations.

00:22:05:03 - 00:22:40:25
Ashlee Piper: And that feeling of solidarity, having influence, engaging in collective action community helps to give that relief. An important thing to remember here, if you're an organization or a company, is that Gen Z especially feels incredibly unheard and invalidated in their experience with climate anxiety. They see, and a lot of polls have kind of stressed this. They see that they're seeing their future as being completely, at best, like, not like very uncertain and at worst extremely hostile and frightening.

00:22:40:25 - 00:23:04:10
Ashlee Piper: And then they see companies or family members, for instance, who are comprised of older people, older generations, kind of operating as business as usual, like, oh, the world's burning around us, but we're still buying shoes. And that really psychologically is, as you can imagine, extremely bothersome. And so a lot of Gen Zers especially feel that companies don't really see them.

00:23:04:10 - 00:23:32:26
Ashlee Piper: And just society at large doesn't really see this struggle and hasn't validated them. That's important to remember, because as we get into how you market to this generation especially, you need to be focusing on genuine connection of seeing them, of making them feel seen in this really existential, kind of troubling experience, and also that you can be seen as a solution in that experience, like, hey, I totally get where you're feeling, understand where you're coming from.

00:23:32:26 - 00:24:10:03
Ashlee Piper: Here's what we're doing to try to make it better. All right. So not buying it here. Let's talk about the state of consumer skepticism. It's rich. It's deep. Here's what these generations are not buying. A poll of about 26,000 consumers and 33 markets. That's not insignificant. Y'all found that 50% of them believe that brands across all those industries are misleading with their green claims, 72% of American companies are estimated to be greenwashing, and 98% of products with sustainable marketing claims in a sample were shown to be misleading about those claims.

00:24:10:05 - 00:24:32:00
Ashlee Piper: 58% of younger generations reported that they were skeptical of companies environmental claims, and 71% said that they would stop buying a product if they discovered that it was not environmentally friendly as advertised. So remember all of those things being equal, these are generations that really, really care and will put their money in places that are genuinely making good.

00:24:32:00 - 00:24:57:22
Ashlee Piper: On sustainability claims 49% of boycotted brands that have acted against sustainable values. And you need to think about it like this too, as Gen Z is the research kind of generation, they're going to look at the entire catalog or menu of your organization's offerings or products or services. If they see something in there that feels not mission consistent with what your company is espoused or their sustainability values, they'll go somewhere else.

00:24:57:28 - 00:25:17:26
Ashlee Piper: And the fact of the matter is this the landscape right now is not the same as it was 20 years ago or even ten years ago. There is a plethora. There's a bounty of sustainable products and goods and services out there that folks can choose from because sustainability, though it's not a trend, has become intensely commodified. So people have a lot of choice.

00:25:17:27 - 00:25:36:04
Ashlee Piper: Gone are the days where companies kind of have a monopoly, or the market cornered on a single product that happens to be sustainable. There might be some of those anomalous instances, but they're kind of becoming more and more rare. So consumers have a lot of choice here, and especially with a lot of younger and newer companies coming up as well.

00:25:36:04 - 00:25:58:13
Ashlee Piper: And this generation's really liking that newness and trusting the newness of a startup, you better believe they won't hesitate to go somewhere else to find another product that will make good on their sustainability claims, so that 49% boycotting brands that have acted kind of incongruent with those sustainability values. Remember that it's extremely important and they don't forget it either.

00:25:58:15 - 00:26:25:26
Ashlee Piper: Here's what they are buying into. When they believe that a brand or a company cares about its impact on people and planet, they're 27% more likely to purchase from it than older generations. And they also really value transparency. So which is great because transparency and sustainability go hand in hand. If a brand seems genuinely transparent, these generations are 20% more likely to choose that brand over competitors.

00:26:25:29 - 00:26:57:04
Ashlee Piper: This statistic really echoes what I said in the beginning. These generations overwhelmingly feel that companies should be environmentally responsible, that companies should be more than just companies, these kind of siloed entities who just, like, stimulate the economy. And I think this one's one to really hone in on, too. So much of marketing and communications is around feeling and how you make potential consumer or you know, someone feel, and especially when you're marketing to women.

00:26:57:06 - 00:27:19:14
Ashlee Piper: We have a lot of statistics around that. Longitudinal studies that have shown that women are much more likely to buy things if they feel happy, sad, bored, cold, you know, a variety of feelings. 64% of folks in these generations who were pulled say that they feel happy when buying a sustainable product. That is an opportunity for businesses not just to make money, but rather to build brand loyalty.

00:27:19:15 - 00:27:44:07
Ashlee Piper: If you are giving those feelings of happiness because these customers feel like they are providing a real solution, by engaging with your product, engaging with your brand, engaging with your service, that is something that's going to build enduring brand loyalty over many, over many generations. And consumers want these substantial, these substantiated sustainability claims. They want them also to be holistic.

00:27:44:07 - 00:28:06:04
Ashlee Piper: So they don't just want you to say, hey, you know, we recycled plastic bottles to make this product. They want to know about your supply chain, your commitment to human rights, your commitment to animal rights, how are workers being treated, how is the environment being left? They want like an absolutely holistic and intersectional approach to sustainability. Sustainability just cannot be siloed anymore.

00:28:06:05 - 00:28:25:23
Ashlee Piper: That's just far too simple and honestly, kind of blind spotted as far as how the world works. So that's what these generations are really buying and not buying. And let's talk about greenwashing because it used to be. I don't know about y'all, but you could be in a boardroom and people would be haha, about greenwashing when you'd say, well, is that actually like a substantial claim?

00:28:25:23 - 00:28:50:10
Ashlee Piper: We probably should watch ourselves on that. Oh, what's someone going to do? There's nothing legally enforceable about it. There's no standards on using the terms green and natural and clean and eco friendly, and we're still in that kind of gray area space, at least until the FTC completely revises and reissues the Green Book status. Since Earth standards since 2012, which I believe is forthcoming any day now, basically.

00:28:50:12 - 00:29:16:20
Ashlee Piper: But we don't have a standardized lexicon for how we refer to sustainable products, not a universal one at least. So hopefully that will offer some sort of parameters by which marketers and companies can just kind of fall in line and have a universal definition of some of those hot, those hot button terms. A survey found that a survey of a lot of CEOs found that 98% agreed that sustainability is now crucial in their role.

00:29:16:21 - 00:29:37:17
Ashlee Piper: I pity the fools who are in the 2%, y'all. Those guys certainly aren't in this in this presentation here. They're not at this symposium because that would be wild. But yeah, if you're if a company is not focusing on sustainability and also isn't focusing on taking their sustainable claims seriously, you're going to get left behind. That's just where things are going.

00:29:37:19 - 00:30:00:14
Ashlee Piper: And another good example of this is ESG products now account for nearly half of all retail sales in examined categories. Half this was something that was kind of deemed a trend, a passing trend, a passing phase ten years ago. And it's one of the largest growing areas of consumer interest in the world. And it continues to grow really significantly.

00:30:00:16 - 00:30:23:20
Ashlee Piper: So something to remember here too, about this FTC Green Guide is like these parameters when they come out are not necessarily legally enforceable, but they can be used as a North Star for more civil litigation. And they have been so class action lawsuits accusing marketers and making misleading environmental claims have really skyrocketed. There were more than 100 last year.

00:30:23:20 - 00:30:58:22
Ashlee Piper: And while it might be like, oh well, it's no big deal. To our right here we have some of the largest fines that companies were assessed for greenwashing sort of violations or misleading folks on things. And not all of these are that far, far, long ago. I hyperlinked a study here. I put the the address here. I think it's a really great one, because it's the only one that I've seen that actually takes some clinical rigor and some more anecdotal sociological information and looks at what is the best approach.

00:30:58:24 - 00:31:22:29
Ashlee Piper: If your company has been accused of greenwashing, how do you win back consumer trust after something like that has happened? And they studied a variety of approaches and consumer sentiment after that, and what they found was one, the bar is high, the hurdle is high once, especially with these younger generations. Once your company has been accused of greenwashing, it's difficult to get back in their good graces.

00:31:22:29 - 00:31:51:02
Ashlee Piper: But it's not impossible. And they kind of juxtaposed a variety of approaches and found two that emerged kind of most victorious. And though it is an academic paper, I would definitely recommend you all read it if you're interested in any of that, because there is so little guidance on how to actually communicate and market sustainability credentials there. So at some point, even the best intentions companies or products are going to be called out for potentially being greenwashing.

00:31:51:02 - 00:32:16:28
Ashlee Piper: And it's really good to know how to positively and reparative respond to that as an organization. And this is kind of the first piece of research that actually shows what seems to work in, in the world of consumer sentiment. So check it out. Okay. So how do we transform this distrust into delight? I'm so glad you asked. As of today, you're a person.

00:32:16:28 - 00:32:49:10
Ashlee Piper: You're not an organization. These generations want your organization and its offerings to be like a well-rounded person. So I kind of when I work with companies, I always say like, think of your like marketing your offerings, almost like your person on a dating site. Not like a creepy dating site, but one where if you know, all things being equal, you had to folks you were kind of debating between are you going to be interested in the person who has one single hobby, or are you going to be interested in person who shows vulnerability has a lot of areas of interest and passion, things that they're doing.

00:32:49:10 - 00:33:13:03
Ashlee Piper: So being well-rounded is very important. And also showing that humanism, that vulnerability, that is what these generations want. And the good news is that while this might feel demanding because a lot of companies haven't been expected to do this with older generations, the other side of the coin is that these generations are incredibly forgiving when, you know, maybe your company kind of had a boo boo, right?

00:33:13:03 - 00:33:48:00
Ashlee Piper: You messed up. You weren't able to necessarily actualize some of your claims in your ESG report, right? They like that vulnerability that's considered intent is much more important with millennials and Gen Zers than perfection. So just remember that it kind of can be a little bit arduous to kind of re-engineer your companies, like your company's profile a little bit in the eyes of these generations as being softer and more human, but also that softness and that humanness is going to be really helpful when something has gone wrong and you have to communicate that they're going to be much more open to that.

00:33:48:02 - 00:34:09:29
Ashlee Piper: You need to, again, create products, services, goals that holistically and intersectional touch a variety of values and issues. So I've said this again I'm going to be a broken record. But gone are the days when you can approach diversity or corporate responsibility or sustainability in a siloed way. We need to recognize the interconnectedness of things and create strategies that address all of those intersections.

00:34:09:29 - 00:34:38:27
Ashlee Piper: And an example I like to use is think of a product that you make, or think of a service that you offer. So we could do this with everything from glitter eyeshadow to making a cell phone. You need to go from point A, how are we sourcing the materials? Who is sourcing those materials? Are they treated fairly or they in a place where if I'm funding this sheltered workshop or something to do assembly or ingredient or materials harvesting, am I funding militaristic factions that are subjugating people?

00:34:39:00 - 00:35:02:02
Ashlee Piper: You need to go to that place. Is there environmental degradation in the assembly process? Our animals being harmed? Are we, you know, just a variety of things that you need to think about. And it may seem complex, but this is what your consumers and these generations are thinking about. Their extremely attuned to the entire life cycle of a product, not just what they're holding in their hands or being marketed.

00:35:02:02 - 00:35:21:11
Ashlee Piper: So they want to know the provenance and all of the virtues and challenges associated with getting that product into their hands. And they want to know where people being treated fairly at every step. We're animals being treated fairly at every step, with the environment being honored and left better than you found it at every step. How long did it have to travel here?

00:35:21:11 - 00:35:38:25
Ashlee Piper: What are the emissions associated with that? What about the emissions associated with the brick and mortar or your website? They want to know those things that kind of granular level detail along the supply chain. And they also want to know what happens at the end life of an item. Are you going to take responsibility for it? Is the onus on the consumer.

00:35:38:25 - 00:36:00:25
Ashlee Piper: What does that look like? What does that mean? What's the off gassing of an item? How long will it take to biodegrade? How can we effectively recycle these components? All of that is really important. And all of that needs to be a piece of a key piece and how you approach sustainability. So from the not just the environmental impact, but the animal impact, the human impact.

00:36:00:25 - 00:36:20:10
Ashlee Piper: And they also want to know, are you approaching your workforce in a way that is kind of in that intersectional mindset as well? So once you've identified those intersecting issues, you need to develop plans to start remedying them, because obviously none among us are perfect. They're always going to be hitches. We exist in a system that's kind of exploitative anyway.

00:36:20:10 - 00:36:53:29
Ashlee Piper: So show me any company that's able to make a product that doesn't have a few questionable elements along the supply chain, and I will. I would be really shocked. Even some of the best companies that I've worked with have been really sustainability focused in human rights focused for 30, 40 years, come up with come up against dilemmas where they're like, oh gosh, sourcing Micah, do I do synthetic, which might make people out there nervous because it's synthetic, or do I do natural, which has a lot of human rights violations and environmental implications to the harvesting of it.

00:36:53:29 - 00:37:23:06
Ashlee Piper: So it's just being transparent about that and showing that you're really examining how your organization is creating products or getting them to market is important. And you also want to ensure that you're communicating these values properly. So there was a fantastic McKinsey and Nielsen IQ study that actually found that across a lot of product categories, and 80% of those categories, products that made multiple types of ESG claims grew about twice as fast as products that made only one.

00:37:23:07 - 00:37:45:06
Ashlee Piper: So to kind of put this in context, say I have I have a lipstick, right? I have a lipstick. It says it's vegan and that's it. Okay, cool. I might be looking for a vegan lipsticks that might fit the bill, but I have another lipstick. It says it's vegan cruelty free, that the palm oil has been sourced sustainably and that it's in compostable packaging.

00:37:45:06 - 00:38:17:24
Ashlee Piper: Well, most consumers are going to buy that one because they like to see multiple sustainability virtues in one place. Demonstrate your organization's humanity because you're a person, not an orc, via inclusion rather than exclusion. So it used to be in marketing 101, that exclusivity was an actual hook. And that worked extremely well actually with boomers, and especially with Gen X, having a product that felt really unattainable, created that and ceded that desire for that product.

00:38:17:25 - 00:38:43:15
Ashlee Piper: That doesn't work nearly as much with millennials and definitely not with Gen Z. They're so attuned to what's going on in the world, the injustices in the world, that they actually find that approach pretty gauche. And so they don't like that kind of exclusionary way of marketing things. And then again, you need to validate these customers experiences that they're having with climate anxiety in a tender, genuine way, like a confidant would.

00:38:43:17 - 00:39:02:11
Ashlee Piper: It's important to show them that you see what they're going through and that you're going to be a solution, partner in that. And then again, if your org is been accused of greenwashing, go back and read that study. It is so good. Trustworthiness demonstration is one of the tactics or approaches that was shown to actually be really reparative.

00:39:02:11 - 00:39:32:16
Ashlee Piper: And that's visualizing the environmental behavior of the company. What are you going to do next? How are you going to make it better? So the second thing trust via transparency. I'm sure you've seen this, heard this forever. Be transparent, build trust. But transparency builds trust. That's just the freaking truth. So high touch social media fluency and the self-starting researcher component of Gen Z means you cannot pull the wool over their eyes with kind of typical marketing corporate BS deflection techniques.

00:39:32:16 - 00:39:56:12
Ashlee Piper: It's not going to work. Not only are they going to know it immediately, they're going to call you out about it. You will be canceled. The optics of your company and the reputation will be really trampled on. It will be difficult to recover. So it's best to be transparent and courageous with your transparency. Employ generation appropriate storytelling to relate your organization's sustainability wins as well as shortcomings.

00:39:56:12 - 00:40:23:12
Ashlee Piper: So again, building being transparent about failings is actually a form of building trust with these younger generations and highly trusted companies outperform others by about 400% in terms of market value. So you cannot underestimate trust at all. And building trust with these more suspicious and skeptical generations who have grown up with like, tons of brainwashing and being lied to, and then have a healthy kind of natural distrust of older generations and old guard companies.

00:40:23:14 - 00:40:45:07
Ashlee Piper: You need to quantify your claims around sustainability as much as possible. This is important for being clear to consumers, but also important as these FTC guidelines come out as well. So for instance, this you know, these leggings are made with recycled plastic bottles. Cool. How many. Oh we offset carbon with the production of this. Cool. How much how many times.

00:40:45:07 - 00:41:11:15
Ashlee Piper: What's going on with that. You need to be very clear about it because what gets tracked gets changed. And consumers want to know that information. And they also want to see that you're going beyond what is required and you're engaging with reputable third party certifier. She said this as well. They want to see the, you know, as much as they're available, those third party certifications on your product, and you need to be regularly auditing to ensure there are no deviations in the supply chain.

00:41:11:15 - 00:41:33:10
Ashlee Piper: Now, to a lot of y'all, I mean, we're at the Green Builder Media Symposium, you know what I'm saying? You're probably already doing this. Great. Excellent. Keep at it. I think this one's really important and companies underestimate this. But you need to make it freaking easy for these consumers to understand what your sustainability claims mean and what the impacts are of them.

00:41:33:17 - 00:42:05:05
Ashlee Piper: So much is already expected of consumers to educate themselves around sustainability, climate change. You know what the impacts are negative and positive of certain actions or purchasing decisions. So you're going to win if you make it easier for them. If you kind of tackle that mental loading, get in front of it. So using at a glance iconography okay, this bad shows me that this product is this using intuitive search, clearly denoting and educating about those sustainability claims is really important.

00:42:05:07 - 00:42:28:23
Ashlee Piper: It is almost relaxing. That's how some consumers have described it. If it's a trustworthy company and they have trust in you, it's relaxing to have that information at a glance so they can make educated decisions. So do that for them. Make it easy. Use fresh, unexpected marketing techniques and channels. Obviously, Gen Z is suspicious of traditional marketing and alternative approaches are seen as more trustworthy.

00:42:28:25 - 00:42:51:11
Ashlee Piper: Choose your partners wisely. We can't be having a, you know, a like a Kendall Jenner Pepsi situation here. You got to choose your partners wisely. When you are working with influencers or spokespeople, you need to understand their reputation and impact in the cultural site. Guys, how are they seen by these generations if that if these generations are your target audience, is this the right fit person for that?

00:42:51:12 - 00:43:19:15
Ashlee Piper: You need to make sure of that, because that can make or break sometimes your marketing campaigns. So whatever influencers or spokespeople you're using, you need to really vet them. Well. And I'm just going to sound like a broken record. I said it last year. I'll say it again this year. You need to hire or have some kind of position, or a consultant who acts as a director of climate communications for your organization, because what they can do is they can make ESG reports less navel gazing, which Lord knows we all love.

00:43:19:15 - 00:43:43:01
Ashlee Piper: That can make what you're doing sustainability wise in your company more appealing to the media. So, so much of what's out there, there's some great ESG reports out there. I'm not shading any of that, and they're fantastic people who work in ESG, obviously very vital. And some of those folks are very fluent in translating and communicating those sustainable strides to a variety of different audiences.

00:43:43:01 - 00:44:02:17
Ashlee Piper: But that's not always the case. And how often do I see on PR Newswire something like X, Y, Z company has released their sustainability report, expecting media to pick up on that and do a big old story on or expecting consumers to go onto the website, find it themselves and read it. And most of the time nothing happens.

00:44:02:17 - 00:44:28:12
Ashlee Piper: Why? Because those reports are so. They're self-congratulatory. They're incredibly they're filled with a ton of data. They're filled with a ton of jargon. If you stop the average person on the street and you ask them if they know what net zero circularity those terms mean, they're not going to know what it means, and they're sure as hell not going to know what it means related to air conditioners or refrigerating, you know, other refrigerants or washing machines, you know, heat pumps.

00:44:28:12 - 00:44:56:10
Ashlee Piper: So it's really important that you have someone who can almost act as a translator in a crisis communicator or crisis manager who can make that information clear and still very genuine but catchy because different audiences want different things. And if you want to communicate that to a broad audience or even a narrow audience, you need to have someone who can kind of translate those great sustainability strides in an exciting and engaging way to especially these younger generations.

00:44:56:10 - 00:45:37:22
Ashlee Piper: And for the record, I do that work. So, you know, hit me up if you need help with that. All right. Number three, community building builds credibility. Okay. These are generations that care about community. Talked earlier about the solidarity component of things, how it's incredibly healing to engage in collective action and meaningful interaction builds loyalty. So you need to be soliciting customer opinions and providing channels for connection in real time, just as they see your brand as part of a really contributed part of society and involve part of society, they want to see themselves once they've kind of crossed the Rubicon from just person who's viewing your company to being a consumer as a part

00:45:37:22 - 00:45:57:18
Ashlee Piper: of your brand. So in order to do that, you need to be creating opportunities for them to engage with your brand beyond just buying things. Right. We can't just be looking at people as consumers. We need to be looking at them as being involved and helping to shape the future and improvement of the organization, the product offerings, the service offerings.

00:45:57:18 - 00:46:23:19
Ashlee Piper: So think about boards, panels, events, ambassadorships, and then how you as an organization can support the goals of your consumers. So grants, fellowships, scholarships, badass internship programs. These are also ways for your organization to address inequities that you have seen when you've been looking at the intersection of intersectional nature of sustainability, and then go beyond marketing to treat product and service development as a community effort.

00:46:23:19 - 00:46:50:20
Ashlee Piper: So a lot of times companies will be like, we got this great product. What do you think about it? Let's get in front of that and say, yo, what is it that you need as a consumer? Now obviously companies invest a lot of money in kind of consumer sentiment and testing and just determining what people might need in the marketplace, but involving your existing customers or potential customers in that effort to craft products and services that really are right sized for their lives is going to build that credibility.

00:46:50:21 - 00:47:20:29
Ashlee Piper: It's going to make them feel like they're folded into the creation process, and that you are developing solutions for them rather than just looking for cash grabs. And again, in the same vein of making it easy for consumers, you have to take the onus off of consumers before you are ever required to and believe in trust. You will be required to the companies right now that are engaging in buyback programs, recycling, repair and circularity programs, those those schemes that basically ease individual responsibility.

00:47:21:01 - 00:47:46:11
Ashlee Piper: They're winning right now and they're going to keep winning. So really looking at what your organization can do around that is going to help a lot. And then how you can market and communicate that, being authentically inclusive in all the ways. This is just fact. Consumers will not buy your stuff if they don't see representation of themselves in your marketing, and they definitely will not engage with the brand that seems to have a distaste for their identity or values.

00:47:46:13 - 00:48:08:08
Ashlee Piper: That's just fact. So if you're not already doing that, which I understand in some ways, it's very difficult to do with a more established legacy older company. You need to start moving toward that, okay. Because the consumer base that was fine with the status quo is not going to be your consumer base for much longer. So you really need to evolve into where society is.

00:48:08:09 - 00:48:29:07
Ashlee Piper: If you still want to have that market share, and then community over profit companies that are bucking consumer traditions, because again, we want to treat our consumers not just like consumers, but like people like we're interested in what they think and feel beyond just what they can do for us as a company and buy things right. Want to give them opportunities to engage without just having to buy stuff.

00:48:29:09 - 00:48:42:14
Ashlee Piper: Bucking these consumer traditions like Black Friday, okay, in favor of giving their workforce a day off or encouraging people to buy less, or treating their employees verifiably well, these are the companies that are going to rise to the top.

00:48:42:16 - 00:48:45:16
Ashlee Piper: Alrighty, that's that everybody.

00:48:45:19 - 00:48:57:09
Ashlee Piper: So I am more than happy to answer any and all questions y'all might have. I will stop sharing my screen as well. And yeah.

00:48:57:11 - 00:49:02:08
Sara Gutterman: Well Ashley, thank you so much. And hello my friend. Great to see you as always.

00:49:02:10 - 00:49:06:02
Ashlee Piper: I'm I agree we like match today we're matching.

00:49:06:05 - 00:49:06:17
Sara Gutterman: Green I.

00:49:06:17 - 00:49:09:07
Mike collignon: Know we're luminous indeed.

00:49:09:08 - 00:49:23:14
Sara Gutterman: Well I think for the people on this webinar who've heard my generational marketing presentation, I think you and I are in such lockstep with respect to. Absolutely. And by the way, I like your new glasses. They look good on you.

00:49:23:16 - 00:49:26:09
Mike collignon: Oh thank you.

00:49:26:11 - 00:49:48:08
Sara Gutterman: So you are always so chock full of so many interesting insights and so many great and astute tips for businesses, business leaders and just individuals creating messaging. I, of course, as always, have questions. So I'm going to ask just a couple and then I'll take it back over to Mike, because I know we have a few audience questions as well.

00:49:48:11 - 00:50:07:09
Sara Gutterman: You had talked about how Gen Z R researchers and, you know, it's kind of the research generation. So can you talk a little bit about how and where they do their research and if companies are trying to reach them in that research process, what's the most effective way to do so?

00:50:07:11 - 00:50:13:02
Ashlee Piper: Yeah. Sarah. Well, it's not microfiche, that's for sure. You know, I'm not at the car catalog. Okay.

00:50:13:04 - 00:50:14:29
Mike collignon: Which I sure did. I strike.

00:50:15:00 - 00:50:20:09
Ashlee Piper: Fear in the hearts of people when I mentioned microfiche, because those of us who remember, we remember.

00:50:20:12 - 00:50:20:25
Mike collignon: So it's.

00:50:20:26 - 00:50:50:17
Ashlee Piper: Obviously it's online, of course, but it's also word of mouth. It's like internet word of mouth is really important. So they're looking to their favorite influencers to get product recommendations. If they've established a basis of trust with those influencers, they're looking to, you know, just do internet searches and they're reading reviews. You know, it wasn't that long ago that a lot of you would buy products online, and there wouldn't be a single viewable review on there that really has been driven by millennials and then by Gen Z wanting to see that, because that's how they shop.

00:50:50:18 - 00:51:10:05
Ashlee Piper: I mean, that's how they look at things and see, did people have a good experience with this? Well, then I'm gonna have a good experience with this. And they also use companies websites to a lot more than I think previous generations have. They will look at your reports. They will read news articles covering potential scandals at your organization.

00:51:10:05 - 00:51:28:06
Ashlee Piper: They will go on. Well, I was about to say Twitter but X and find out you know what what the what the kind of beat on the street is about your organization. They will go on Twitter and search hashtags for your organization's name or like particular buzzwords. So that's how they're doing. The research and word of mouth are kind of getting that trusted.

00:51:28:09 - 00:51:53:00
Ashlee Piper: And I say trust kind of in a trust is different for Gen Z. Trust is like, hey, I trust this TikTok influencer I've never met. You know, it's not as much of an impersonal kind of trust that a lot of us tend to value a lot more. It's it's it's very important to them that if they have a basis of trust with someone who might be like a shadowy internet figure, they're going to go with that person's recommendation.

00:51:53:02 - 00:52:16:18
Sara Gutterman: Thank you. Now, can you share an example of a company that has been vulnerable in their sustainability messaging, in terms of being very transparent, maybe on about a myth or something, you know, a goal that was not obtained or a struggle that and that they did it in a way that engendered more loyalty and trust through that complete transparency.

00:52:16:21 - 00:52:38:07
Ashlee Piper: Sure. I mean, I unfortunately, there are more companies that that kind of fumble the recovery pretty poorly and try to do the age old, like, I'm just going to ignore it. And if I don't see it, it's not there. And that just really makes things even worse with millennials and Gen Z, because they're done with you when you don't actually address something head on.

00:52:38:08 - 00:53:10:07
Ashlee Piper: They appreciate directness and that transparency and that honesty. I've done a lot of work with lush over many, many years. And I will say, though, no company ever gets a perfect. No person ever gets it perfect, right? One of the interesting things is, and I mentioned kind of the Micah example back many years ago when there was like this craze of having everything be natural and that natural things were the right thing, you know, and I guess I don't know why I said back in the day, because that's now, you know, people are very interested in clean living, nontoxic living, all that kind of stuff.

00:53:10:09 - 00:53:37:16
Ashlee Piper: They had switched over to using synthetic mica for a lot of their products that have like shine for for those of us who don't know what mica does in cosmetics, it makes things shiny and kind of iridescent. And they did this internally, not through any consumer pressure because they wanted to, you know, alleviate they didn't want to be participating in the the human rights violations that were happening in the mica mines, basically in like India and Bangladesh.

00:53:37:16 - 00:54:00:16
Ashlee Piper: And so they went ahead and started using a synthetic mica. And a lot of environmental activists immediately heard synthetic without knowing the history or the issues of the product. And they got upset and they started kind of trying to boycott lush. And lush really launched a very, I would say, kind of it was more of a tidy, kind of smaller campaign, but to really educate on why they made those decisions.

00:54:00:16 - 00:54:18:25
Ashlee Piper: And it completely shifted kind of the consumer sentiment, because it essentially brought them into the fold and said, this is why we're doing this. Let us show you pictures of what happens in a mica mine. Let me tell you stories of what happens to these mothers who lose their children because their children are in the mine, or their children have had respiratory issues from this.

00:54:18:25 - 00:54:22:08
Ashlee Piper: And once the consumers felt educated on this, they were like.

00:54:22:08 - 00:54:23:18
Mike collignon: Oh shit. Okay.

00:54:23:19 - 00:54:55:26
Ashlee Piper: Yeah, I get it lush. I'm down with synthetic mica. And I think that was a really elegant way to kind of fold consumers into that decision making process. So they didn't just feel and understand that synthetic isn't always like the demonized, feared term that it needs to be. I think they did that really beautifully. There are other companies that like, gosh, you know, have been called out for human rights violations in manufacturing, for instance, or greenwashing sustainability claims, who still today just would act like nothing's ever happened, who have gone through class action lawsuits and would act like nothing's ever happened.

00:54:55:27 - 00:54:59:07
Ashlee Piper: And I think that's a mistake.

00:54:59:10 - 00:55:17:24
Sara Gutterman: So let me ask one more quick question, and then I'm going to kick it to Mike. Sorry my guy very quickly Ashley in 30s or less. So if a company as you say gets canceled because they've messed up sustainability messaging, how do they claw their way back? How do they regain trust?

00:55:17:26 - 00:55:23:25
Ashlee Piper: Well, admitting the mistake is the first thing you got to issue a culpa. And it needs to be it needs to be.

00:55:23:25 - 00:55:24:07
Ashlee Piper: Good.

00:55:24:07 - 00:55:36:22
Ashlee Piper: And it needs to be vulnerable and it needs to be for real. So I think there's, again, these are the generations that care about intent more than result in a way. So if there's if it feels.

00:55:36:22 - 00:55:37:09
Mike collignon: Like.

00:55:37:09 - 00:55:56:07
Ashlee Piper: The greenwashing wasn't something that was maliciously and intentionally done, you're going to have a lot better chance of recovering from it than if it was something like, yeah, we lie because we knew we'd make a lot more money if we did this right. So I'm just going to on the side of everybody on this call is a good doobie and is in the category of maybe the beef was unintentional.

00:55:56:10 - 00:56:11:04
Ashlee Piper: You just need to be straight up about it. You need to be really authentic about it, and you need to tell them, you know, you need to just say exactly what happened and then have a solution right there. Here's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be providing you with a glimpse inside our, you know, supply chain.

00:56:11:04 - 00:56:22:19
Ashlee Piper: We're going to be providing you with a look inside, you know, weekly reports on what's going on. So then again, they feel folded into the solution.

00:56:22:22 - 00:56:30:21
Mike collignon: Actually I've got a couple questions from the audience if you don't mind. So one of them is from someone also named Ashley.

00:56:30:24 - 00:56:34:04
Mike collignon: And and she's.

00:56:34:07 - 00:56:47:23
Mike collignon: As a, as a millennial employee of a manufacturer mostly headed by folks who. And I love this diplomatic term she uses here who are less impacted by climate shifts, which.

00:56:47:23 - 00:56:48:16
Mike collignon: Is.

00:56:48:18 - 00:56:52:05
Mike collignon: The most elaborate way I've ever heard anybody say, older people.

00:56:52:08 - 00:56:54:18
Mike collignon: How do you.

00:56:54:21 - 00:57:07:01
Mike collignon: How do you recommend influencing adjustments to the mentality towards the environment that you know, it's something important to humanity rather than it's a hurdle to our profitability?

00:57:07:03 - 00:57:47:07
Ashlee Piper: It's an excellent question. It's one that I feel like any panel I'm ever on is often asked because it is a big issue, right? We have multi-generational workplaces, and each generation looks at climate change in a completely different way. And that's not even talking about along party like political party lines to right. So then once you throw that and it gets really complicated, I think that at least in my experience, what I found is that folks who are not moved by the humanity of it and the kind of feelings aspect of climate change are not going to give a shit about it in business, so you're never going to reach them from that perspective, where

00:57:47:07 - 00:58:10:21
Ashlee Piper: you are going to reach them and where we now have a lot of great data, is that sustainability has become such an important component to consumers making purchasing decisions, and the market is so replete with options that if a company doesn't start caring about in a meaningful way, sustainability and all the other intersecting issues, they're going to lose out on a significant amount of market share.

00:58:10:22 - 00:58:29:27
Ashlee Piper: Now, you've got folks who might not care about climate change, might not even believe it's real, do not care about the future impacts because they might not be around when those future harmful impacts happen. But boy, they care about the money. They care about the company's bottom line. So you've got to meet them with the language that they speak and what they care about.

00:58:29:27 - 00:58:49:05
Ashlee Piper: And usually I found because thankfully, sustainability is something that actually does have a significant financial impact, and it's just going to keep growing. It's just going to this isn't going away. It's going to keep just exploding. That's a really great way to reach people. And there's data out there that shows that this is a huge market, and that you're going to lose out on a significant amount of market share.

00:58:49:06 - 00:58:59:13
Ashlee Piper: If companies and the people who work there aren't going to start caring about the same things that their younger and burgeoning consumers care about.

00:58:59:16 - 00:59:03:25
Ashlee Piper: Oh, I can't hear you. Mike. Mike.

00:59:03:27 - 00:59:25:02
Mike collignon: I put myself on mute for a minute because my weather radio was going off. A couple other questions if I can hopefully get to these. Great. So Henrietta would like to know, does environmental sustainability involve absolute avoidance of meat and complete dependance on plants?

00:59:25:29 - 00:59:26:26
Ashlee Piper: So.

00:59:26:28 - 00:59:30:09
Ashlee Piper: That's that is a question that I feel like would have been really.

00:59:30:09 - 00:59:30:17
Mike collignon: Good.

00:59:30:18 - 00:59:32:18
Ashlee Piper: For yesterday. Some of yesterday's.

00:59:32:18 - 00:59:33:08
Mike collignon: Guests.

00:59:33:08 - 00:59:55:15
Ashlee Piper: I certainly saw be real. I focus a lot on individual solutions and habit changes around climate change, and we do have data that shows that moving away from a meat centric diet is one of the most, if not the most powerful individual habit change that people can make. Can I extrapolate that into all of society and say we're going to replace all meet with plants?

00:59:55:15 - 01:00:23:11
Ashlee Piper: Probably not. I'm not the right person. You know. I'm not the person who's necessarily doing that, that kind of study. I don't know if there even are people who are kind of tackling the enormity of that question. But if you're talking about yourself, Henrietta, I would say, yeah. I mean, as much as you're able to replace reliance on animal products, you know, with other stuff, and I say other stuff as if there's like obviously with plants and other things like that, then yes, I think that that is a very positive move to make.

01:00:23:13 - 01:01:02:29
Mike collignon: All right. Two more. We have time for two more I think. So question came in from honey, what do you see as far as these generation's spending habits on large purchases? Now, the opinion here is I've seen a movement towards saving money to buy highly crafted, long lasting products instead of low cost, fast fashion type of products. But does that perceived trend actually expand across all socioeconomic consumers, or is it just those that have, you know, the better access to better means of money?

01:01:03:01 - 01:01:28:04
Ashlee Piper: So I feel like there are kind of two questions in there. One is like, does that do those values extend to very large purchases and then does that also does that sentiment also cross different socioeconomic brackets. So I'll tackle the last one first. It is harder obviously, because most sustainable products tend to be more expensive right now as the market starts to become more replete.

01:01:28:05 - 01:01:32:09
Ashlee Piper: Obviously that's going to change. It is harder when you're poor.

01:01:32:11 - 01:01:32:17
Mike collignon: To.

01:01:32:18 - 01:01:59:15
Ashlee Piper: Buy. Products that have really good, sustainable credibility, right? So obviously you're going to buy the $10 pair of jeans as opposed to the $200 pair of jeans. So it still is holding pretty strong that though the sustainability values might be there across social and economic brackets, those values are more aspirational when it comes to purchasing for lower socioeconomic brackets than for those who might be more middle or upper class.

01:01:59:15 - 01:02:25:25
Ashlee Piper: That's just a, you know, socioeconomic reality that happens as we scale any kind of social phenomenon. So that piece of it, I think that the intent is there, the desire is there. But until certain, you know, sustainable products can be made in a way that's more affordable and it becomes the norm to have sustainability, sustainability built into everything you're going to find folks who are in a lower income bracket are probably not going to be able to purchase new items that are as sustainable.

01:02:25:29 - 01:02:57:22
Ashlee Piper: That said, we have seen that there are trends where, you know, again, Gen Z being the researching generation, they are also scrutinizing larger purchases. You better believe it. And they're making those larger purchases as well with the same things in mind. So for instance, homes that are more self-sufficient, homes that have, you know, like things for your homes that the cost per entry is going to be more expensive, like residential solar panels, heat pumps, you know, some of these more eco friendly, kind of repurposed residential building materials.

01:02:57:22 - 01:03:13:22
Ashlee Piper: We see that folks who tend to care about that in like smaller mid-level goods care about that in their homes. They care about that in their cars. Again, those folks are going to be in an income bracket where they can actually afford to pay more for items like that.

01:03:13:25 - 01:03:23:03
Mike collignon: All right. Last question. Even though I've got more coming in, we got one more to get. I find this one really interesting. This is from Mary Elizabeth.

01:03:23:05 - 01:03:28:02
Ashlee Piper: It's coming with very elegant names today. My gosh, Mary Elizabeth. Henrietta.

01:03:28:03 - 01:03:29:29
Mike collignon: All right.

01:03:30:02 - 01:03:32:11
Mike collignon: We do have a distinguished audience. We do.

01:03:32:12 - 01:03:34:10
Mike collignon: We do.

01:03:34:12 - 01:03:45:22
Mike collignon: Is there a distinction between rural and urban Gen Z and millennials that is important to note?

01:03:45:24 - 01:03:53:21
Ashlee Piper: As far as I've seen. And again, I don't necessarily conduct these kinds of studies. You know, I'm not a researcher in this area. There is and.

01:03:53:22 - 01:03:54:03
Mike collignon: But.

01:03:54:03 - 01:04:22:26
Ashlee Piper: It's divided between I would say there's a division between less with rural locational and more along party lines. And so you see, politically, folks who tend to live in more rural areas tend to skew more conservative. And so their approaches or their beliefs around climate change and then their purchasing habits around sustainability are going to be wildly different than folks who tend to live in more urban areas, who those folks tend to skew more liberal or progressive.

01:04:22:28 - 01:04:44:20
Ashlee Piper: They care about climate change. They're going to buy in a way that is commensurate with that, but also say if you're living in, you know, there are pros and cons to living sustainably in both an urban area and a very rural area. And so your access to, for instance, like sharing economies in a rural area might be very different than those in, you know, like Facebook Marketplace.

01:04:44:20 - 01:04:51:08
Ashlee Piper: You ever try to use that in in a place that has a population of 100 people? Good luck. You know. But if you use it in Chicago.

01:04:51:08 - 01:04:51:29
Mike collignon: Where I live, it's.

01:04:51:29 - 01:05:14:00
Ashlee Piper: Replete with options. So it really it's something that you almost have to, like, parse out further statistically to understand. It's not as simple as like, oh, in rural areas, Gen Z doesn't care as much about sustainability because they do in different ways. If they believe in climate change or they, you know, then there's the intersection of folks who want to live off the grid and, you know, that has sustainability intersections.

01:05:14:00 - 01:05:25:08
Ashlee Piper: And that also influences what people buy. But they might not be buying it for the same reason that Gen Z folks who are into sustainability, who live in a major city are buying that item.

01:05:25:10 - 01:05:25:22
Mike collignon: Okay, so.

01:05:25:22 - 01:05:34:28
Ashlee Piper: It's more complex, unfortunately, than I could probably address just with a yes or no. But everything's nuanced like that, isn't it?

01:05:35:00 - 01:05:48:08
Mike collignon: Well, nuanced, straightforward. We like having you either way, Ashley. We really do appreciate you being on here. I'll see you and love the insights that you share with us and the energy you bring.

01:05:48:11 - 01:05:55:19
Ashlee Piper: Well, thank you to you and Sarah and Mary for pulling together an amazing symposium. I'm always happy to be here and always happy to attend, so thank you.