To achieve net zero, companies must learn climate science: Jaideep Prabhu, Judge Business School
Jaideep Prabhu is professor of marketing at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, he discusses why meaningful ESG requires significant changes in companies:
What does the term ‘sustainable marketing’ mean?
Companies are increasingly being held to account globally not only for their financial performance and market share but their environmental and social impacts, grouped under ‘ESG’.
There are growing concerns around businesses with a trajectory of maximising their financial performance at the cost of social and environmental factors. That is becoming less acceptable — and more traceable.
In the past, there was some deniability over whether water, air or ecosystems were getting polluted by commercial operations — without adequate measurements, businesses could pass the buck. But today, there is much greater traceability.
Many groups are scrutinising such impacts and pressuring companies to improve their performance — these include civil society clusters, customers, employees who prefer companies with a good reputation in this space and regulators. Importantly, the financial community is also among these groups because people investing in funds are concerned about the environmental impacts of companies they back.
A whole group of factors is thus encouraging businesses to focus on bettering their social and environmental scores.
That also affects marketing — managers now need to consider the kinds of customers they are working with, their ESG aspirations, possible innovations, etc., in the context of reducing negative environmental impacts or making positive contributions. This is no trivial change — it is a massive challenge which requires new thought.
The United Nations
