This passion for making the complex simple and accessible to a wide audience was something that sparked the idea to start my business. Frustrated by the amount of greenwashing we experience on a daily basis, I wanted to improve the credibility of environmental claims to combat the misinformation we are constantly exposed to.

I wanted to help give confidence to the businesses doing good stuff but who were too afraid to talk about it for fear of accidentally greenwashing.

I wanted to help businesses with navigating the sustainability space, advising on where opportunities lay and improvements could be made to enhance their sustainability commitments.

Subscribe now

I had an epiphany recently where I realised the reason I have always enjoyed making maps. As an environmental scientist, maps are an incredibly useful tool to display information, communicate a strategy, and highlight where problems and opportunities lay to improve environmental health. The effectiveness of which that information is communicated relies on the ability of the map to tell a story. Too much or too little information and you leave the reader confused; display the information in just the right way and you have a powerful communication tool. I love that moment when you show someone a map and they're able to quickly and easily understand the problem and identify the action needed to remedy it. Understanding, gained through a map's ability to distil information and tell a story, sparks action and drives meaningful environmental change. The ability of a story to create a positive effect on an environmental outcome explains where my enjoyment of making maps comes from, and the fact that all along what I really enjoyed was telling a credible and compelling story.

As is often the case when starting a business, if you waited until everything was perfect, you would never begin. Hence why starting my own business has been a personal example of this distilling process.

How I could best help people within the context of sustainability has been distilled over time into its essence—helping purpose-driven businesses to tell credible and compelling stories that build brand loyalty and trust.

Once you gain trust, you can inspire others to take action, and ultimately drive meaningful change. Subconsciously, I have been distilling my own process of what it is I do well, just as I distil the science into a story which is both credible and compelling, helping sustainable solutions drive the change they have the potential to make.

These two words—credible and compelling—have come to be at the core of everything I do. The credible aspect comes from the need to have the robust science and evidence behind any story, careful not to lose the message in the jargon. The compelling aspect comes from my need to simplify and distil, to make an explanation as simple as possible. Science reveres a high word count; however, the art of science communication is in the reduction of words, not the addition.

Maybe we could learn something from the ancient art of haiku poetry. Its pattern of syllables arranged in three lines of 5-7-5, requires a thoughtful selection of carefully chosen words to meet the poem's structure. This strict set of rules requires the writer to pare back their message to its absolute essence. Telling your sustainability story is much the same. You must carefully balance the credible with the compelling, the science with the human connection.

I heard a saying recently: when you're inside the jar, you can't read the label. Sometimes it's easier for someone on the outside to tell you what you what you're good at than it is for someone to see it themselves. With many sustainable solutions, the key lies in communicating how your solution is better for:

a. the end user, and

b. the planet.

Just as I struggled myself within my own career path, I can sympathise with others inside the sustainability jar. Your sustainable solution needs a label with a credible and compelling story printed on it—a label that, like a haiku, distils the essence of what your solution does to benefit the user and the planet. Use too few or too many words, and the label will confuse or put off the potential buyer, leaving your jar untouched on the shelf. Use a balance of credible and compelling words, based on both science and human connection, and your buyer will feel compelled to purchase your solution, knowing that in doing so, it will benefit themselves and the planet.

We have the solutions, what we lack is the effective communication that sparks action and drives change. Credible and compelling stories build brand loyalty and trust, upon which you can inspire others to take action, and ultimately drive meaningful change.

Throughout my personal distilling process, I have shifted my attention to focus on businesses stuck in the greenhushing rut, helping them to tell the stories of the solutions that will drive meaningful change. Woven into this is the science-based expertise that helps strengthen their messaging and explore opportunities to further enhance their commitment.

A world full of greenhushing businesses aren’t going to solve any of our problems. That’s why I’m passionate about combining my love of science and storytelling—the credible with the compelling—to help tell the stories that matter.

Visit my website

With the rise of the low-cost superstores like Kmart and The Warehouse creating ever more convincing designer-looking products and dupes, the rationale for someone to spend double or triple the price on its expensive counterpart is constantly in question. The production trade-offs of cost, time, and quality says that we can't have something which is cheap and high quality if we want to meet the mass production requirement demanded by these types of stores. Therefore, the trade-off with this system is that you have a lower quality item that will likely wear out faster than its more expensive and high-quality counterpart.

One way around this quality versus price conundrum is to buy secondhand, and is exactly where my logic comes into question.

I got married almost two years ago and we've only just printed our wedding photos. As you’re reading this, I'm sure you're either judging us for our lack of haste or silently feeling comforted by the fact you're not the only one out there who’s yet to do the same.

It would have been easy to head to Kmart, buy our $4.00 frames (not even the cheapest), throw the photos in, and hang them up on the wall—all before you could say Bob's your uncle. Instead, we arguably made our lives far more difficult by traipsing around secondhand stores looking for the perfect frames, spending time cleaning and waxing them, and then taking them to the framers to have the matting replaced and resized to suit our photos.

What we ended up with at the end of this multi-week exercise was a set of bespoke, beautifully framed photographs capturing our special day and creating a unique gallery wall full of memories.

Was it worth the hassle? Absolutely.

Would I recommend the process? It depends.

Subscribe now

I personally love looking around secondhand stores. It equally saddens me to see the once beloved things people discard, and the junk that some deem quality enough to donate. I fear that secondhand stores are becoming a dog-leg route to landfill and a “feel-good” way to get rid of your cheaply made and worn-out items. The ability to pick up high-quality items may slowly become a thing of the past with the ability to buy cheap and new so accessibly and then freely discard them at the secondhand store once they inevitably wear out. Regardless, I love that you can find unique, quality items you would never find in the superstores. The gems you didn't know you needed (I’m not a hoarder, I promise), and second life you can give to someone's once beloved items. On my travels, I found hundreds of frames waiting for a second lease on life, why not make the most of something that is already in need of a home.

If you’re a DIY enthusiast or creative at heart, secondhand shopping presents a world of opportunity. Like a diamond in the rough, the frames I picked out weren’t perfect but had potential. I made a conscious effort to pick frames which had a bespoke framer mark on the back or taping to indicate they were custom made. I did this not because I'm snobbish but because professional framers use high quality materials which are best suited for upcycling. The vast majority were the cheap, superstore frames that were already damaged, exposing the MDF frame under the faux wood veneer. I found a framing recommendation of a gold wax you can buy from Spotlight that produces an antique gold look without the solid look of paint alone. I also paired it with an ebony black wax to bring out the grain in some frames and used it as a solid black on others. Not to make this a Millie's DIY Crafting Tips post, but a little bit of this product goes a long way.

Finally, the benefit of going down the bespoke route is that you can support a small, local business. Framers are highly skilled at their craft and know the way to perfectly complement your photographs with matching matting and different glazing options. Supplying your own frames reduces the cost and freight of framing, as many of the frames are ordered in specifically from overseas. There's a reason the frames you find at the superstores are standard finishes and the wood is a plastic veneer. Framing is a highly specialised art in it's own right, and definitely a ‘get what you pay for’ kind of service. Even with supplying your own frames, I won’t pretend it's a cheap exercise, but the quality you end up with its second to none. I used Art and Frame in Christchurch and would highly recommend their service.

There is a phenomenon called the Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness and it highlights the disparity between being able to afford high quality items that last considerably longer than the cheaper, low quality items that you will spend more on in the long run replacing. Though we spent more than the superstore frames would have cost, we ended up with a quality, long lasting product at a cheaper cost than outright bespoke framing by making use of high-quality secondhand frames. I know that being able to frame the photos in the way we did is still a privilege given the cost comparison, but if you’re in the position, I’d encourage you to consider it as an option.

Our brains are hardwired to seek out the path of least resistance. It would have been far easier and cheaper to buy new off the shelf, my brain certainly went there first. However, now I look at the photos every day and think about it the work that went into making them and the enjoyment we get out of them, and I love that we chose the path of greater resistance instead.

I challenge you to adopt this same thinking from time to time. Is there something you could rescue from the secondhand store instead of rushing out to buy new? You might just surprise yourself with what you find.

Subscribe now

One of the times sustainability comes to mind is when brands are designing their product packaging. Should I use plastic or paper packaging, should we label our products “eco-friendly”, will my packaging material be recycled?

Founder of Preflight Creative and expert in all things product packaging and design, Soraya King, has created a guide of key considerations for your product packaging. She’s got the inside scoop on packaging design as well as her “don’t get in the shit list” tips to avoid packaging headaches.

To accompany the guide, I put together some information on environmental claims and sustainable materials to consider when making decisions about your product packaging.

Subscribe now

Consumers want to hear about your sustainability commitment and know that you value the environment and society, but these messages need to be communicated transparently.

On average, across sectors, 52% of people say they have seen, or heard, false or misleading information about sustainable actions taken by brands. (Kantar Sustainability Sector Index 2023).

On top of that, 51% of consumers have stopped buying certain products/services because of their impact on the environment or society. (Kantar Better Futures 2023). Moral of the story: it pays to care.

Green Claims

As I’ve mentioned before, green claims are something to tread carefully with. Say the wrong thing and you risk greenwashing, but say nothing at all and you might be missing an opportunity to promote your product’s environmental benefits or lesser impact.

Transparency is key with green claims. Don’t exaggerate your commitment, and don’t be afraid to say you haven’t got it perfect. Consumers are looking for honesty over perfection. Broad, sweeping claims are no longer cutting the mustard, specifics and evidence are what they’re looking for. Nail that, and you’re on your way to earning their trust and loyalty.

Sustainable Materials

As I talked about in the trade-offs post, there are always going to be pros and cons to whatever choice you make when it comes to sustainability. To assess whether a material choice is better or worse for the environment, it is important to consider the whole lifecycle of it’s production. This involves looking at the upstream, downstream, and in-between effects on the planet and people.

Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are the way to go here. They provide the data you need to make informed decisions and assess a material’s impact from raw material extraction to end-of-life.

Read more about the specifics of green claims and sustainable materials in the Preflight Creative guide. Soraya’s expert knowledge of packaging and design will leave you with plenty of practical takeaways for your next project. It’s definitely worth a read!

Get the guide

f you still need support after reading the guide, feel free to get in touch with me for sustainability guidance or Soraya for packaging and design assistance—we’d be happy to help.

Email Millie: info@mtsustainability.co.nz

Email Soraya: hello@preflightcreative.co.nz

However, that saying can also work the other way around. There are a lot of businesses out there who are walking the walk but are doing less talking the talk, therefore, we could consider the inverse to be greenhushing.

You can’t have one without the other. You need the action but you also need the communication.

Subscribe now

I’m a sucker for an infographic. I like the challenge of conveying sustainability concepts in a visual way, so I came up with this Venn diagram below.

If talking the talk without walking the walk on the left is greenwashing, then walking the walk without talking the talk on the right is greenhushing.

When you strike a balance between the two, you hit the sweet spot of sustainability communications — doing good and telling people about it. When you’re in this green zone, you’re telling your sustainability story in a way which is credible and you have the evidence to back it up.

In order to share stories that people trust and respect, you need to be doing both walking and talking (not in a literal “let’s go for a walk and talk” multi-tasking kind of way, though I am quite partial to walking meeting). We all know the quickest way to lose brand loyalty and trust is when there’s too much talking and not enough walking going on. The greenwashing stamp is a damaging one, a PR nightmare to recover from to build back that trust.

Steering clear of leaning too much to the left of the Venn diagram is a must, but having the confidence to venture into that green zone of credibly telling your story is highly important too. We can’t make change without people knowing what we do.

If you need a hand building the confidence to tell you story and get into the middle of the diagram, or equally if you feel like you might be in danger of greenwashing stamp, get in touch. I’ll help you find the perfect balance for your sustainability communications — clear, credible, and aligned with your values.

Get in touch

The same goes for sustainability, and ties in nicely to another concept alongside this.

Trade-offs

One thing that often limits our ability to make sustainability decisions are trade-offs.

In nature, one of the most classic trade-offs is force versus speed. A lion has a stronger bite force, but a cheetah has a faster land speed. Rarely do you see both in one animal, because the reality of trade-offs often means where you excel in one area, you must compromise in another.

Trade-offs are everywhere in sustainability, a balancing act of pros and cons, and making compromises to reach the best possible outcome.

The debate between plastic and paper is a great example. In reducing the potential for plastic pollution, we expend more energy, water, and resources in creating an equivalent product made of paper. Neither option is perfect, and there are pros and cons to both.

As an environmental scientist, I often find myself debating these trade-offs. It can become overwhelming with so many factors to consider, from carbon emissions and resource use to less quantifiable impacts like ecosystem services and social equity. When you factor in those less tangible elements, assigning value and making decisions becomes even harder.

It’s important to remember that sustainability is never black and white. No decision will please every aspect, so it’s important to not be paralysed into doing nothing.

Subscribe now

Where there are trade-offs, how can we expect perfection?

Looking for the perfect sustainable solution, or waiting until your sustainability efforts are perfect before sharing your journey, all hinders our ability to make progress.

You don’t expect to run a marathon on your first try, but with consistent effort and learning from each run, you improve. Sustainability is one, big work-in-progress; no one’s doing it perfectly.

Whether you’re in the decision making stage or in the communications stage, you don’t need to wait until you’ve ‘figured it all out’ before taking action or talking about sustainability.

• Start small

• Do what you can

• Share what you’re working on

Never underestimate the power of just getting started, or how sharing your story can inspire others to do the same.

If we stop chasing perfection— “once I do this, then we can call ourselves sustainable”—progress becomes easier, and so does making real, lasting change.

In the webinar, I went through the basics of what green claims were, the legislation, and a few key rules to follow.

Watch the webinar here

Green claims, or environmental claims, are claims made by a business that give the overall impression of have a positive benefit to the environment or a lesser impact on the planet.

Green claims can be text based or visual, using pictures, colours, or icons to support this overall impression.

When made incorrectly, green claims are what lead to greenwashing - saying you’re doing more than you are actually are or misleading on the true benefit of your claim.

Subscribe now

The Legislation

In 2020, the European Commission found that 53.3% of environmental claims on consumer goods were potentially misleading, a statistic showing just how rife greenwashing is. In response to this, the European Commission set into motion a strict set of rules to help combat these greenwashing claims, the Green Claims Directive (GCD).

In Australia, the Australian Consumer Law governs what claims can be made and is monitored by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). In December 2023, they released a business guide which was strongly aligned with the GCD and designed for businesses to implement.

For New Zealand, green claims are governed by the New Zealand Commerce Commission (the “Commission") and the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Any changes to the New Zealand legislation are likely to be passed on from our Australian neighbours. Anyone who is exporting to Europe however, will need to comply with the GCD.

Key rules to follow

The following rules are my summary of the New Zealand and Australian guidelines on environmental claims. The references to these documents are included at the end.

When making green claims, ensure they meet the following:

1. Accurate and Truthful

• Be accurate, truthful, and transparent

• Be direct and open about your sustainability transition

2. Evidence Based

• Use evidence to substantiate your claims

• Explain any conditions or qualifications on your claims

3. Nondeceptive

• Do not mislead or rely on the fine print

• Don’t leave out or hide important information

• Consider the overall impression

4. Specific

• Be specific and do not exaggerate

• Avoid broad and unqualified claims

5. Clear

• Use clear and easy to understand language

Green claims are a useful tool used in communicating your sustainability story and can add credit to your messaging.

Need help putting your best foot forward with your green claims? Get in touch or book a free 30-minute discovery call through my website.

Visit my website

https://comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/353460/Environmental-claims-guidance-July-2020.pdf

https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/greenwashing-guidelines.pdf

If you think about a personal value you hold for yourself, let’s use kindness as an example, you don’t think, one day I will finally master the art of being kind. It’s just a way of being that you practice every day. Sustainability is much the same. Just as you could say random acts of kindness support the personal value of kindness, sustainable swaps or operation changes in business support the value of sustainability. Reducing it to a tick box exercise fails to recognise sustainability as the value or mindset it really is.

I shared an article this week on my LinkedIn about Patagonia partnering with Canopy to improve their product packaging to a more sustainable material. Patagonia is well known for their sustainability commitment and models this across all areas of their business. You could say, they already use recycled packaging, what's more to improve? Where Patagonia found a better material than their current packaging, they chose to make the change so they could further reduce their environmental impact. Knowing there was an opportunity to improve and not doing something about it would have been going against their core value of sustainability.

Read the Patagonia article

You might have heard of the 1% rule whereby small, consistent changes lead to significant improvements over time. If you continue that thinking of sustainability as a mindset or habit, the 1% rule is of incredible value to our current environmental situation. This rule perfectly embodies what sustainability is all about, constantly finding ways to make small improvements no matter how small or insignificant they might feel. Technology, materials, and processes are constantly evolving, so it would be ignorant to think that the way we currently do something is still going to be best practice in 5-years time.

As I wrote in another post, sustainability is not about reaching the summit of the mountain only to turn around, go home and hang up your boots, it’s about getting to the top and realising you can now see another peak you’d like to climb.

Start practicing sustainability as a mindset and it will reframe the way you look at a lot of things.

Subscribe now

I’ve put together a list of 6 things to consider when weighing up which certification would best suit your needs and offer the greatest value.

1. Identify your sustainability goals

What are your environmental and sustainability objectives? How would certification enhance these objectives or is certification going to be used as a process to help set them? It’s hard to pick a certification if you don’t have a clear direction of where you’re trying to head. Take the time at the start of the process to develop these goals and intentions before deciding what certification would be best suited to your needs.

2. Understand industry and consumer expectations

Are there any certifications which are commonly used in your industry or are becoming of interest to your consumers? Consumer preferences are driving many businesses to head down the certification route, so pay attention to what is gaining attention within your industry.

3. Define your scope

Decide on whether you want a certification which is an Overall Sustainability Framework or Task Specific. An overall sustainability certification will cover multiple areas of your business, whereas a Task Specific certification will cover one particular aspect. Task Specific certifications can be useful to help with making green claims but should still be used wisely to avoid greenwashing.

4. Consider cost and resources

Certification can be costly and resource intensive so make sure to factor this into your considerations. You might also need to decide whether it is something you have in-house capacity for or whether you need to outsource to a consultant. They often require someone to lead the certification process and put in considerable time, so make sure internal staff members have support.

5. Understand the long-term commitment and improvement

Many certifications require ongoing compliance and renewal so be prepared for any long-term involvement it may entail, as well as ongoing improvements to uphold your certification. Ask these questions when discussing with certification providers so that you’re not surprised by any future costs.

6. Align with marketing and communication goals

Your chosen certification should enhance your sustainability messaging but not replace it. Make sure your certification compliments what you’re trying to convey without being your only sustainability communication strategy. If you have a clear intention of what the purpose of the certification is for your business, you can seamlessly integrate it into your communication strategy.

Subscribe to Your Sustainability Guide newsletter to learn more about sustainability certifications and getting started on your sustainability journey

Subscribe now

If you’re looking for independent sustainability support, get in touch or book an appointment via my website below

Visit my website

Want to learn more about green claims?

📆 Thursday 3 October 2024
🕧 12:30 - 1:00pm
📍Microsoft Teams

Bring your lunch and spend 30 minutes on a crash course in green claims and how to avoid greenwashing. Register below to join this quick and informative webinar.

Register here

To keep up to date with future webinars and content, subscribe to Your Sustainability Guide.

Subscribe now

Each stage of any business journey brings its own set of challenges, and for me, the website has been a significant one. If it were just about building the website, that might have been easier, but it’s all the pesky ducks you need to corral into a row that make the process more challenging. I now have a new appreciation for everything that goes on behind the scenes of a website.

I read a book recently that said if you measure yourself against an ideal of where you’d like to be, you’ll never be happy. The key is to look backwards.

While looking forward is important for setting goals and gaining direction, you never quite reach that ideal. You can get caught up chasing the horizon and feel dissatisfied with where you are now. Looking back, however, allows you to reflect on how far you’ve come and celebrate your progress, measuring success against your past self instead.

At the start of this business journey, everything seemed daunting. I had never built a website or purchased a domain before (let alone started a newsletter). Everything was new. Each day, I felt overwhelmed by the new tasks ahead. But by the end of the day, I was at least a little closer to achieving my goals and had gained more knowledge than when I started. By reflecting on past tasks that had also scared me, I knew I would overcome this hurdle as well.

Learning a new skill is always daunting at first, but the reward of achieving it is worth the discomfort. Having never built a website before, I purchased a template to get me started and figured out the rest along the way. The result is something I’m quite proud of, and learning this new skill turned out to be more enjoyable than I expected. Sustainability is just the same. Once you have some guidance - a template, if you will - something which seemed daunting at the start will become clearer and easier as you go. You might even surprise yourself with how much you enjoy the process!

My website may not win any awards for being the fanciest on the internet, but it’s a good enough start for me. I still feel nervously awkward about putting it out there for the world to see, but go ahead, have a squiz! And if you feel like you need a hand with your sustainability ‘template’, fill out your details on my website to book a free 15-minute discovery call, I’d love to help.

Visit my website

How many of us have been in this position. You’re in a conversation with someone in a noisy place and they’re telling you a story, you miss the details over the bustle of the room so ask them to repeat themselves. They repeat the story and you strain to listen. You again miss what they’re saying and politely ask them to repeat themselves for a second time. You’re paying close attention but still can’t make out what they’ve said, so instead of asking them again you just nod and agree.

I feel like sustainability has become much the same in business. Everyone is talking about it so people feel like they should know by now what to do. People have asked the questions a second time and now feel they can’t ask again. So instead, we get people nodding and agreeing, feeling too silly to ask for fear they’ll be scoffed at for not knowing the answers.

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re in the right place. I will repeat the question ten times if I have to so that the answer is clearly heard. Pretending to understand helps no one if what you were agreeing with is what actions to take. We often hear the saying all talk, no action, but maybe that’s because people aren’t hearing clearly. The fundamentals have failed to get through and people are too embarrassed to ask to repeat it.

Not knowing the fundamentals of sustainability is okay, it’s new to a lot of people. Sustainability is not like mathematics or chemistry which has been taught for hundreds of years. The guidebook is not yet set in stone and we’re still figuring things out. I want to make sustainability achievable and answer the questions people are too afraid to ask again. I feel like we’ve skipped ahead a few steps and left some people behind, defaulting to jargon and acronyms without making sure everyone is keeping up. Everyone is talking about sustainability, everyone knows they should be doing something about it, yet still there is so much confusion about it.

I see my job as a guide or translator, happy to walk you through the steps and ensure we learn from the mistakes others have made along the way, and start to make sustainability the norm, not just a nice to have. Sustainability doesn’t have to be daunting, you just have to know where to start.

I know it's cliché, but I love a good life quote. Stuck on my wardrobe for the past 11 months has been a quote that I feel has been helping me lead up to this day: “Anything I have ever done that was ultimately worthwhile initially scared me to death.”

Today is the first day in ten years that I haven’t had a job. I have always left a job with another lined up, one door closing, another already open. I am grateful to have had this luxury, as I know the past few years have been tough in the job market.

I have always struggled to see where I fit in the world. I knew I wanted to do something that created positive environmental change, but I wasn’t sure how that looked in a job. I couldn’t envision myself in any logical positions when I thought about where I might be in five to ten years. My role as an environmental scientist didn’t fill my cup the way I thought it would, and I found myself standing at a fork in the road, deciding where to take my career next.

My real passion is sustainability and communicating it in a way that is easy for everyone to understand. What I loved most about my previous role was making the science palatable to those without a scientific background, translating concepts full of jargon and fine details that distracted from the crux of the issue. When people understand why something is a problem, they’re more likely to want to do something about it. Gatekeeping science in an inaccessible format is an ongoing battle the field faces when communicating the need for change.

With the need to bridge the gap between science and business being greater now more than ever, I decided I wanted to be part of this change.

Businesses still find sustainability confusing, and the fear of greenwashing prevents many from communicating effectively. Focusing my energy on changing this narrative is what I have instead chosen to pursue.

If you’re interested in sustainability and want to take action, follow along on my journey to making sustainability communications my full-time job. My Substack is designed to be educational and thought-provoking, demystifying the confusion around sustainability and outlining practical steps businesses can take to avoid greenwashing.

Now I have done the scariest part and left my job to be self-employed, I couldn’t be prouder. Eleven months ago, this was just a distant dream; now I am living it. As another of my favourite life quotes goes: “If not now, when?”, only this time I can answer “now”.