Can we achieve a more sustainable future through marketing

Can we achieve a more sustainable future through marketing

Advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a priority for communities and nations around the world. While most solutions are engrained in STEM and environmental science, marketing appears to be an unlikely lever for sustainability and inclusion.

The marketing discipline is a powerful tool commonly used to grow businesses and change behaviour. Rooted in communication, behaviour change, and storytelling, marketing offers unique opportunities to influence sustainable and inclusive outcomes.

A new book – Elgar Companion to Marketing and the Sustainable Development Goals – explores how marketing strategies can reflect and potentially influence consumer behaviour, shape societal norms, reduce inequality and drive sustainable strategies.

This makes marketing a powerful tool in addressing sustainability.

Socially aware marketing

Inclusive marketing strategies can reach a more diverse consumer base and meet their needs, including access to essential goods and services. Marketing can promote sustainable development by encouraging consumer behaviour that supports the SDGs. 

Social marketing, for instance, can promote behaviours that contribute to environmental sustainability, such as reducing waste and conserving resources. Individuals can be persuaded to change their consumption behaviours, break ‘bad’ habits and form new ‘good’ habits in response to specific green messages, normative appeals and priming.

Advertisements promoting diversity and inclusion can help normalise these values in society, but without acts of woke-washing – brands opportunistically expressing support for sociopolitical and/or DEI issues but failing to commit to action. 

PepsiCo received significant public backlash for trivialising Black Lives Matter in their Live for Now Moments Anthem campaign and appropriating the movement for profit, while having no other record of tackling racial injustice and offering no other solution than purchasing their product. 

Brands that champion social causes, such as gender equality (SDG5), peace (SDG16) or responsible consumption and production (SDG12) using authentic SDG marketing efforts, can influence public perceptions and behaviours.

Emerging technologies can also enable transparency, accountability and responsible consumption. AI-driven conversational agents could improve service inclusion for marginalised populations – addressing multiple SDGs.

Case study: Gemtree Wines

(Chapter 3, by contributing authors, Ashleigh Powell, Laura Lesar, Afshin Tanouri and Svetlana Bogomolova)

The case of Gemtree Wines illustrates how businesses can authentically engage with the United Nations SDGs through concrete operational practices rather than symbolic commitments. 

Located in McLaren Vale, Gemtree is a family-founded wine tourism business whose sustainability philosophy underpins both its production methods and visitor experiences. The winery produces 100% organic and biodynamic wines and integrates sustainability into all aspects of the customer journey, including educational tours and environmentally responsible infrastructure. 

Through these practices, Gemtree demonstrates how sustainability values can be embedded into a company’s core operations and communicated transparently to consumers. The case also highlights Gemtree’s contributions to several SDGs through practical initiatives. For example: 

  • Goal 4: The winery educates visitors about biodynamic agriculture through its “Being Biodynamic” tours and by providing staff training led by the founder to ensure employees can effectively communicate sustainability knowledge. 
  • Goal 12: Resource-efficient practices such as rainwater harvesting, solar energy use, waste reduction, and the reuse of materials in the tasting room. 
  • Goals 11 and 15: Eco-trail initiative, which restored previously degraded farmland by planting 50,000 native plants and creating publicly accessible green space that supports biodiversity and environmental education.

The Gemtree case demonstrates how authentic engagement with sustainability emerges when organisational values, operational practices, and consumer experiences are closely aligned. 

By embedding sustainability into production, land management and visitor engagement, Gemtree provides tangible evidence of its commitments. These practices not only contribute to the SDGs but also create powerful cues that shape consumers’ perceptions of authenticity, strengthening the credibility of the brand’s sustainability claims and illustrating how authentic supply-side actions can translate into meaningful consumer experiences.

Learn more about Marketing and the SDGs

The Elgar Companion to Marketing and the Sustainable Development Goals brings together leading scholars and practitioners from across 15 countries to explore marketing’s potential to drive positive social, environmental and economic change.

Endorsed by several people from academia and industry, the Companion demonstrates that marketing extends beyond commercial outcomes to act as a powerful lever for sustainability and inclusion.

You can learn more through the video: Marketing and SDGs Companion Video

To access the book: Voola, R., Carlson, J., Makkar, M., Bosangit, C., & Goswami, P. (Eds.) (2025). The Elgar Companion to Marketing and the Sustainable Development Goals. Edward Elgar Publishing, UK (pp. 1-420).

About the author

Marian Makkar is an Associate Professor of Marketing at RMIT University. Her research focuses on understanding and promoting consumer diversity and market inclusion at the intersection of identity, technology, branding and institutions.

15 April 2026

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15 April 2026

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