With the arrival of COP26 to Glasgow, the end of 2021 brings fresh hope for action to be taken on the climate crisis. In the words of Sir David Attenborough, who – amongst world leaders and politicians – opened the conference on Monday: “If working apart we are a force powerful to destabilise our planet, surely working together we are powerful enough to save it”. 

All Eyes on COP26

Joe Biden, Xi Jinping and ​​Emmanuel Macron are just a handful of the world leaders who have already pledged to end deforestation by 2030. Land clearing is absolutely devastating for our planet and contributes to over a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. Having achieved this pledge on day one of the conference gives us hope that the next two weeks will be productive and lead to plausible actions in solving climate change.

The speakers of COP26 so far have all harked back to the same point; it’s too late to start referring to the ‘future generations who will be impacted by climate change because the truth is they walk among us. They are our children, our friends, our colleagues and neighbours. It’s time to take action now. 

This is why for us at Marble, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is more important now than ever before. These policies can have a monumental impact, not just on employees and the way in which customers view the company, but also on the impact companies have on the planet.

And it seems it’s not just brands and businesses that are recognising responsibility for the planet, consumers also are putting sustainability goals high on their list of buying priorities. In our 2019 State of the Industry report, we found that 48% of senior marketers sought out greater transparency from brands on sustainability. However, a recent report published by Submittable stated that 94% of millennials would buy from a business with an excellent CSR programme, and 73% would pay extra for sustainable products. Evidently, sustainability is no longer something to be put on the back burner; tackling the climate crisis should be an individual and collective responsibility for all of us. That’s also a driving force behind our journey to becoming ISO accredited, which you can read more about in our blog here. 

In an era in which people increasingly feel powerless, or that their governments are moving too slowly, it can be left to businesses to step up to the plate and deliver events that follow or, at best, set the agenda which their customers are most concerned with. 

Delivering sustainability-focused events in the right way can forge a link between customers and brands – and a degree of trust in that brand – that no other marketing method can match. That’s because actions really do speak louder than words, and the hands-on, accessible nature of a live experience can highlight your CSR priorities in a way that no number of mission statements, carefully worded tweets or heavily researched thought leadership pieces could ever hope to do.