Five tips on how you can create a positive impact and start a transformation journey toward a sustainable and social brand strategy.

With Company in Lisbon is a transformative design agency that helps companies create a positive impact with each project. We are allies in our ambition how to use business as a way out of the social and ecological crises we face.

It was such a pleasure to meet a young, engaged crowd of Portuguese ‘climate doers’. People who understand that we need to adapt our lifestyles and collaborate to find solutions for the challenges ahead of us. It was an honor to share my CARE Principles strategic framework with them!

After the keynote, we had an interesting interactive discussion that can be summarized into 5 topics. These topics can help you create a positive impact and start your transformation journey toward a sustainable and social brand strategy.

1. We live in a fragile world, both people and the planet are under pressure.

👉  Young Portuguese people feel this every day. Not only do they feel the rise of temperatures and lack of rain in their country. Real Estate prices in Portugal went up by 50% last year! It became impossible for normal people to find an apartment in cities like Lisbon. Today the average age when people can go and live independently from their parents is 33,6 years old. This is the oldest age in the whole of Europe.

2. Change is needed but a polarized society is making the necessary transformations often difficult to execute.

👉  Today society can be divided into 3 categories of how people look at climate change. A small group is the ‘climate doers‘. They were clearly there that night in Lisbon, as they voluntarily subscribed to the event. They want to learn what we can all do – individual by individual – to make the world a better place and live more sustainably.

👉   The biggest group in society consists of ‘climate delayers‘. These people are rationally aware of what is happening but:

• Either are afraid to take action.
• Have no clue how to change their lives and live more sustainably.
• Or simply don’t feel motivated to take action and wait for others to do it.

Typical reactions from this group of people are: “What can we do about it, Shouldn’t companies and government solve this crisis?”.

👉   The last group is the ‘climate doomers‘. This luckily small group of people refuses to see or act against any kind of transformation. They focus on maintaining their levels of power, wealth, and status in society. Or are aiming at getting it as they reason that they deserve wealth, power, or social status.

These people can be considered as real hand breaks in transformational processes. One needs to be aware of this division and polarization and understand that it also exists within organizations. The necessary transformations toward a more social and sustainable strategy just take more time to maneuver and pivot around these internal challenges.

3. Show leadership and start your sustainable transformation.

👉  Becoming more sustainable and changing our business strategies is not easy, granted.

How can you:

✅ Reduce

✅ Reuse

✅ Refill

✅ Repair or repurpose

✅ Replace or recycle

Your products and services are an exercise we should all start. You might not feel the external pressure from employees, consumers, and stakeholders just yet. But know that depending on the sector you work in you’ll receive soon enough pressure from suppliers, banks, and BtB clients as they are also in a green transformation and are looking at their business partners to help them achieve their sustainability goals.

Finally, with Europe’s Green Deal, the governmental laws will force companies to adapt themselves and transform toward a more sustainable business model.

4. Create a clear and simple brand strategy.

👉 It’s now more than ever time to know exactly what your brand strategy and long-term purpose are all about. Make sure your strategy is based on authenticity and a truthful and trustworthy story as more and more people find out if you greenwash or window dress.

👉 Define what you value.

👉 Take time to understand your company culture, what drives you, and how you want to make a positive impact.

5. By collaborating with others, remaining agile, understanding how reliability is built today, and finally showing real empathy towards others is a path toward a strategy that helps you define your positive impact on both people and the planet.

👉 The CARE Principles strategic framework has been created to help you make these transformations with a step-by-step approach.