Sustainability Claims: The Sector's Next Reputation Risk

Show notes

Universities often talk about sustainability with more enthusiasm than evidence, and regulators and sceptical students are watching. I set out a more credible approach built on proof, specifics and honest reporting.

• Point to the data behind every sustainability claim before it appears in marketing.
• Be specific, and report progress honestly, including what you have not achieved.
• Put your own climate and sustainability research and academics at the centre.

Read the article: Sustainability claims are becoming the sector's next reputation risk

Full transcript

Hello, and welcome to Marketing Greats in Higher Education. I'm Jonathan Sabarre, your host, and this is where we explore the ideas shaping how universities are seen, chosen and trusted around the world. Everything I share on this show is my own personal view.

Students are some of the most environmentally literate audiences any organisation will face. They're also some of the most sceptical. And right now, many universities talk to them about sustainability with more enthusiasm than evidence. Climate research, net zero commitments, greener campuses: sustainability has rightly become central to how we describe ourselves. But it's created a new reputational risk, and the sector hasn't caught up with it yet!

Think about how a seventeen-year-old reads a university website. They notice an institution celebrating its green credentials while expanding flights for international recruitment. They notice investments that contradict the homepage. Staff notice too, and they're often the loudest critics. Regulators are watching as well. In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority's Green Claims Code sets clear expectations, and new EU consumer rules restrict vague, unsubstantiated green language.

Universities aren't exempt. And the problem is rarely deliberate exaggeration. It's enthusiasm outrunning evidence. A campaign calls the campus carbon neutral when only part of it is. A page claims sustainability leadership without saying against what. A target is announced with fanfare, quietly missed, and never updated. Each is small. Together they open a gap between what you say and what you can prove, and critics and journalists go looking for exactly that gap.

A more credible approach starts with discipline. Before any sustainability claim appears in your marketing, someone should be able to point to the data behind it. If they can't, change the wording. Then be specific, not sweeping. Cutting estate emissions by a third between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty-five is far more credible than calling yourself a leader in sustainability. People repeat a specific number. Nobody repeats a slogan.

The third discipline is the one most institutions find hardest: report your progress honestly. Publish what you've achieved, and what you haven't. It's uncomfortable when the room wants good news. But institutions that admit where they're behind earn far more trust than those that only share successes. When everything is described as world leading, nothing is believed.

Most problems start inside the institution. The sustainability office, estates, finance and marketing often hold different numbers and tell slightly different stories. Getting them to agree a shared position and a shared set of facts is unglamorous work, but it's the best protection I know against mixed messages. When the person writing the campaign and the person running the estate look at the same figures, the claim and the reality stay together.

Then there's the asset many universities overlook entirely: their own research. So many institutions have world-class climate and sustainability research, and academics who've given their careers to it. An academic explaining what her team has learned about flood risk or clean energy carries a credibility no tagline ever will. The sustainability stories that really land almost always put the research, and the people behind it, at the centre, not the brand.

Handled well, sustainability is one of the strongest reputation stories a university can tell. It brings together research, teaching, campus life and civic responsibility in a way few other themes can. The institutions that win trust will be the ones that treat it with the same rigour as any other claim about quality. Nobody would publish a claim about teaching quality without evidence. Sustainability deserves exactly the same standard.

So my advice is deliberately simple. Before your next sustainability campaign goes live, ask the most sceptical student you know to read it. Not a colleague, or the agency. A student who cares deeply and trusts very little. If it survives their scrutiny, it's ready. If it doesn't, they've given you a gift. The strongest green reputations are built on claims you can prove, every single time!

Thank you for spending this time with me. If this episode sparked something for you, hit subscribe, so you never miss the next one. And our full season, with guests from leading universities around the world, is coming very soon. Head to Jonathan Sabarre dot com and sign up, so you're the first to know when it launches. Until next time, keep building something great.