Every month, I review community Ask-Me-Anything submissions and post a direct response on The Journey with advice and practical approaches. It’s a bit like ‘Dear Abby’, but for builders with too many open browser tabs and a calendar that looks like a dumpster fire.
Need some advice?
The Business
A new sustainable outdoor gear brand using waste plastics recovered from the ocean.
The Question
Marketing is something I’m struggling with. I don’t want to rely on discounting or “greenwashing” to build my startup’s brand. How can I tell our story in a way that’s authentic and builds a loyal customer base? I’m really stuck on how to use the ‘good’ parts of our sustainability philosophy without sounding insincere or preachy. Thanks, Daniel.
The Answer
Phew… thanks for throwing me an easy one on a Friday afternoon in August, eh?
That’s a big question, but I’m glad you asked it—the answer is multifaceted, and there are different perspectives to consider when working through it. This challenge isn’t just faced by sustainability-focused brands, either… any brand that is built on a foundation of purpose or mission-based principles will struggle with this issue at some point. If a brand’s actions become misaligned with the purpose which attracted customers, it risks alienating them.
And… greenwashing sucks.
I consider myself a fairly mainstream consumer in Canada. Sustainability and environmental responsibility aren’t the primary factors that go into my purchase decisions, but I tend to adopt more responsible product options where the choices exist and the price premium for the more responsible option isn’t extreme. Whenever I discover that a company played fast-and-loose or fabricated a claim related to sustainability, it drives me bonkers and I won’t go back to that brand. I hold grudges.
Not because they weren’t “green” in the first place, but because trust has been broken. It’s no different from buying a half-kilo pack of ground meat at the supermarket, and finding out when you get home that the net weight you paid for included the weight of the packaging (which is illegal in Canada, for folks reading internationally). You didn’t get what you paid for, and that’s a problem.
The Problem of the Tainted Cause
The knock-on effect of greenwashing is that bad actors have diluted the effectiveness of sustainability-based marketing for good actors who truly do place environmental friendliness and sustainability at the core of their business. Those organizations now have to work harder to “prove” to prospective customers that those aspects of the product and brand aren’t just smoke and mirrors.
For early-stage companies and builders, that’s just one more added complexity that shouldn’t be there. The vacuum created by a lack of strong regulatory standards and measurable conformance is a tough thing to grapple with. Though there are some valid criticisms of the Energy Star program in the US, it did successfully create a system of measurable conformance which built consumer trust based on the reputation of the sponsoring organization (the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency). That matters when making claims linked to any values-based brand component, sustainability-related or not.
The Opportunity of the Untainted Cause
For your predicament, I think there’s something we can borrow from Crossing the Chasm on the technology-adoption curve.
My tweaks to the chart (in red) aren’t scientific, of course. Just thirty seconds in the 2025 version of MS Paint.
For brands that heavily anchor themselves to a particular purpose or set of values, the earliest (and most passionate) adopters will be consumers who are truly devoted to the same cause. Followed by people who are aligned to the cause, but not necessarily devoted. Followed by people who are aligned to the same set of underlying (or compatible) values. Followed by those indifferent to the cause or the values, followed by those who are unaware.
A bit of an oversimplification of how customer acquisition works, yes, but useful for thinking about building a brand on top of purpose or values. The important piece is the chasm—what helps you cross the chasm and start to acquire loyal customers who aren’t that motivated by the central purpose of the organization. I’d consider myself a part of the values-aligned group—so if it gets me, you’re likely on your way to broader adoption.
Purpose and Opportunity
The way that I read your question makes me think that you don’t want to fully lean into your purpose or mission-based elements when building the brand (mostly out of a desire to avoid the perception of greenwashing, which is valid).
However, there are some very successful organizations in your space that have successfully woven purpose into their brand (Patagonia comes to mind—and Vessi, but perhaps in a more muted way). So, don’t exclude it simply because you think prospective customers will call BS and bail on you. If you do the work, you can build the brand that supports and promotes the purpose.
The first thing to consider is the opportunity.
Can you build a viable business catering solely to the early market groups that include the cause devotees and cause-aligned? My gut says probably not, but it’s worth considering. If you can build a viable business around those groups (and if that’s what you want), then that impacts how you build the brand.
If you do lean in on purpose for your brand, third-party validation of your claims will be absolutely crucial to the success of your business. Where they intersect with your manufacturing and organizational values, consider pursuing accreditation like :
ISO 14001:2015 “Green Seal”
Forest Stewardship Council (if there’s a crossover with your manufacturing inputs that makes sense)
CAN/BNQ 3840-100 (recycled plastics content)
Just as important, you’ll need to “walk the talk” to avoid criticisms of greenwashing from consumers (and potentially, regulatory agencies in the future). Every business leader will eventually face a crossroads and the temptation to cut corners or drop a little fib into what they do… but resist these devil-on-the-shoulder moments.
A part of that will rest in creating systems that support transparency and accountability, both internally and externally. They say that sunshine is the best disinfectant, and it’s true. B Corp certification is particularly useful for forcing the creation of those systems—you have to go through the process to pass the certification (and re-certification).
Lastly, avoid ironclad absolutes. Pragmatism is an essential part of survival and success for new brands and growing businesses. While you never want to compromise on the promises which you make to customers and stakeholders, leave yourself room to be flexible and experiment with what works (and what doesn’t). It’s a tough needle to thread, but if you can do it successfully, you’ll reap significant rewards.
Crossing the Values Chasm
Using plastics recovered from the ocean in your production process offers an obvious brand advantage that you can put to work to build a customer base from the early market part of the adoption curve. And I suspect that it aligns tightly with your personal values (which is useful—you’ll harvest energy and motivation from this alignment, as will your team if your hiring process is effective in considering both skills and values).
The next step is to determine what benefits this core purpose can deliver, for prospective customers in the other segments of the adoption curve. Purpose is positive, and useful. Alignment to values is similarly so. What’s the secret sauce beyond that?
For instance, do the characteristics of the recovered plastics as a manufacturing input convey other benefits?
Do you have a proprietary process that makes the material more suitable for a particular feature?
Is it more comfortable?
More resistant to wear and tear?
Does it have greater tensile strength?
Does it confer cost savings? Can you price some of your products at parity or below those which don’t use recycled plastics? This one in particular is tough, but there are some resins which are often less expensive when sourced from recycled stock than virgin stock (like PET and HDPE).
Consider how this purpose helps you build a better philosophy, and translate that into the communication of features and benefits to other segments of your adoption curve. This will be particularly useful if you ultimately place your products in more mainstream retail channels where the purpose-based brand marketing won’t necessarily resonate and confer an advantage over other products on the shelf.
The Peril of Relying on Discounting
Commercial organizations need to generate profit to stay afloat, and satisfy the demands of shareholders (whether owners or investors). The more you discount, the more you need to adapt in other ways—margin requirements are margin requirements. So if you rely on discounting to drive sales, you either need to systemically accept less profit or raise the MSRP of your products accordingly. Both of those choices have implications.
Another thing to bear in mind is that regular discounting can train consumers to behave in a particular way. I first ran across this concept in the early 2000s while working as a swing manager at McDonald’s during my university studies. The regional manager for the franchise group had a mantra—deal loyalty isn’t real loyalty.
Regardless of what else they may or may not be, McDonald’s knows their stuff when it comes to operations management, supply chain, and customer experience (at least, on paper for the latter one).
Indeed, deal loyalty does not equal real loyalty. Deal loyalty locks a customer base to a price point or steep price discounting with special offers. When this is a known pattern for the brand, prospective customers will simply wait until something they like goes on sale before buying. That’s not a great thing to rely on when building a brand, as it creates significant cost pressures within the supply chain.
The good news is that you don’t have to discount to build a successful brand. It’s quite rare for Apple to run discounts on their products—and they absolutely don’t do so in their own retail stores. Ever. Other premium brands take a similar approach, with luxury fashion brands like those in the LVMH group only doing so once aged product moves into semi-opaque clearance channels. These companies have the benefit of the decades behind them in their journey, of course. It’s more difficult for new brands to slot themselves into the premium space right away. But it can be done.
How to Discount Without Anchoring to Deal Loyalty
Consumer perception is generally that discounted product isn’t quality product (when the brand is unknown, anyway). The natural question in the mind of a consumer is “if it’s a good product, why is it discounted?”.
I think that you’re right to avoid a strategic position of relying on discounts to drive sales. There will be times when you need to discount on price to move inventory, that’s an inevitable part of doing business. But when you do, think about the impact of discounting on the brand.
You can use this inevitability to your advantage—for instance, running private sales tied to membership in a loyalty program. Within that loyalty program, you could even create exclusivity tiers that unlock deep discounts on occasion.
If you operate an eCommerce store that’s fully within your control (Shopify is a great platform for this), you can create a loyalty program and anchor rewards (discounts) to lifetime value of the customer (CLTV). For instance, if a particular customer has spent over $X with you in total, then they could qualify to participate in a private sale where aged inventory is deeply discounted. You could also tie that to a brand marketing campaign with an in-person event in Vancouver or something similar to firewall the sale.
Invite your high-LTV customers to a hike along the Capilano in North Van (or something like that). And sell your deeply discounted gear in person. An event like that could also have a lot of value for your social media marketing efforts (which is a useful marketing channel for great brand building).
Wrapping Up
You don’t have to lean on your purpose (sustainability) to build a great brand. But if you’re going to go to the effort to source plastic feedstock that’s recovered from waste in the ocean, it seems like a missed opportunity not to talk about it. You’ll invest significant effort into that part of your operation, and more likely than not your end products will carry a bit of a price premium because of it. That price premium will need to be justified to your customers, or they’ll simply buy from someone else.
No matter what path you choose and how you justify the price premium, follow these rules for building trust :
When you make a claim about superior features or benefits, back them up with evidence.
When you make a promise to your customers, keep it.
Consider those rules unbreakable, and the trust that you build with customers will turn into loyalty. And loyalty pays significant dividends back to the business over long time horizons.
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