Just wanted to round up 3 things that have caught my eye in the last month – which between them I think illustrate the spectrum of effort that brands can make on the sustainability front:

– On the being marginally less bad, ‘every little helps’ end, step forward Cadbury’s: On-pack claim informing about reduction in packaging taking lorries off the road: good, simple, clear, verifiable, and easy for consumers to understand.  Branded under the ‘Purple goes green’ umbrella Cadbury’s has developed to encompass all sustainability efforts. Together with the other side of pack talking about the brand’s CRM (’cause related marketing – links with national trust and make a wish foundation), it enhances the brand’s credibility in ‘doing good’. They still have a long way to go to solve the packaging waste issue on Easter Eggs, and the carbon footprint of chocolate (is HUGE) driven by milk, and lesser extent by cocoa, but at least they are making steps in the right direction.

– A slightly bigger win will be pet food going ‘sustainable’ in its fish sourcing, with Mars pet food (Whiskas etc) tying up with the Marine Stewardship council. Read more in a Telegraph article by clicking here.

– On the ‘rethinking things’ end, step forward McBride – not a household name, but  suppliers of many of the own label household cleaning products to UK retailers. They have launched a new branded cleaning range called iClean, available in Waitrose and possibly elsewhere. The key point is that they sell one trigger bottle, and then the refills are just little sachets you put into the trigger bottle, add warm water from your tap, and shake it up. I’ve had mine a few weeks and its marvellous, exactly same cleaning power and great fragrance. Makes sense, when most household cleaners are 90% water, how silly to be shipping all that around the country when we can get it out of the tap? We need more innovations like this, its no loss for the consumer (in fact quirky and fun to start with), and vastly reduces packaging, transport costs, and waste – you can reuse your trigger bottle up to 20 times apparently.  See more at the iClean website