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How to Start the Conversation on Sustainability in your Company

I would like to see that sustainable thinking is the norm of the business world in 2021.

But still today, it’s not. It’s pursued as an exclusive opportunity for businesses doing well and a luxury choice for consumers. So, if you care that your company starts taking steps in the right direction, you have to be ready to sell that idea internally.

As much as many of us dread the concept of selling, we also realize that selling an idea is something we do daily. Just as you would sell the next movie choice to your partner for your next home-movie night (because, yeah, cinemas are still closed), you have to be able to sell big ideas within your company.

And when that idea is sustainability, you better come well prepared with a strong “why” and ideas on how this will help the company reach its goals.

And for the record, I have nothing against Greta Thunberg. She’s been an inspiration for me to set out on the sustainability journey, but the fact remains that her statements wouldn’t push a company to change its business approach. So, which arguments could land and resonate the best?

Employee loyalty

According to a Deloitte study, two in three millennials will quit their job if they don’t find fulfilment or if they sense that their current job has no ambition beyond profit.

And it’s not just millennials that expect a lot from their employers. A recent employee survey by Peakon reports that concern about environmental issues increased globally by 52% in 2019.

If that’s not getting your Human Resources department’s attention, try weaving your company’s sustainability efforts and values throughout your employer branding materials. You will make their job easier.

Company valuation

Investors’ goal is to get the highest possible return from their investment portfolio with minimal risk.  And in the next 10 years, climate change is among the biggest threats to humanity (according to UN Global Risks Report 2021).

So, Black Rock VC and other major players in the ecosystem are starting to reevaluate their investment strategy and criteria. They increasingly want to see founders build solutions for the future – solutions addressing real problems and ambition beyond profit.

People buy experiences, not products

And your job is to make them feel good about choosing yours. Consumers are increasingly paying attention to the backstory of the various companies they’re supporting. For example, take the fashion industry – a significant abuser of child labor (almost one in ten of all children worldwide are in child labor according to the UN). Campaigns like “Who made your clothes?” make people start looking into it and demand the big fast fashion companies to change. And part of that has been why Copenhagen Fashion Summit – the meeting place for the fashion industry’s positive change-makers – was established.

And if you think that just because you’re in the B2B segment, this doesn’t apply to you – think again. Doing business with a company whose reputation is damaged due to unethical or unsustainable business practices will no longer fly. That should help you formalize the arguments for bringing up sustainability in your company.

From what I gather, we need all hands on deck for the journey through the 2020s.

Here’s a few practical tips for starting the conversation:

  • Share with your team what your competitors are doing. What are they bragging about? What are they emphasizing? That might not be a leading sustainability strategy yet, but it possibly will start the conversation.
  • Host a brainstorming session on sustainability topics with a few colleagues that might benefit from implementing sustainability in the company. Create space where you can discuss what opportunities and challenges venturing in that direction might create.
  • Send data insights of how the industry/investment community is changing to the main decision-maker – the CEO – directly.  I would even consider sending a video recording from an industry-leading event like TechChill (a good option would be this one from the 2020 event featuring Lauri Kokkila from Inventure).

As much as I care about sustainability, I strongly believe that you have to start with a business case. At least that has been my experience. We operate in a system that aims and tracks growth and profit. So if you want to make a change, speak the language decision-makers understand.

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Events 2 days ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

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