Panasonic Green Claims Training

Introduction

Environmental claims are losing their authority.

Greenwashing has made consumers more sceptical, with 7 out of 10 Brits not believing the environmental claims they see.

Recent legislation, from the from the updated CAP code to the EU Green Claims Directive, makes the repercussions of getting things wrong more damaging than ever.

Panasonic, a multi-national corporation with sustainability at its core, enlisted Media Bounty to equip marketers across the business with the right skills to create engaging, truthful green claims, that don’t deceive the public and comply with new regulations.

Challenges

Our training had to be relevant to employees from marketing, communications and other departments of Panasonic’s consumer electronics business, across their five key markets.
Panasonic products and services cover a wide range of sectors, industries, and categories, some of which have a tougher job to create green impacts where business models and product developments must be newly thought through. While examples of existing green impacts are fewer, there is a higher risk of potential greenwash.
Employees need convincing of the importance of creating good green claims.
Regulations and the legal landscape are also still in an evolutionary stage while some countries have already established anti-greenwash legislation.
Difference in ecological consciousness across regions, putting high expectations onto Europe.

Approach

Disseminating complicated, and rapidly changing, legal regulations and making them eligible and relevant for marketers from all over the widely different markets and sectors of Panasonic was no easy feat.

We decided to take a broad approach, which focused on the fundamentals of making claims, rather than finetuning on individual consumer product sectors and regional markets to ensure training was widely applicable across the consumer electronics business.

Solution

The training guide which we developed with the Panasonic Core team (Corp Comms, Sustainability & legal) was written in plain English to aid understanding, and used visually compelling tools. Real-life examples were used to help employees apply best practice. We worked with legal and sustainability experts from Panasonic, and Unitmode’s Seán Boyle, to ensure everything was precise as well as captivating.

Our research into mainstream audiences also informed our advice on the fundamentals of claim making. Employees were taught to lead with how claims benefit the consumers everyday life, use clear and engaging language, and choose imagery that not only avoids greenwashing but helps Panasonic stand out.

Finally, we took employees through the guide over an interactive Teams session, sealing the deal with previously worried internal stakeholders, and ensuring Panasonic were ready to speak confidently and with substantiation about sustainability.

Bringing training to B2B audiences

Building on the success of our anti greenwashing training for B2C audiences, we were tasked with adapting the resources for B2B professionals.

We worked with Panasonic Europe’s internal sustainability champions to adapt our existing training to be suitable for B2B marketers.

To bring the training to life for them, we looked at new examples and case studies that were global in scope and applicable to more diverse areas of the business. We delivered the high energy training with interactive elements to keep attendees engaged and reinforce learning.

The training continued to solidify Panasonic Europe as pioneers of anti-greenwashing best practices and enable individuals at the business to put forward better communications.

The impact

“The Anti-Greenwashing guide and webinar which we together with experts from Media Bounty ran for our consumer electronics colleagues at first - has helped us to kick off the discussion about the issue of greenwashing and has made people more sensible when creating external marketing & communications materials.

It not only will support reputational and legal risk avoidance but also will help our Panasonic colleagues to be confident and positive to create projects that will demonstrate Panasonic’s commitment for the planet.”