Ethical marketing

My background is marketing and communications, particularly in the ethical arena. I always called myself an ethical marketing specialist but now everyone talks about sustainability. Whatever you call it, my experience means that I have worked specifically with purpose-driven brands for the past 15 years. I understand what consumers and sustainable business owners are looking for and how to communicate with them in an honest and compelling way.

I have tried to live an ethical life myself for over 20 years.  My interest started from a place of health, moved on to social justice and then on to climate change.  In short, I am a conscious consumer myself - the food I eat, my clothes, my mobile phone, my energy supplier, my household products, my car. And it is not a compromise.

My own enlightenment took place in the early 2000's when I discovered the amount of chemicals we are all exposed to in our daily lives, particularly in food and other everyday products.  I learnt so much about agriculture and the problems of pesticides and habitat loss at a time when there was not widespread concern or understanding.

This resulted in the launch of my own social enterprise in 2007 to educate women about breast cancer prevention.  I focused on areas such as the importance of diet, exercise, managing stress and avoiding certain hormone disrupting chemicals. Topics which are now widely adopted but at that time prevention was not top of mind.  I was able to increase my reach when I partnered with Breast Cancer UK and developed my educational programme for them through a national network of Ambassadors. 

In 2012 I launched as a freelance marketer with my focus on ethical marketing.  I worked with social entrepreneurs, campaigning not-for-profits as well as commercial businesses in the organic sector.  As a sustainability strategist, the marketing plans I developed for my clients have always included ethical objectives alongside financial and marketing KPIs.  At that time, these were often more difficult to define and measure but they were what brought meaning, purpose and a unique identity to the business.

Find out more about my experience and expertise from my LinkedIn profile