Press Release
Marketing Industry Launches CMO Sustainability Accelerator Collaborative

NEW YORK (December 7, 2021) — Leading organizations in the marketing industry today announced a groundbreaking coalition of resources and professional expertise to catalyze the global marketing community in driving growth through sustainable innovation.

A joint effort of the ANA, Sustainable Brands™ and Adweek, the Global CMO Sustainability Accelerator combines forces to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each group. In coming together, the goal is to consolidate efforts across the industry, help CMOs maximize impact, and accelerate sustainable innovation to build better brands and a better world.

The Accelerator has three primary objectives:

1. To unify efforts that help advance sustainability in the global marketing industry;

2. To educate and enable CMOs to innovate with sustainability tools, roadmaps, standards, best practices, case studies, and roundtables;

3. To be a force for good and for growth through sustainable innovation that advances the “triple bottom line” of people, profit, and the planet.

“Sustainability has justifiably become a cornerstone of 21st century marketing and the ANA through the CMO Growth Council is committing considerable resources to its success,” said ANA CEO Bob Liodice. “The new CMO Sustainability Accelerator program is a pioneering, joint effort to help our members and the industry at large successfully develop sustainability efforts that will benefit consumers and brands alike.”

ANA Chairman Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble, said uniting resources from the three groups into a cohesive unit allows them to leverage each other’s strengths and accelerate progress on sustainability throughout the marketing industry.

“The CMO Sustainability Accelerator brings together the tools and thought leadership from Sustainable Brands, Adweek’s distribution and playbooks, and the ANA’s reach and education capabilities,” Pritchard said. “It consolidates valuable resources to better enable CMOs to advance sustainability in a way that drives growth and value creation.”

“Since 2006, Sustainable Brands has convened and enabled the vanguard of brands helping business and society thrive in harmony with nature.'' said Sustainable Brands CEO KoAnn Skrzyniarz. “Today, CMO’s within most brands around the world are recognizing their role in helping lead necessary transformation within their organizations and indeed society at large, to align growth with a sustainable and flourishing future. In entering this partnership, we are delighted to bring the knowledge, insights and tools gleaned from these 15 years of learning and practice as a community to a wider audience, thereby accelerating the delivery of the positive change that planet, people and business so badly needs.”

“As a long-time member of the CMO Community, I’m thrilled to see this move to avoid further fragmentation of efforts” said Antonio Lucio, Board Member of Adweek. “Further, I believe it’s collaboration like this that can truly help empower marketing leaders to own the responsibility they have to drive both change and growth.”

Key elements of the Accelerator will be completed in stages over the next year and will include:

• A Sustainability Hub: A curated collection of sustainability tools, case studies, playbooks, and best practices from leading marketers across the globe will be made available to guide CMOs and all marketers.

• Assessment Tools & Roadmaps: Marketers will be able to determine company and brand progress on the sustainability journey and measure against industry benchmarks. These frameworks and tools will enable brands to build a sustainability roadmap, set goals and identify key metrics for success, as well as test their marketing content to determine effectiveness in building brand favorability and enabling sustainable lifestyles.

• Sustainability Standards for Marketing: Industry guidelines and standards will be developed for marketing claims, creative and media supply chain governance, and impact measurement.

• CMO Sustainability Accelerator Roundtables: CMOs will convene from around the world for peer-to-peer learning and opportunities to partner and work together on sustainability initiatives in service to people and the planet.

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ABOUT THE ANA

The ANA’s (Association of National Advertisers) mission is to drive growth for marketing professionals, brands and businesses, the industry, and humanity. The ANA serves the marketing needs of 20,000 brands by leveraging the 12-point ANA Growth Agenda, which has been endorsed by the Global CMO Growth Council. The ANA’s membership consists of U.S. and international companies, including client-side marketers, nonprofits, fundraisers, and marketing solutions providers (data science and technology companies, ad agencies, publishers, media companies, suppliers, and vendors). The ANA creates Marketing Growth Champions by serving, educating, and advocating for more than 50,000 industry members that collectively invest more than $400 billion in marketing and advertising annually.

ABOUT SUSTAINABLE BRANDS

Sustainable Brands® is the premier global community of brand innovators who are shaping the future of commerce worldwide. Since 2006, our mission has been to inspire, engage and equip today’s business and brand innovators to prosper for the near and long term by leading the way to a better future. Digitally published news articles and issues-focused conversation topics, internationally known conferences and regional events, a robust e-learning library, and peer-to-peer membership groups and brand collaboration initiatives all facilitate community engagement and industry progress throughout the year. For more information visit www.SustainableBrands.com.

ABOUT ADWEEK

Adweek is the leading source of news and insight serving the brand marketing ecosystem. First published in 1979, Adweek’s award-winning coverage reaches an engaged audience of more than 6 million professionals across platforms including print, digital, events, podcasts, newsletters, social media and mobile apps. As a touchstone of the advertising and marketing community, Adweek is an unparalleled resource for leaders across multiple industries who rely on its content to help them do their jobs better.

MEDIA CONTACTS: ANA

John Wolfe

Director of Communications

Office: 212.455.8011

Cell: 914.659.8663

Email: [email protected]