Founder and Managing Partner of Pulse Fund, Tenzin Seldon at THE NAT at New York Climate Week 2026. (Image Source: Pulse Fund Linkedin company page, accessed 12/10/26)
When we sit down with clients to look back on a year, the conversation usually starts with the familiar numbers: sales, new customers, funding secured. They matter, of course. But they don't always tell the whole story of how that growth was achieved, or what it cost along the way.
The same is true of the economy as a whole. GDP doesn't distinguish between activity that builds something up and activity that wears it down. If a forest is cut down and the timber sold, GDP goes up. If a flood damages homes and money is spent on repairs, GDP goes up again, even though nothing has been gained overall.
Last month, at Climate Week NYC, climate investor Tenzin Seldon proposed an alternative she calls Gross Domestic Regeneration. Rather than measuring how much a country produces, GDR would look at whether its natural systems, communities and economy are being rebuilt or run down. It's a national-level idea at a very early stage, and it may be a long time before it shows up in official statistics, if it ever does.
Still, the question at the heart of it feels relevant to a lot of the organisations we work with, from product brands to professional firms and charities. In our experience, the ones finding it easier to grow right now are often the ones who can explain, simply and with some evidence, what they're putting back. We don't think anyone has this completely figured out, us included, but a few patterns seem worth sharing.
What's changed for sustainability claims
For a long time, sustainability marketing leaned on fairly modest promises: recyclable mailers, an offset option at checkout, a paperless office, or a charity reporting how much of every pound goes straight to the cause. Those things still matter, but they don't seem to earn the trust they once did.
Some of that is plain scepticism. A YouGov survey found that 64% of British consumers are sceptical of brands' sustainability claims, compared with 55% globally, and only 9% worldwide said they believe them. Offsets have had a difficult few years too. In 2023, an investigation by The Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial found that more than 90% of the rainforest credits certified by Verra, the largest certifier, were likely to have little or no climate benefit. Understandably, a "carbon neutral" claim now tends to raise questions.
The rules have tightened as well. Since April 2025, the CMA has been able to fine businesses directly for misleading consumers, by up to 10% of global turnover, and it has made clear that green claims are on its radar. Its Green Claims Code asks for claims to be specific, accurate and backed by evidence. If you sell into the EU, new rules that came in on 27 September this year also ban generic claims like "eco-friendly" unless they can be substantiated.
That doesn't mean you should stop talking about the good you do. It probably does mean being more careful and more specific about how you say it.
Showing what you're putting back
The examples we find most convincing usually point at something concrete.
Hodmedod's, a Suffolk business, works directly with British farmers to grow pulses like fava beans, which help diversify crop rotations and are good for the soil. It began as a small trial and is now stocked by Holland & Barrett. Toast Ale brews beer with surplus bread, so the product more or less explains itself. Finisterre, the Cornish B Corp, has made repair part of how it sells clothing.
It can be harder for professional services firms, because there isn't a product to point to. Often the biggest impact is in the work itself. Architects Declare, a network that started in the UK, has helped make embodied carbon and retrofit part of the conversation for many practices. The Chancery Lane Project, set up by UK lawyers, offers free climate-aligned contract clauses that firms can share with clients. Among charities, Surfers Against Sewage is a nice example: its volunteers test and publish water quality data, which lets supporters follow the issue over time rather than only hearing from the charity at appeal time.
As far as we know, none of these organisations started with a big budget. What they seem to have in common is one genuine change, and a willingness to talk about it honestly while it's still a work in progress. "Eco-friendly packaging" doesn't tell anyone very much. Something like "our mailers are made from 100% recycled card, and we're still looking for a replacement for the plastic tape" is less tidy, but probably more believable. If you're working towards B Corp, the assessment can be a helpful way to find that story, even before you certify.
How it connects to growth
It's easy to think of this as a reputation question, and it partly is. But we've come to see it as a commercial one too.
Customers who connect with what you're doing often stay longer and recommend you, so it may be worth watching retention as closely as acquisition. For B2B firms, clients are under growing pressure to account for emissions in their supply chain, including the services they buy. Suppliers bidding for central government contracts worth over £5 million a year already need a published Carbon Reduction Plan, and some private-sector clients are starting to ask similar questions. Having a thoughtful answer ready can only help.
For charities, there are signs that funders are rethinking things. A number of UK trusts and foundations, including Esmée Fairbairn and The Robertson Trust, have signed up to IVAR's Open and Trusting Grant-making commitments, which favour longer-term and unrestricted funding where possible. That may give charities more room to talk about the long-term change their core costs support, rather than focusing only on how little they spend.
A few places to start
If you're not sure where to begin, it might help to choose one change you can genuinely evidence and lead with that. Be as specific as you can about the numbers and who has checked them. It's fine, and often helpful, to be open about what you haven't solved yet.
Once you have that story, the next question is usually how people find it. This is where a lot of our own work sits, and a few things have come up again and again with clients.
Search is often a good place to start. People tend to look things up before they buy, hire or donate, and more of that now happens through AI tools as well as Google. In our experience, clear and specific content with real evidence behind it does better in both, because it gives search engines and AI assistants something concrete to point to. Vague claims are hard to rank and even harder to quote.
Paid media can then put that story in front of the right people. For smaller organisations especially, we've found it usually works better to spend carefully on audiences who are likely to care than to spread the budget thinly. That tends to be better for your results, and it means less wasted effort all round.
Your website is where much of this comes together, so it's worth looking at with fresh eyes. A lighter, faster site is easier to use, generally performs better in search and uses less energy to load. It also sits more comfortably next to a story about doing more with less.
Underneath all of it is strategy: being clear about which audiences matter most, what you want each of them to understand, and how you'll know whether it's working. For a charity, that might mean funders. For a professional firm, it could be the procurement teams reading your tenders. For a product brand, it's often the customers most likely to come back.
GDR may or may not become a mainstream measure. Either way, we think the organisations that start paying attention to what they put back will be in a good place, whatever the next few years bring. If you'd like to talk through what that could look like for your own marketing, we'd be happy to have a chat.
Sources
Seldon, T., "New systems needed to fight climate change", Aspen Daily News (opinion).
ThePrint / ANI, "AudacityAI founder Kunal Sood convenes global leaders at UNGA Climate Week, launches Gross Domestic Regeneration Task Force with Tenzin Seldon", September 2026.
YouGov, "More than half of global consumers are skeptical of a brand's sustainability claims", survey across 18 international markets.
The Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, investigation into Verra rainforest carbon offsets, January 2023.
Fieldfisher, "Greenwashing under scrutiny: the CMA's new powers to tackle misleading environmental claims", 2025.
Taylor Wessing, "Status of the Green Claims Directive", July 2025.
Cabinet Office, "PPN 006: Taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans in the procurement of major government contracts", GOV.UK.
Hodmedod's, "Getting more pulses & grains into British kitchens with Holland & Barrett", company blog.
IVAR, "Five perspectives to celebrate three years of Open and Trusting", blog.