When e2Companies came to Kuno Creative, they had an innovative energy solution and a bold sustainability mission, but few marketing or sales materials. They didn’t have an inbound marketing strategy, a way to track who was engaging with their brand, or a documented process for following up with leads. Today, they’ve built a powerful web presence, created industry-specific sales collateral, and are training new team members and channel partners to tell their sustainability story with confidence.
That transformation is what a strong sales enablement strategy looks like in action.
As more B2B buyers evaluate partners based on environmental and social impact in increasingly competitive markets, the ability to communicate your sustainability commitments is more than branding or taglines or clever hashtags.
It’s a comprehensive growth strategy.
Sustainable marketing practices can drive sustainable revenue growth. Here’s how.
Understanding Sales Enablement
Sales enablement is the alignment of your resources, messaging and strategy to close deals. When you add the element of sustainability, you’re showcasing what your brand does for the greater good, why you believe in it, and why it matters to your customers.
These aren’t value propositions, but value-added propositions.
They equip your sales team to explain not just what you do, but why you do it and the impact it has on society.
In a 2024 Deloitte report on sustainability practices, respondents in the United Kingdom placed “ethical working practices” and “respect for human rights” in the top-five sustainability concerns shaping consumer behavior. This shows ethical practices in the workplace carry similar weight in the market as more conventional green initiatives. This importance will likely increase with geopolitical concerns and policy instability.
The U.S. branch of Deloitte in a separate report considers these matters “human sustainability.” We agree – taking care of people and our communities is as important as taking care of the planet precisely because it’s all the same.
Sales teams have a distinct opportunity to demonstrate brand commitments to corporate citizenship, enhancing rapport and credibility with messaging that highlights a company’s concern for these human sustainability issues.
Why Sustainability Matters in A Sales Enablement Strategy
Consumers expect more than performance.
They’re looking for brands that align with or reflect their values and consider the broader impact their operations have on society and on the environment.
A PwC report found four out of five customers are willing to pay a “sustainability premium” of almost 10% for brands that are sustainably produced or sourced, even as they face pressure from inflation.
And they’re increasingly validating this with their buying behavior.
For instance:
- 46% say they’re buying more sustainable products
- 43% say they’re giving more thought to purchases to reduce consumption
- 40% say they’re looking for brands with sustainable production methods and recycling
- 67% use social media to discover new brands through social media, while 70% use social media to validate a brand before making a purchase
For B2B brands, the actual purchases look different, but the way consumers research products and make decisions is similar.
The Sales Team’s Role in Sustainability Messaging
Your sales professionals are your brand’s voice. They translate your values into action for prospective customers.
To make every interaction count, sales reps need more than product specs or battle cards. They need sustainability-aligned messaging that resonates with your buyers’ values. This includes well-crafted talking points and branded materials that convey transparency and trust.
Consider the work Kuno Creative did with Skyven Technologies, a company in the renewable energy sector that helps industrial manufacturers reduce carbon emissions by upgrading waste heat into boiler-quality steam.
Reaching a niche audience that included CFOs and operations managers at paper manufacturing plants, food and beverage manufacturers, and chemical processing facilities required precise ad targeting and messaging that would leave an impression.
We used a mix of technical whitepapers and materials with broader appeal to help the team explain why status quo traditional boiler systems were inefficient and ultimately, cost companies more money.
It wasn’t enough to appeal to the audience’s desire to reduce their carbon footprint. We had to present the solution as a practical, innovative new standard for manufacturing that would reduce fuel costs, lower emissions and improve operational efficiency without disruption.
Talking points included the ability to install Skyven’s steam-generating heat pump up to half a mile from their facility, seamlessly switch back to natural gas-fired boilers when electricity prices were high, and take advantage of programs that allowed them to implement the solution without upfront capital expenses.
Building an Effective Sustainability Sales Enablement Strategy
Getting started with this kind of sales enablement strategy means alignment first on organizational sustainability goals. And that means getting sales, marketing and stakeholders on the same page answering a simple question: Who do we want to be?
It sounds like a simple question, but there’s rarely a simple answer.
It requires gaining a consensus among your company’s key stakeholders about the brand’s commitment to sustainability. This can serve as a gut check to develop a formal plan if you don’t already have one, or an accountability measure to see if you’re meeting your marks.
While insights and perspectives on these matters can come from everyone, the vision should come from leadership.
Once that vision is set, marketing and sales leaders can get to work articulating the message, building a strategy that will bring prospects closer to making the decision to work with you and keep existing clients in the fold.
Define Your Sustainability Values and Goals
Start by identifying the sustainability values that matter most to your team, your leadership, and most importantly, your customers.
Interviewing or surveying customers can help to clarify their priorities.
Once you have a clear idea of what they want, incorporate the top three points consistently throughout every touchpoint. That includes ads, emails, blog posts, website pages, video and more technical resources.
Align Sales Messaging With Sustainability Commitments
These key points should also be carried through to the messaging you provide to the sales team. They can reiterate these points in engagements like follow-up emails or phone calls, LinkedIn messages, videos, even sales presentations.
Here’s one example of key talking points we incorporated into sales materials targeting owners and developers of multi-family real estate buildings who are interested in on-site power solutions from e2Companies:
- Lower Operating Costs
Save up to 30% on your energy bills by reducing utility usage at peak times. - Ensure Reliability
Avoid outages and tenant displacement while reducing insurance premiums with 24/7 resiliency. - Offer Future-Ready Amenities
Provide EV fast-charging on site and integrate with renewable energy sources.
The company is now training its sales team and channel partners to discuss these key value props on their calls and providing guidance on how to ask the right questions to qualify leads as strong prospects for these solutions.
These questions include asking them about their facilities’ current energy usage and infrastructure, goals for improving reliability and lowering emissions, and budget and timeline.
Develop Sustainability-Focused Sales Materials
Our work with e2Companies began with branding and a website redesign, but the partnership has since grown to include much more. In the past two years, we’ve developed numerous marketing resources and materials for their sales team, including:
- Industry pages and sales sheets focused on specific solutions
- A technical video and virtual demo of e2Companies’ technology
- Whitepapers and charts explaining the advantages of the system compared to conventional solutions, typically, diesel generators or uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems
- Sales sheets about how to use available tax incentives
- A calculator to help prospects quickly estimate their costs and savings
- Case studies highlighting how the system works at manufacturing facilities
- Updated sales presentations showing how the solution reduces carbon emissions, allows companies to achieve additional revenue with demand response programs and EV charging, and integrates seamlessly with renewables
- Creative visual elements and materials for trade shows, including a major industry trade show where the company debuted its solution with an on-site demo
Any sales materials your team creates should be tailored to specific industries and audiences. They should show how your solution works, and specifically how it achieves broader sustainability goals and brings about a greater societal return on investment.
Sales Enablement Best Practices
Authenticity Is a Non-negotiable
Many companies ignore distasteful or ugly parts of their past, while others overstate the impact of their sustainability efforts. With regard to sustainability, these actions are known as greenwashing.
This could include downplaying catastrophic oil spills or human rights violations and launching PR campaigns intended to distract from them instead of addressing the harm they’ve done.
Greenwashing, like sustainability, isn’t strictly limited to green issues. Scandals, reputations for workplace toxicity or executive bad behavior, or breaking promises regarding closing facilities or reducing headcount can’t be waved away by a marketing campaign punctuated by heartstring-tugging ads.
Credibility matters, and that means working within your boundaries and being upfront about the past, shortcomings or other instances of poor corporate citizenship.
Your brand is a value statement. Good corporate behavior at all levels enhances brand and facilitates the sales process.
Personalize Sustainability Messaging for Different Buyer Personas
Not all buyers view sustainability through the same lens. For some, it’s a matter of regulatory compliance. For others, it’s a corporate value or a strategic differentiator. Understanding these nuances is essential.
For instance, a hospital administrator may prioritize energy efficiency upgrades that reduce carbon emissions, but their guiding principles are standards set forth by the Joint Commission. If your messaging doesn’t directly address compliance with these standards, it’s not likely to land.
A manufacturing CFO will have different priorities that likely include uptime, cost savings and ESG reporting. Your sales approach should emphasize how your technology or service contributes to long-term operational efficiency, supports regulatory reporting and helps them qualify for state and federal sustainability incentives.
That’s why defining and segmenting buyer personas is a foundational step in building sustainable selling techniques that resonate across roles and industries.
Use Data To Strengthen Sustainability Claims
To avoid accusations of greenwashing and the skepticism that has permeated the industry, any claims must be backed by quantifiable data, third-party certifications and real-world case studies.
We’ve seen how powerful this approach can be with our own clients.
Skyven gathered extensive data demonstrating average emissions reductions for each industry, based on average annual fuel usage and resulting carbon emissions.
It can demonstrate annual carbon emissions reductions by 96,000 MT per year and average annual facility savings of $830,000 for the pulp and paper industry.
The company uses AI-powered software that draws from digital models of existing manufacturing facilities and creates a unique design for each new project to estimate costs, savings and expected emissions reductions.
This demonstrates proof of concept before the technology is implemented and reduces engineering time and costs by over 90%.
e2Companies has also built proof points into its technology and its sales process: With origins as an environmental compliance service, it already had the established technology to monitor emissions generated by its systems and compare them to the average emissions for diesel generators. It can demonstrate more than a 90% reduction in carbon emissions, a number that has been validated by independent third-parties.
The company is an ISO 26000 ESG-focused organization and working to achieve ISO 14001:2015 certification, an international standard that measures the effectiveness of environmental and safety management systems.
When informed prospects hear these numbers and the certifications, they have immediate reassurance that their investment will have a real impact on the environment.
Other ways to reinforce claims include environmental impact assessments and client case studies that document measurable results. When messaging includes this level of credibility, sales teams gain talking points and prospects’ trust.
If your buyers are asking “How do I know this is true?” you’re already behind. Sales enablement content should address the question before they ask, turning proof into persuasion and data into conversion.
Integrate These Elements Into Sales Operations
Incorporating authenticity, personalization and data into your sales operations isn’t just best practice: it’s a mechanism that powers effective sales enablement function.
It starts with capturing and using both first-party data (information collected directly from forms, website interactions, or meetings) and third-party data to shape conversations and content. From there, marketing automation platforms like HubSpot allow you to automate lead scoring based on criteria such as content engagement, form submissions, and persona fit. This helps your sales team prioritize the most qualified leads and follow up with personalized outreach that resonates through email sequences, social touchpoints, or meetings.
During discovery calls, your reps should be equipped to ask smart qualifying questions about sustainability goals, compliance requirements, energy usage and/or buying timelines. These insights should be logged as structured notes in contact and company records, building a shared knowledge base for the entire sales team.
And when the inevitable follow-up questions arise, such as “What does implementation look like?” or “Do you have a case study in my industry?” your team should have quick access to relevant materials like ESG reports, carbon savings calculators, corporate citizenship report cards or customer testimonials.
That’s how you move from a generic pitch to a value-driven conversation that builds trust, shortens sales cycles and keeps your sustainability messaging consistent across every interaction.
Your chief revenue officer should take the lead in developing these sales skills and measuring sales performance.
How Kuno Creative Supports Sales Enablement
Expertise in Sustainable Marketing
We’ve already shared how we’ve supported sustainability pioneers like e2Companies and Skyven by helping them define a distinctive brand voice, streamline complex buyer journeys and empower their sales teams. These engagements not only raised awareness but also improved lead qualification, campaign performance and long-term pipeline visibility.
Our sustainability marketing expertise has included other clients in the space over the years.
For a company that’s transforming how hospitals and clinics dispose of waste, sustainability is a core part of the value proposition. We’ve helped them clarify their message for a highly specialized market and educate prospects about the need for this service and the options available to them.
For a national services provider committed to ethical sourcing and environmentally responsible operations, we’ve helped translate their ambitious sustainability goals into actionable marketing strategy. From persona research and ESG-aligned messaging to the rollout of a new brand look and feel across web, content and paid channels, we helped the company promote its environmental and social commitments in ways that matter to both public and private sector buyers. Our work extended beyond brand experience to include sales enablement content tailored to different stakeholders, from finance and procurement professionals to facility managers and sustainability officers.
We’ve also partnered with a leading chemical manufacturer pursuing aggressive sustainability benchmarks tied to emissions reduction, waste minimization and green chemistry and manufacturing innovations. Through detailed persona development and content mapping, we helped align their sustainability messaging with specific buyer priorities across industry verticals.
In each of these engagements, our goal remains the same: to build trust by helping our clients prove their respective sustainability stories, not just tell them. We do this by bringing sales and marketing into alignment around a shared purpose, translating sustainability into tangible value, enabling business dev teams with messaging, tools and workflows that convert values into revenue.
How Kuno Creative Helps Sales Teams Align With Sustainability
Starting with branding, our team develops the foundation for sustainability messaging and promotes it through marketing efforts and the selling process.
We help clients build sales-focused workflows in HubSpot that can reflect sustainability priorities at each stage of the buyer’s journey. These workflows qualify leads by more than industry or job title, but by values and intent, segmenting eco-conscious and socially concerned buyers and delivering content that speaks directly to their concerns, whether it’s energy efficiency, emissions reduction or ethical sourcing and good corporate citizenship.
We also create lead nurturing sequences that do more than keep a contact warm. From the first follow-up email to post-demo drip campaigns, we develop messaging that balances practical business benefits with sustainability proof points—reinforcing your company’s mission and offering tangible evidence of environmental and social impact.
Sales decks, videos and other resources tell sustainability stories worth believing in. Whether it’s a pitch deck that includes impact metrics and certifications, a customer success video focused on ESG outcomes, or an ROI calculator that quantifies environmental benefits, we create sales enablement content that not only informs but inspires trust and action.
Because we understand the longer, more consultative sales cycles that sustainability-driven companies often face—especially in regulated industries like healthcare, manufacturing or energy—we go beyond standard content creation.
We work with your sales and marketing teams to develop layered, persona-specific enablement assets that support every step of a multi-stakeholder decision.
Why Choose Kuno Creative for Your Sustainability Strategy
When all these elements come together, your company can achieve stand-out results.
In our first year of working with e2Companies, the power solutions provider saw a 135% increase in website traffic, significantly increased engagement and generated 400 new leads from a single tradeshow.
Since then, they have significantly increased the number of deals they have in various stages of their sales pipeline, with the goal of reducing the average sales cycle.
Each purchase involves significant planning, engineering, financing and approvals, so any way to help prospects make decisions faster has an impact on their revenue.
At Kuno, we do more than design websites or offer a menu of deliverables. We bring together experts in brand experience, marketing, paid advertising, sales enablement and user experience to develop cohesive strategies that create revenue.
We’ve made it our mission to help companies we believe in, so we actively seek opportunities to work with people who are passionate about making the world better.
Let’s talk about how we can help your company highlight your sustainable initiatives and attract like-minded buyers.
Brent Sirvio contributed to this article.
