The CXO Summit: Ecologi's CMO on Sustainability in Marketing

Day one of the CXO Summit featured a keynote speech from Adam Boita, Chief Marketing Officer of Ecologi. 

Throughout day one of the event, C-suite leaders from around the world took to the stage to discuss high-level strategy across people, capital, performance and brand.

In his keynote address ‘Climate change is costing your business. Nature and marketing can change that’, Adam explored the ways marketers are embedding nature into their brand strategy to deliver measurable returns – and what this means for how businesses think about marketing investment. 

The financial benefits of brand equity

According to the 2026 Climate Commitments Report, conducted by Ecologi and BusinessGreen, 70% of UK businesses are already losing at least 1% of annual revenue to climate-related costs. 

However the same report has found that businesses that take meaningful action on nature and sustainability report an average revenue uplift of 14%, brand image improvements of 16% and customer acquisition gains of nearly 15%

According to Adam, brand – particularly in the age of AI – is “probably one of the most defensible modes that we have”.

“Human judgement, human connection, the trust piece,” he says. “You attract more eco-conscious customers as a result, increase revenue, have a competitive advantage and, more importantly, reduce costs.” 

Adam suggests that embedding sustainable practice into a wider brand strategy can lead to significant commercial returns – but a campaign has to mean something to a consumer.

“You might be doing your science-based target initiatives, and nearing your long-term targets,” Adam says. “That’s all great, but it doesn’t really tell a story. 

“Previously, it’s always been about the amount of emissions and the amount of carbon, and nature often gets forgotten. But it’s actually nature that’s the tangible differentiator of all brands.

“We all love going out in nature – but we’re not connecting what we enjoy to what we do in our business.”

Adam went on to suggest that localised environmental action in particular can make a more tangible difference to customer advocacy and trust – with research from YouGov finding that 60% of UK adults are more likely to recommend a business that actively protects natural habitats closer to home.  

The ‘Up to Good’ fund

Brands looking to translate their environmental commitment into a marketing strategy need to look at building something tangible that can have a direct impact on performance. 

“It’s not just about having a nice story to tell,” he says. ”It also has to increase campaign performance.” 

In his keynote address, Adam discussed Ecologi’s work with giffgaff on an environmental and nature-recovery initiative sitting within the advertising and media ecosystem. 

The companies established the ‘Up to Good’ fund in late 2023, which asks participants to pledge at least 0.1% of their campaign media spend on UK nature restoration projects. 

“You’re shaving off 0.1% to put towards nature, where you can tell your clients or investors the impact of that project,” says Adam. “We’ve grown this from just three or four partners last year to 20.”  

Since its inception, Up to Good has led to the funding of 7,548 trees, 2,869 tCO2e avoided, 329 tCO2 removed and 8,386 metres squared of habitat restored. 

Thank you to our sponsors at the inaugural CXO Summit: Alexander Group, HiBob and Malt.