Chapter 9
THE ‘WHY’ OF SOCIAL CAPITAL
Throughout this book we’ve tried to build an argument that brands and social capital are natural bedfellows, and that through leveraging their considerable abilities to grow social capital, brands could contribute far more effectively to the challenges presented within the sustainability debate. Rather than being shrill cheerleaders for their corporate guardians’ endeavours, brands have the opportunity to lead the charge on finding durable, engaging and innovative solutions to sustainability issues. In short, sustainability that is sustainable.
And we’ve started to introduce the various qualities this new breed of brands will demonstrate, such as a commitment beyond image, an intrinsic motivation, a recognition of the citizen-who-consumes and an understanding of the importance of a deeper, more intelligent form of trust, built in part through a credible commitment to communicate through sense-making narratives rather than blanket transparency.
The one major reason we’ve presented so far for this refocusing on social capital, rather than sustainability specifically, is that we feel the current raft of challenges around sustainability has been caused by the slow collapse in social capital: that where social capital is low, so the tendencies and desires to marginalise audiences and externalise costs rise, and conversely, where social capital is higher, so these tendencies and desires tend to diminish. In short, we’re saying that a focus on sustainability ...
