on Thursday February 6, 2025
7 Key Elements of Brand Positioning for Climate Tech, Circular and Nature Restoration Companies
What is the cornerstone of effective marketing? Why do our clients with climate solutions (climate tech, circular companies, and nature restoration) praise us for a strategic approach to their marketing?
We believe the answer to both questions is the foundation we create for our clients’ marketing strategy and the diligence with which we help to implement it afterward. In this blog post, we are sharing the elements we work on together with clients at the start of our collaboration to create that strategic foundation for a viable and relevant marketing strategy.
Namely, this framework helps us create authentic and effective brand positioning which aligns the company’s brand story, vision, and value proposition with the needs and values of the target audience as well as clearly differentiates our client from the available alternatives. In the following paragraphs, we illustrate the framework elements with examples of our clients.
1. Brand Story:
A company’s brand story is a cradle for connection with your community: your prospects, customers, investors, employees, partners, and other stakeholders.
To craft a compelling brand story for our clients, we start by digging into the motivations for starting the company. What environmental or social concerns inspired the founders to take action? This background resonates with the right audiences – the ones who share your passion for sustainability and the same environmental and social issues.
Example: “The founders of AVID Climate recognized the carbon market’s potential to accelerate climate solutions while delivering financial returns for investors. However, they identified a key gap: individual investors, motivated by both financial and environmental benefits, lacked access to specialized carbon trading exchanges. To bridge this gap, AVID launched the first consumer-facing carbon trading platform, making the market more accessible and channeling rapid funding into high-impact, emerging climate projects.”
2. Vision and Legacy:
The company vision sets a long-term goal and gives audiences a glimpse of the better future you are striving to create. We guide climate tech organizations to describe the lasting legacy they want to leave for future generations. We help paint a picture of a more positive future we could experience together – whether it’s cleaner air, healthier ecosystems, or a more sustainable economy. The vision statement expresses the scale of your company’s ambition, illustrating how your solutions contribute to positive change.
Example: “Imagine a world where renewable energy powers entire cities, and carbon emissions are a thing of the past. This is the legacy AQUABATTERY aims to leave—a cleaner planet for future generations.”
3. Climate Goals:
Climate goals are paramount for climate tech and nature restoration companies. By discussing the specific climate or sustainability challenges that drive their company’s mission, we help clients define these challenges clearly, and where possible, quantify the impact the company aims to make over the next 10 years.
A clear picture of the climate goals helps us as the company’s marketers to zoom in on the ideal prospects and marketing channels for our clients, craft more relevant value propositions, and sharpen the messaging.
We apply our understanding of the client’s climate goals to filter out the best niche audiences, directories, decision-makers, groups, communities, etc. In other words, clearly defined climate goals also elevate the marketing game.
Example: “Batteries are the backbone of the energy transition. Today only 5% of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries are recycled. Evolve’s vision is to help build a not-too-distant future powered by renewable electricity, where nearly all lithium batteries are recycled and at least 25% of materials used for battery manufacturing come from recycled batteries.”
4. Target Audience:
Effective brand positioning for climate tech and nature restoration companies addresses the target audience’s needs, pain points, and current solutions. We help clients wrap their arms around the decision-making units by elaborating each role for the client’s core target segments: decision-makers, influencers, users, and gatekeepers.
We strive to understand the jobs to be done, challenges, goals, and preferences of each role. Then we gather deep insights into the Buyer Personas by researching what matters most to decision-makers and influencers.
Target Audience & Decision-Making Units Worksheet for Climate Tech and Nature Restoration Brands
Orange Bird’s Decision-Making Units Worksheet is a resource we use to map the needs, goals, and challenges that influence the buying decisions of our client’s target audience. This exercise, completed for each of the client’s target segments, illuminates the important messages we need to communicate to the audiences.
Get the Target Audience & Decision-Making Units Worksheet
Would you like expert marketing support to map the decision-making units in your target segments or build the brand positioning for your climate solutions company so you can grow your positive impact? Reach out to Orange Bird, Sustainability Marketing Agency to start a conversation.
Example: “Momentum Materials’ primary target audience is the heads of product development at hydrogen fuel cell manufacturers who want to extend the lifetime and performance of their products. Unlike competing alternatives, Momentum Materials products are demonstrated to double the lifetime of fuel cell catalysts.”
5. Competitors:
As with all sectors, it’s vitally important for effective climate tech and nature restoration players to have a clear picture of the alternatives that target audiences use or consider. We help our clients identify their peers and competitors in the marketplace and understand the benefits and drawbacks of incumbent solutions used by ideal buyers in the target audience. It can be noted that, in the case of some emerging climate solutions, the competitor may not be another company, but rather the traditional method the audience uses to address the need.
Competing Alternatives Worksheet for Climate Tech and Nature Restoration Brands
When working with a climate tech or nature restoration company, Orange Bird completes a Competitor Overview for each target segment using the following template.
By outlining the category, target audience, positioning, key benefits, weakness, and messaging of alternative providers we can highlight our client’s key differentiators and position the client where they will add the most value to their buyers and to sustainable development within their sectors.
Get the Competing Alternatives Worksheet
Would you like expert marketing support to map the competitors of your climate solution or to build your brand positioning so you can grow your positive impact? Reach out to Orange Bird, Sustainability Marketing Agency to start a conversation.
Example: “Unlike generalized business development outsourcing companies, Pedal & Shift is a business development consulting firm that specializes in renewable energy and ocean tech. Pedal & Shift’s unique blend of expertise in policy, engineering, and environmental issues makes them an ideal fit to help technical services companies seize rapidly-developing opportunities across the Atlantic, forging business partnerships that accelerate the clean energy transition.”
6. Marketing Stage and Goals
The company’s marketing stage is a key factor in defining realistic and relevant marketing goals. We help climate tech and nature restoration clients identify their stage among the following:
Product-Market-Fit and Validation
Go-to-Market
Product Marketing & Growth
Sustainable Brand Development
Then we help clients set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) for marketing outcomes that align with their current stage. We also document the hurdles that need to be overcome to achieve the marketing goals at scale.
Example Goal: “One of our SMART goals for the next quarter is to increase brand awareness and trust among our target audience by earning at least 20 backlinks to our website from highly relevant and credible sources in the renewable energy sector.”
7. Positioning and Differentiation:
Brand positioning differentiates climate solutions companies by showing how the brand uniquely meets customer needs and why it stands out from alternatives. It effectively summarizes the previous research work by outlining:
Target customer
Statement of need or opportunity
Statement of experience expectations
Product or service name
Product or service category
Statement of key benefit / compelling reason to buy
Primary competitive advantage
Statement of primary differentiation
Source: Tech Go-to-Market: Positioning Revisited, Gartner
This positioning statement is not an external messaging piece itself but serves as the bedrock for the company’s messaging.
Example Positioning Statement For Evolve:
“For EV/lithium battery manufacturers and EV OEMS
who need a closed-loop partner to recycle their end-of-life batteries and reliably supply reclaimed high-purity black mass and lithium carbonate for low-waste battery production
and prefer locally American-made materials,
Evolve
is the recycled battery materials provider (and battery recycling technology company)
With a patent-pending vacuum-crushing vaporization technology that achieves both the highest purity in materials and the lowest environmental impact.
Compared to battery recyclers that use pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy,
Evolve Materials’ technology offers superior scalability to meet the growing demand for electrification with far lower emissions and no additional waste streams.”
Orange Bird developed this 7-element framework in 2023. It helps us to position our climate tech and nature restoration clients clearly and to refine their value proposition so that it authentically conveys the company’s brand promise and the unique value it brings to the market and sustainable development. As a result, cleantech and nature-based brands can engage audiences and enact positive change.
Work with Orange Bird on Brand Positioning for Your ClimateTech or Nature-Based Company
Is your climate tech or nature restoration organization ready to develop an effective marketing strategy or transform your brand positioning to connect more effectively with the right audiences and build momentum for your climate solution? With our team of experts specializing in climate and nature-focused marketing, Orange Bird is ready to help. Reach out to us to start a conversation 👋🏻