​Scene and Context

In recent years, agencies have found themselves under scrutiny not just for what they make, but for who they make it for. Campaigns are dissected for greenwashing. Consultancies are questioned for their role in enabling harm. Neutrality has become a fragile defence.

At the heart of this scrutiny sits a difficult question. Should agencies be held accountable for the actions of their clients, even when they do not control the final decisions? Or does refusing to engage simply leave flawed systems untouched?

That question framed a recent episode of The Responsible Edge, where Becky Holland, founder and CEO of BH&P, spoke candidly about the ethical tension baked into values-led consultancy work.

“There’s a lot of damage that can be done by good people working inside bad systems,” she said.

Formation Inside the System

Becky has spent her entire career in marketing and advertising. She began in large agencies in the 1990s, working on major brands during a period when long hours and shareholder pressure were the norm. Purpose-led work existed, but usually at the margins.

“The myth was you had to have a retail client, a car client, a finance client, something sexy, and a charity client,” she recalled.

“The charity client didn’t make any money, but everyone wanted to work on it because it made them feel good.”

The imbalance was hard to ignore. Most of the work, she said, existed to keep shareholders happy, whether client-side or agency-side. “You’re working ten, twelve hour days. You spend a lot of time at work. Do you really want it to be that?”

That question stayed with her as she moved between agency, consultancy, and client-side roles, eventually leaving large agencies altogether.

A Shift in Purpose

The turning point was not a single moment, but an accumulation of unease. Becky described looking back on campaigns where creative brilliance was used to sell things that “don’t really do any good in the world”.

At the same time, she saw organisations tackling complex social and environmental problems struggling to change behaviour or communicate effectively.

“We can use that creativity. We can use that strategic rigour,” she said. “And we can use it differently.”

BH&P was founded in 2016 around that idea. The agency positioned itself as a behaviour change consultancy working upstream, focused on insight and strategy as much as creative output. The aim was not awareness for its own sake, but measurable change in what people think, feel, and do.

The Work and the Grey Areas

Today, BH&P works primarily in sectors where impact is complicated rather than cosmetic. Energy, finance, and technology dominate the client list. Becky described these as industries where “choosing positive impact is exactly that. It is a choice.”

One example discussed was work tackling energy meter tampering and energy crime. Funded by the energy sector and delivered through the Retail Energy Code, the programme enables anonymous reporting, makes dangerous properties safe, and directs vulnerable households to support.

On the surface, such work could be dismissed as reputation management. Becky was direct about that criticism.

“You could argue it’s greenwashing,” she said. “It isn’t. It is a very specific initiative that is done to keep people safe. And it works.”

For her, the ethical test is not the sector alone, but the consequence of the work itself.

Interrogating the Brief

Becky was clear that most ethical failures begin long before delivery. They start with accepting a brief at face value.

“The brief will be written to look good,” she said. “What you have to do is put your critical lens on it and go, ‘Which means what?’”

At BH&P, behavioural frameworks normally used with clients are applied internally. Capability, opportunity, and motivation are assessed not just for audiences, but for the organisation commissioning the work.

Is the client capable of change? Do they have the opportunity to act? Are they genuinely motivated, or simply managing reputation?

Sometimes, the answer is instinctive. “You probably know the first time you read the brief,” Becky said. “We don’t give gut feel enough credit in business.”

The Pressure to Compromise

Becky acknowledged how difficult refusal can be, particularly for smaller agencies. Ethical clarity becomes harder when livelihoods are involved.

“If you’re a ten-person company and you’ve got a million-pound contract on the table, and halfway through you realise this isn’t good, that’s a moral dilemma,” she said. “You’ve got people paying their mortgages.”

That reality, she argued, is why rigorous upfront interrogation matters. It is also why blanket judgments about “bad actors” are unhelpful.

“There’s very rarely black and white,” she said. “Sometimes there is. But not very often.”

Standards, Absolutes, and Unintended Consequences

The conversation turned to professional standards, particularly B Corp certification. Recent rule changes now limit how much revenue agencies can earn from fossil fuel companies.

Becky understands the intent, but worries about the effect.

“It potentially goes against the opportunity to get inside those organisations and cause good,” she said.

Her concern is not about defending harmful practices, but about losing access to the places where the biggest change is needed. Ethical work, she argued, often happens inside uncomfortable systems.

Closing Reflection

Becky ended with a call for accountability that goes beyond outputs. Not just what agencies deliver, but what their work actually does.

“If every agency had to demonstrate not just what they’ve delivered, but what impact it’s had on society, the environment, governance,” she said, “it would change the incentives.”

It is not a comforting vision. It offers no moral purity and no easy refusals. But it reflects the reality Becky has spent her career navigating.

Change, she believes, rarely comes from standing outside and pointing. It comes from staying inside long enough to make responsibility unavoidable.

Why this conversation matters

The word “sustainability” has become heavy. It carries too much emotion, too much politics, and not enough clarity.

As Rob Agnew puts it:

“The debate’s been hijacked by extremes. One side says it’s all doom; the other says it’s all nonsense. Most people are just trying to pay the bills.”

That middle ground, where practical progress actually happens, is where Rob and Cat Biggart spend their time. Both work in strategic communications and see the same pattern: companies either speak in jargon or go quiet out of fear. Neither helps anyone move forward.

How the story begins

Cat grew up outside Sydney, where she says she “spent more time saving bees from the pool than swimming.” She studied psychology and went into marketing, but the pull toward the natural world never left. That’s shaped how she sees business: as something that should support, not exploit, the environment it depends on.

Rob’s story starts on a small farm on the Bucks–Northants border.

“I saw what happens when environmental policy ignores people’s lives,” he says.

Later, in Texas, he watched communities wrestle with the economic side of the energy transition. Those experiences gave him a grounded view of what real responsibility looks like.

The turning point

For both, the turning point came when sustainability talk got louder, but less useful.

“We spent years appealing to emotion,” Rob says. “Now we need to appeal to reason.”

That doesn’t mean ditching ambition. It means showing what progress feels like in people’s lives. “Talk about the things they notice,” he says. “Lower bills, cleaner air, safer jobs. Not a 2035 target they can’t picture.”

Cat agrees:

“People tune out when the message feels abstract. They want to know, what’s this going to do for me, for my family, for my business?”

A practical kind of storytelling

Both believe the future of sustainability communication lies in honesty and proof. “Say what you’re doing, and show the results,” Cat says.

“If you missed a target, own it. People can handle bad news. What they can’t handle is spin.”

Rob’s rule is even simpler. “I’d ban most corporate words. The minute you sound like a press release, people stop listening.”

They describe good sustainability storytelling as “win-win-win”: good for business, good for people, and good for the planet. Not perfect, just real.

The moral tension: fear vs. responsibility

Many companies have pulled back from public sustainability talk. Some call it “green-hushing.” Cat sees the risk. “Silence isn’t neutral,” she says.

“If you stop talking, the loudest, most polarised voices fill the space.”

The fear of backlash has made brands cautious, but Rob argues that responsibility requires persistence. “If you believe in what you’re doing, explain it. Don’t hide behind silence. Find language that works.”

What gives hope

Both sense the conversation maturing. Sustainability is moving from marketing to management, from slogans to strategy. “We’re starting to see resilience replace rhetoric,” Rob says. “Businesses want to do what works, not what sounds good.”

Cat adds that younger communicators are bringing new energy.

“They care, but they’re also pragmatic. They know the world’s messy, and that’s okay. Progress doesn’t have to be perfect.”

The takeaway

Sustainability isn’t failing, it’s growing up. The next step is to make it understandable again. Speak plainly. Tell the truth. Admit the trade-offs.

As Cat puts it, “You can’t build trust with a slogan.” And as Rob reminds us:

“Responsibility starts when you stop talking to yourself.”

He knows the stakes. “Business has always had a purpose,” Andy says.

“The question is whether it serves a social need as well as a commercial one.”

That tension — between mission and margin — defines the hardest leadership choices.

When It Works: The Lifebuoy Example

The best case Andy knows is Lifebuoy soap. By embedding hygiene education into its business model, Unilever turned a bar of soap into a global health intervention. It was neither charity nor greenwash. “If it doesn’t connect to the business model, it’s just philanthropy,” Andy warns.

“And philanthropy is the first thing to go when times get tough.”

The lesson? Responsibility sticks when it strengthens, rather than competes with, commercial success.

The Trust Deficit

For today’s leaders, the bigger challenge is credibility. Decades of greenwashing have bred deep mistrust. “Most people think businesses are overstating their role in society,” Andy admits. “And often, they’re right.”

His advice is disarmingly simple: tell the whole truth. “Don’t just talk about what you’re doing well,” he says.

“Talk about what you’re not doing yet. People can forgive imperfection. They can’t forgive spin.”

The Missing Piece: Governance

Andy’s view of what unlocks real change is less about marketing brilliance than political clarity. “We shouldn’t pretend companies can do this alone,” he argues. Without governance — rules, standards, accountability — even the most committed leaders are undercut by competitors willing to cut corners.

That’s why, he insists, government must set the guardrails. Once the rules are clear, companies adapt quickly. Until then, purpose will always be at risk of being outpaced by profit.

What Leadership Demands

Andy’s reflections sketch a demanding picture of responsible leadership today:

• Integration — embedding social value in the business model itself.

• Honesty — admitting limits as well as achievements.

• Advocacy — pushing for governance that holds everyone to account.

They’re not slogans; they’re disciplines. And they remind us that the real test of leadership isn’t writing the purpose statement. It’s living with the trade-offs when markets, shareholders and society all demand different things at once.

That decision wasn’t born of sudden enlightenment. It was, as Kann describes, “an unpleasant epiphany.” Despite decades spent immersed in natural environments during his free time—diving, birdwatching, identifying flora—he had never connected his day job to the crises he deeply cared about. “It was embarrassing,” he says. “I was a cog in a system built on eternal growth at the cost of everything.”

Kann’s journey is a case study in the power of alignment. After leaving his agency, he joined sustainability communication firm Futerra. “It felt like walking into heaven,” he recalls, describing the excitement of collaborating with climate strategists and communication activists. For someone who once viewed advertising as “the highest level of cleverness,” this new chapter was about redirecting that cleverness towards survival.

From Fear to Worry: A New Emotional Lexicon

Central to Kann’s current mission is emotional literacy. Referencing Anna Townley’s earth.org article on emotional engagement in climate messaging, Kann zeroes in on a paradox: while fear can paralyse, “worry” motivates. “Worry creates support,” he says.

“Fear, when overused, leads to fatigue.”

He’s seen the arc first-hand. The early days of climate comms relied heavily on doom: melting glaciers, starving polar bears, flooded cities. While impactful, these fear appeals often backfired, overwhelming audiences. The lesson? Humans aren’t persuaded by science alone—we act when we feel. And the sweet spot is not terror, but tension. Worry, Kann argues, is just enough emotion to drive action without tipping into paralysis.

This insight aligns with behavioural psychology’s “Goldilocks principle”: too little emotion, and people shrug. Too much, and they shut down. But just the right amount—a simmering concern? That’s where change brews.

Killing the Cliché: Why Visual Language Matters

One of Kann’s most powerful critiques is aimed at sustainability’s visual status quo. “We’ve exhausted the tropes,” he says.

“Smiling families in green fields, hands cradling Earth—it’s all wallpaper now.”

He believes the biggest communications challenge isn’t inventing new facts—it’s disrupting stale aesthetics.

“The visuals need to change before minds do,” Kann argues. And he’s right: humans process images far faster than words, and emotional cues often come more from tone and imagery than rational argument. In this sense, sustainability comms isn’t just a content issue—it’s a design problem.

What Does Success Look Like Now?

For Kann, success is no longer measured in Cannes Lions or market share. “Success is making a real difference,” he says.

“It’s using creativity not for persuasion, but for transformation.”

His “magic wand” wish? A commercial world unshackled from short-termism. In such a world, brands would optimise for ecological continuity, not quarterly returns. “Nature restores quickly if you let it,” Kann notes. “But we need long-term thinking to let that happen.”

The question isn’t whether social media is broken. It’s whether we’ve built the right teams—and asked the right questions—to fix it.

In this episode, Josh pulls back the curtain on life at the intersection of behaviour, branding, and burnout. As Global Head of Social at HX Expeditions—and with previous stints leading Unilever’s global Beauty & Personal Care output and digital comms at Save the Children UK—Josh has lived the highs and lows of the industry. He’s delivered Cannes-worthy content for global names and absorbed frontline pressure in moments of humanitarian urgency. That breadth shapes a rare kind of perspective: part systems thinker, part empathetic operator.

What drives this conversation is a hunger to reframe how social platforms—and the organisations behind them—approach engagement. Anchored in a provocative research paper on “Pro-Social Media,” Josh discusses an alternative feed logic: one that surfaces content not by sheer popularity, but by contextual relevance. Who is engaging, and why? What cognitive diversity might we introduce to nudge us out of algorithmic comfort zones?

“The platforms are doing exactly what we trained them to do,” Josh notes. “They mirror our psychology—particularly our bias towards outrage. But we never asked what it’s costing us.”

The Quiet Cost of ‘Always On’

For Josh, the biggest blind spot isn’t the algorithm—it’s the culture.

Across both commercial and non-profit sectors, he’s seen how social media teams often become reactive fire blankets rather than trusted strategists. “Don’t talk to them unless something’s on fire—that’s the norm,” he says. “But that invisibility comes at a cost. It’s real emotional labour.”

His solution is disarmingly low-tech: presence.

“Support isn’t a Slack channel. It’s someone in the room. Literally. Someone who understands the pressure and can hold space when things go sideways.”

This isn’t a wishlist—it’s hard-earned realism. And it speaks to a deeper point in the episode: if social platforms are behavioural ecosystems, then so are the teams managing them. Ignoring their emotional bandwidth is a systemic flaw.

Impact as Accountability

Josh’s lens sharpened significantly during his time at Save the Children. “You couldn’t just run a campaign for engagement’s sake,” he reflects.

“You were telling real stories—often about children’s lives. The weight of that forces you to rethink what success looks like.”

It’s here that Josh draws a line between metrics and meaning. Behavioural insights, he argues, should serve as connective tissue between a brand and its broader responsibility—not just as a shortcut to higher reach.

This realignment, he believes, is where social can regain its humanity.

Designing for Better (Not Just More)

Despite his honest view of ad-driven platform logic, Josh remains hopeful. “We might not be able to change the revenue model overnight,” he concedes, “but we can change what we reward internally.”

That might mean celebrating content that slows people down. Or labelling stories in ways that encourage reflection over reaction. Or simply asking: what does meaningful engagement look like if it’s not just a click?

Josh’s closing reflections speak less to marketing KPIs and more to human priorities. He dreams of a world where ESG is tied to financial markets—and where parenting well is seen as a leadership trait.

“If someone looks back and says I helped them be better—at work or in life—that’s the goal.”

It’s not a rebrand of social media. It’s a re-humanisation.

📰 The Hidden Cost of “Safe” Advertising

For brands eager to protect their reputations, the use of automated blocklists—software that prevents ads from appearing next to controversial or “unsafe” content—can seem like a no-brainer. But Bryan argues that these tools may be creating bigger problems than they solve.

“Some blocklists are so outdated, they’re still excluding content with the word ‘Paris’—not because of the Olympics, but because of terrorist attacks from nearly a decade ago,” Bryan explains.

The result? Advertisers are inadvertently cutting off funding to high-quality journalism. That’s not just bad for news publishers—it’s bad for society.

🧠 Rewiring Media Thinking: Why Context Still Matters

Bryan’s team at Ozone has long championed the concept of the premium web—a digital space where content is curated, governed by editors, and subject to standards. In contrast to the “long tail” of clickbait and conspiracy blogs, this is the corner of the internet where trustworthy information still thrives.

“Our partners are handpicked. Every publisher we work with has editorial oversight and audience-first values,” says Bryan.

He believes this environment should be exempt from the blanket-style brand safety tools that treat all content the same. “If we don’t fix this,” he warns, “the flywheel breaks: less ad money means lower investment in journalism, less engagement, and a further drop in trust.”

📉 What’s at Stake if We Get This Wrong?

Without intervention, Bryan fears we may drift toward a two-tiered system: those who can afford quality news will pay for it; everyone else will get filtered narratives, algorithmic junk, or nothing at all.

“Everyone should have access to information that helps them make better decisions. Not just those who can pay,” he says. “We’re at risk of losing that.”

It’s not just a philosophical stance—it’s a commercial reality. Publishers need funding to survive. And brands benefit when consumers are reading content in engaged, credible environments.

📈 Responsible Advertising ≠ Lower ROI

Many advertisers avoid placing ads next to “hard news” content for fear of reputational damage. But research, including a study of over 70,000 participants by Stagwell (an Ozone partner), has shown that consumers are smarter than that.

“People can separate the news from the ad. Just because your ad is near a Trump tariff story doesn’t mean they associate you with that policy,” Bryan says.

In fact, when placed well, ads in trusted environments often perform better. Bryan references upcoming research with Bountiful Cow that will demonstrate how ads placed without brand safety restrictions performed just as effectively—if not more so.

🪄 The Bull** Barometer

Bryan’s magic wand moment? A reality check on corporate values.

“I’d love to invent a kind of BS Barometer—something that shows whether a company really lives its purpose, or whether it’s just jumping on a trend.”

He believes you can spot the difference in the hard choices: “If a brand sticks with its values when times get tough, that’s when you know it’s real.”

🧭 Final Thoughts: Finding the Ethical Edge in AdTech

For Bryan, the future of responsible marketing is a balancing act—doing what works and doing what’s right. Ozone is proving that you don’t have to sacrifice ethics to meet business goals. In fact, Bryan believes aligning values with performance is the key to long-term success.

“It’s not about guilt-tripping advertisers. It’s about showing them the results, and giving them a reason to feel good about it too.”