Bonny Williams - The Marketing Strategist

07/04/2026

A Head of Sustainability told me she'd spent six months trying to find budget for climate literacy training.

It wasn't that the organisation didn't care.
It was that nobody knew whose problem it was.

Leadership said: "Sounds like an L&D thing."
L&D said: "We don't really own sustainability content."
HR said: "Is this compliance? Culture? Both?"

And the budget sat in the gap between all three.

Here's what I see happen a lot: sustainability education gets treated like a specialist topic. Something technical. Niche. For the people whose job title includes the word "sustainability."

But climate literacy isn't a sustainability team problem. It's a business literacy problem.

The FD who doesn't understand transition risk is making capital allocation decisions in the dark. The Operations Director who sees decarbonisation as a cost — not a constraint to design around — will keep deprioritising it. The CEO who can't speak fluently about scope 3 is exposed every time they sit in front of an investor or a customer.

This isn't about awareness. It's about decision-making quality.

When you frame it that way — climate education as a business capability, not a values exercise — the budget conversation changes.

It stops being a sustainability line item. It becomes a leadership development investment.

L&D gets it. HR gets it. The CFO sometimes even gets it.

The framing was the problem all along.

Have you had to fight for climate education budget?
Where did it eventually sit — L&D, sustainability, somewhere else entirely?

04/04/2026

When organisations ask their teams to "take action on sustainability," here's what usually happens.

People do what they can picture.
Switch off lights. Cut business travel. Go paperless. Start a green team.

Not because they're not trying. Because they genuinely don't know what they don't know.

And nobody's told them.

The uncomfortable truth is that the highest-leverage actions in any organisation aren't the visible ones. They're the ones buried inside decisions that happen every day — and don't look like sustainability decisions at all.

A CFO who understands how to use the cost of capital to accelerate decarbonisation moves more than a year of recycling initiatives.

An Operations Director who redesigns a single high-emission process does more than twelve months of awareness campaigns.

A procurement team that starts asking suppliers the right questions shifts an entire value chain.

A CEO who speaks about climate risk with the same fluency as revenue risk changes what the board pays attention to.

None of these require a new budget line. They require a different lens on decisions that are already being made.

The problem isn't that people aren't acting. It's that the most powerful actions are invisible to them — because no one's connected the role they already have to the impact they could already have.

That's not a motivation problem. It's a knowledge gap.

And knowledge gaps are fixable.

What's the highest-leverage action you wish more people in your organisation understood?

01/04/2026

A Head of Sustainability said something to me recently that I haven't been able to shake:

"We've got full leadership backing. Targets. Budget. Mandate. But nobody's actually doing anything differently."

No resistance. No drama. Just silence.

Everything looked right on paper. But when we dug into it, the problem wasn't engagement.

It was this unspoken feeling running through the whole team:
"This is one more thing on top of my actual job."

Procurement already stretched. Operations in constant firefighting mode. HR pulling in six directions. Finance mid-close.

Nobody was refusing. They just couldn't see where sustainability fit into what they were already doing — so they waited for someone else to figure it out.

The sustainability lead kept pushing. The organisation kept going quiet. And both sides walked away thinking the other one didn't get it.

But it wasn't a mandate problem. It was a language problem. A context problem.

When the wider team finally got space to understand the why — not just the to-do list — something shifted.

Not because anyone got more time. Because the framing changed.
Sustainability stopped feeling like an add-on. It started feeling like part of the job that was already there.

That's when things actually moved.

Most Heads of Sustainability I speak to aren't short of support from the top. They're short of shared understanding across the middle.

That's the gap worth closing.

Which of these sounds most familiar to you?
1 — Strong mandate, but low engagement
2 — People want to help but are genuinely overwhelmed
3 — Sustainability is still seen as someone else's responsibility

29/11/2025

How not to Greenwash.

Keeping it real, manageable, factual.

Love this little cafe beside the sea in Walton. They've shared a few key facts. Shared the changes they're making. Not over exaggerated. Not overcommitted. Just simple, consistent change.

Bravo, The Last Fisherman Cafe!

27/11/2025

"I hate marketing. But you've got me excited about it. That's no small feat!"

Fabulous comment from a client this morning ...

20/08/2025

I love my job. I love my clients.

That's all. As you were...

16/08/2025

Honoured to be the guest speaker yesterday at The Sisterhood Networking Group at the The Crown Manningtree. What a fabulous group of businesswomen, getting sh*t done with grace and brilliance.
We talked love and life, sacrifice and boundaries, work and play and I loved every minute.
Thank you, ladies for being present and vulnerable and open to reflection. Thank you for sharing and for laughing and for reminding me again that magic happens when women come together.
Rocks!
Alison Jackson thank you for having me.

22/04/2025

10/12/2024

3 things a good marketing strategy is NOT

1 - a hard sales pitch which is more likely to annoy people than to interest them

2 - an "I can help everyone" message. Marketing should always be targeted

3 - reactive and sporadic. (Know what you're saying and to whom and make it consistent)

If you've tried some marketing activity which hasn't "worked" get in touch. We'll evaluate it together and I'll help you see where you could improve

05/12/2024

As a PACE Trustee, I often come across people in their own local area who want to know how to get a group together, how to create a PACE group where they are.

I love supporting grass roots change like this. And there is no better way than to run a Climate Action workshop.

Connection. Clarity. Togetherness. A plan!

If you want this where you live, get in touch. After all, "a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, little else ever has" (Margaret Mead)

PACE - Manningtree
(pic me and fellow trustees at PACE celebrating our recent King's Award for Voluntary Service)

03/12/2024

Ways to work with me

1 on your Marketing Strategy - I've been a Marketing Director for over 20 years.

2 on improving sustainability within your marketing and your business. I'm a qualified facilitator and am Carbon Literacy trained via . I've been working in this area for 5 years.

3 to find or create a group of likeminded people in your local area to get started on mitigating against the adverse effects of climate change. As Trustee of PACE - Manningtree (did I mention we recently won a King's Award 😁😇?) I have come across many individuals who want to follow the same path and am always happy to advise and support.

4 to create and enact a Climate Action plan in your local area via a series of workshops and how to get them paid for.

Whatever we do together, it'll be fun!

Let's talk.