Companies Beat Climate Goals in Secret, China Plays AI Differently, and Shops Wage Price War on Customers
Shift Notes 04: Companies are exceeding climate goals (but won't tell you), China open-sources AI while US builds moats, and surge pricing hits high street stores
Thanks for continuing to open the 33_Zero Newsletter. This month, stop doom scrolling Guardian headlines and celebrate the quiet revolution in corporate sustainability. Political posturing and protests on climate do eventually take effect—but with a lag. Something unexpected is happening in boardrooms: companies are quietly doubling down on climate commitments, driven not by virtue signalling but value creation. Maybe it's time for marketers to muster the courage to build brands on these foundations?
Elsewhere, China's open-source AI strategy challenges US platform dreams, while retailers weaponise tariff confusion to sneak surge pricing past their customers.
#1/ Zero Culture
Sustainability pressures reshaping consumer values and markets
Don't like to talk about it: the quiet revolution in corporate sustainability
The Donald won't like it, but while capital allocators move money away from polluters, The Economist reports that, with little noise, a surprising number of businesses are sticking fast to targets committed in more caring times. The number on track to meet ambitious targets increased, while only 16% dialled back goals—among the bad guys BP, Range Rover and HSBC.
A PwC report assessing 4,000+ companies with climate commitments brings unexpected news: 37% are increasing ambitions. 67% of companies with targets are on track, with 3% exceeding them.
This 'climate hushing' (these companies really 'don't like to talk about it') presents an interesting dynamic for marketing teams on brands seeking solutions: Is progress hushed for fear of scrutiny? Because incremental progress is never enough? Or because the topic divides customers with polarised views?
From our often frustrating experience working with brands eager to demonstrate climate progress to their audiences yet fearful of engaging in climate 'politics', we guess most are motivated here by fear of sticking their heads above the parapet. Stirring up the hornets' nest of 'greenwashing' accusations. Who wants to gamble precious brand image? Safer to work back-of-house and emerge with winners walking the walk.
Importantly, while the impediment to sustainability comms has often shown up in risk-averse marketing departments, this progress is coming from the top of the business, motivated by:
The bottom-line here and now: quiet investment in energy efficiency is happening because bills are soaring. For example, data centres are switching to renewable energy contracts because they're cheaper than grid electricity.
Hedging future costs and regulations: the CFO sees these expenses on the projections, so a food company might be securing water rights and drought-resistant supply chains now, before climate disruption threatens operations.
Protecting against cultural obsolescence: many B2B customers already demand sustainable suppliers, even if consumers are not quite there yet. One day they will be. And just as a packaging company must develop recyclable materials for a customer like Unilever, when the culture catches up we'll expect the same from our High St purchases.
Multiple forces drive business towards sustainability, even as cultural mood music walks the opposite direction. And the trend shows a broadening out of commitments from large companies (with correspondingly high emissions) who initially dominated Scope 1 and 2 target-setting at the start of the decade, to a growing base of smaller-scale businesses now joining in.
That is evidence of cultural normalisation. If we thought the pressure on business to evolve was going to come from cultural normalisation in consumer society - and tbh at the start of the decade that was where this head was at - we couldn't have been more wrong. This data argues that change is being driven through business culture (outside intractable sectors like energy, construction, metals & mining).
How does this filter through to marketing communications?
Capturing premium pricing: the consumer marketplace remains nascent for attracting sustainability-motivated buyers. We need simple, consistently-branded, universal visual guarantees of lifecycle and carbon credibility to steer conscious shoppers. This kills the 'greenwashing' scapegoat and delivers differentiation to deserving businesses.
From unboxing to re-boxing: From pulling the tear strip on the cellophane to breathing deep the smell of 'new car' (which depreciates 25% in the first year), we fetishise newness. Brand-builders need to turn a story about life cycle impact into a sensation of desire.
So, it wasn’t the marketing department that shifted the dial but CFO’s protecting bottom lines and supply chains. Whoever is pushing this along, we’re just glad they are. What this means - for those lucky enough to be working with the progressive companies - is that another department just de-risked a powerfully differentiating brand truth for your strategy. So, why is everyone so quiet about it??
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#2/ Acceleration Gap
AI and tech transformation reshaping business and culture
Is the US structurally destined to lose to China on AI?
A fascinating piece in Exponential View, penned by China analyst Grace Shao stirred in us some woefully incomplete ideas about the US vs China AI rivalry. Most significantly (and totally back-of-napkin atm) is the question of whether fundamental differences in these two economic approaches will ultimately dictate how AI plays out.
US = Machine intelligence as strategic resource. Pour billions into proprietary models today, own the platform that reorganises industries tomorrow. A wager on model-led destiny: ever-bigger parameters, AGI, venture-funded losses chasing world-changing monopoly profits.
China = Models as commodities, profits shift to applications. Open-source releases in an IP-flaunting innovation culture assume abundance creates network effects - free forks multiply, each funnelling demand back to originators.
Could America’s monopoly business culture (just look at the S&P 10 pull away from the pack) prove its undoing? Grace Shao, however, reminds us of the capital firepower in the race:
US venture capital plowed $100 billion into AI in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, Chinese startups across all sectors raised barely $11 billion from VCs.
China’s on a different AI path - Exponential View
Will agencies become tenants to AI’s landlord?
Zoe Scaman this week counters WPP's The AI-Empowered Agency white paper with an appeal to resist visions of agencies as perfectly oiled hit-making machines with personalised output."The best creative work often comes from breaking patterns, not reinforcing them," she says.
We suspect the best practitioners are already scaling back AI use-scenarios as they discover strengths and weaknesses, optimising where human creativity remains irreplaceable.
Her most resonant section is actually a warning on business model:
"Every one of these principles assumes that agencies will be in control of their AI destiny. But the truth is, the big AI players own the rails. Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic; these are not vendors you just "partner" with. They're infrastructure owners. The minute you build your workflows, your IP, and your client deliverables on top of their platforms, you become a renter, not an owner."
The AI Agency Delusion - Musings Of A Wandering Mind
Productivity Paradox: Profits Up, Jobs Down
Usually, joblessness coincides with recession. In the AI age, markets learn 'this time it's different'. Q2 US reporting showed high earnings with weak jobs data. According to Goldman Sachs the traditional model linking GDP growth to job creation may no longer be dependable.
Even without a recession: Keeping Up With the Virtual Joneses.
Competitive pressure alone will drive companies to cut labor costs. As firms adopt AI and similar technologies, those that delay adoption risk falling behind on cost structure. This creates a cascade of headcount reductions across sectors as firms seek to maintain parity.”
VINCE LANCI: Employment in the Age of A.I. - Structural Job Loss Without Recession! - Goldfix
#3/ Media Shift
Algorithmic culture and creator economies
US retail goes to war with its customers
Summer last year, we covered the topic of dynamic pricing where two users of the McDonald's app could be seeing a different price simultaneously based on data from their social graph. Now, it's hitting the mainstream as US high streets look to implement it in-store with varying degrees of sophistication, not exactly the kind of pricing jazz hands going on in the digital sphere, but it brings surge pricing to the shops and makes budgeting a moving target for price-conscious shoppers.
Matt Stoller suggests this is happening under cover of tariff confusion in the US, quoting Wharton marketing professor Z. John Zhang:
"A lot of companies take advantage of what's going on with tariffs and raise their prices," Zhang said. "The reason is when tariffs go up, we as consumers tend to be more tolerant of price increases simply because we know that firms are struggling [with higher costs]. Their costs have increased, and therefore we probably cut them some slack. And firms know that…[For firms that] have always been thinking about doing dynamic pricing, this might be their chance to use it."
Stoller is focussed on the groundswell of political anger to be directed at Trump as he heads into Midterms with rising prices. But the social media responses he unearths demonstrate that when retail engages in underhand pricing strategies with consumers, brand reputation takes a bruising.
Monopoly Round-Up: Back-to-School Inflation Stories Crop Up on TikTok - Big by Matt Stoller
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