Podcast

September 11th, 2025

The Apple Cart: S4, E2: Easy Ways to Bring Sustainability into Your Digital Marketing

In this episode of the Apple Cart, I’m joined by Fiona Brennan to talk about small steps business owners can take to be more sustainable. She’s a copywriter at heart but is on a mission to save the world (and businesses) from crap content marketing through her work.

Fiona works with B2B businesses – usually with around 10-20 employees – to help their marketing team of one reach their goals. She’s also a professional public speaker and has her first published book coming out soon.

Listen to the Interview

The Inspiration for Fiona’s Book on Sustainability

Fiona has developed a signature talk on the carbon footprint of the content small businesses produce, delivering it at Brighton SEO amongst other places. The book is an expanded version of that talk.

“I’ve done a lot more research for the book, so I look at what the carbon footprint of our content looks like and how it impacts the world, but I also bring in the human interest angle. How does it affect us as marketers, as writers?

“Because we know that there’s an extra layer of pressure now for us to get results with our content. And yet so much content flops. 1bn pieces of content are produced every single day, and 50% of them are never seen. But marketers are still burning out.

“So my suggestion is that we fix that problem not by creating more content, but making it more thoughtful. We produce better content that people are actively looking for. I’m interviewing a host of industry voices to back up my research.”

Different Ways to use LinkedIn

We know that 95% of people with LinkedIn accounts never post. So even if you show up twice a week, you’re still ahead of most people. You don’t have to post every day. Fiona agrees:

“What’s the purpose behind it? Are we just feeding the machine because we think we should? Because we want our content to be seen? Or are we sharing something valuable that helps people and makes connections?

“My posts are mostly brain farts, although some of them perform really well. And it even got me work, because the client said I made them laugh. But after I was tagged in a post by mistake, I went off to look for all the other Fiona Brennans on LinkedIn.

“I’ve also followed someone who’s a vegan thought leader who likes heavy metal. Because I’m the same, I looked for other people like us, and connected with them too. Use it as a way to find interesting people you enjoy interacting with.”

How to Make Your Business More Sustainable

Like most of us, Fiona assumed her business was carbon zero. “I work from home, I don’t drive far, I’m a vegan. And then I filled out the UN carbon footprint calculator. I looked into the impact of emails, social media, videos. Plus the need for green website hosting run by sustainable power.”

What Fiona was putting out isn’t harm-free, and I think that’s a lesson for all of us. If we each create a small amount of content, it’s doing a lot of damage. “Some people have done the research and found that our online lives carry about the same carbon footprint as the airline industry.”

Using AI tools requires a lot of water – they pump out heat and need a lot of energy to cool the servers down. You can ask ChatGPT at the end of your session how much that’s added to your carbon footprint, adds Fiona, which is why we need to balance the cost to the environment.

“One of the problems is that AI helps you to create content. And because it can do it quicker, faster and cheaper, there’s an expectation that people should create more of it. So it’s an opportunity for business owners to reflect on how they use it. And the impact of all their online activities, like images in email signatures or sending PDFs. It all adds up.”

sustainability

Why Starting Small with Sustainability Still Helps

Fiona believes that there are people out there who are trying to do the right thing, whatever that looks like for them. And when it comes to sustainability, it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

“But when we bring it back down to the individual level, it makes it so much easier. You don’t have to do everything all at once. Think about how you can make your life better and make yourself happier and calmer.

“Because one of the additional benefits to being more sustainable is that it reduces stress. If you’re not looking at screens or scrolling on your phone, you’ll feel less anxious. Reducing the pressure on people to be productive means they feel better all round.”

How to be More Creative

“Creativity is essentially what makes us human – our ability and our urge to create. No matter what that looks like or what it is, no other mammal on earth has that, and we have that in such abundance.

“We should always remember that to be creative is to be human. So if you’re struggling with it, or if think you couldn’t write or create art, just have fun trying it. Even if you sit there with paper and pencil wondering what to draw, here’s some advice from my old art teacher:

“‘The ends of your wrists are always something to draw.’ Draw a hand. Doodle. Turn off your mind and let it go. Stop worrying about the fact that you’re being creative and just do something that feels good.” 

Timestamps

  • 02:35 – 06:00: How Fiona got into copywriting
  • 12:47 – 15:40: How Fiona became a trainer
  • 15:50 – 17:37: The evolution into public speaking
  • 17:54 – 20:05: The inspiration for Fiona’s book
  • 20:05 – 26:33: Different ways to use LinkedIn
  • 27:57 – 34:44: How to make your business more sustainable
  • 36:58 – 39:22: Why starting small with sustainability still helps
  • 45:14 – 48:17: A story about eyeliner and making a human connection
  • 53:49 – 56:45: How to be more creative

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