Top social issues brands can’t afford to Ignore in 2025

There may have been a time when most people didn’t want to talk about social issues and politics but in 2025, more and more people (and businesses) are using their platforms to also focus on social issues.

You may be wondering, should companies even take a stand? We covered this last year, so if you want to go in depth, check out our blog, Brands and Social Issues: Should Companies Take a Stand?

As highlighted in the above article, Sprout Social found that 66% of consumers say it’s important for companies to take a stand on social and political issues - and to do so publicly. 

Now, let’s dig into some of the social issues you may want to focus on as a business/brand.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

While some brands (like Amazon) may be scaling back their DEI efforts, DEI is still an important issue. This may look like building diverse teams and having inclusive marketing campaigns.

Sustainability

Sustainability has grown in importance, especially over the last several years, which includes topics such as climate change and reducing waste. For businesses, this may include sustainable packaging or recycling programs. For example, MAC Cosmetics has their Back-to-MAC initiative, which allows consumers to return their empty product packaging for recycling. If something isn’t recyclable they convert it to energy.

There’s a brand I really love called Baggu, this brand offers reusable bags, purses, glasses cases, and more in fun colours, prints, and designs. It’s a brand that is typically seen as sustainable. However, last year, Baggu collaborated with the fashion brand Collina Strada, which has also been recognized as being sustainable, but fans of the brand Baggu found out that some of the prints were created using AI tools. This is an issue because AI tools can have a negative impact on the environment (and it negatively impacts designers). While they no doubt sold items from the collaboration, many of the brand’s fans (myself included) decided to skip the collection or cancelled their order.

If you’re interested, you can read more about this here.

Reminder: It’s important for your actions to match what you’ve said your values are.

Gender Equality

SongBird is a woman-owned business, so of course, gender equality is something that’s important to us. And it should be important to everyone. For brands, this could mean pay transparency, inclusive workplace policies, and more.

Accessibility and Inclusion

We’d like to think the world is becoming more accessible, but we know there is a lot more we can collectively be doing. For brands, this could mean hiring practices that are inclusive or creating a website or social media content that is accessible.

LGBTQIA+

June is right around the corner and that means you’ll see a flood of marketing and products focused on the LGBTQIA+ community. For some, this may be seen as rainbow-washing, which means that brands will create marketing content that is geared towards the community and seems to be supportive. However, with rainbow-washing the “support” is performative and they do not support the LGBTQIA+ community in meaningful ways, such as supporting LGBTQIA+ rights or being inclusive.

We suggest NOT doing that. If you want to focus on LGBTQIA+ rights as an issue, make it count and support the community year round by being a safe space for employees and your community, create inclusive products and marketing campaigns, support LGBTQIA+ organizations if you are able to, etc.

Anti-racism

Think back about 5 years ago, how many brands did you see put a black square on social media only to never (or rarely) talk about race again. As mentioned with a few of the issues above, you can support anti-racism by creating inclusive environments and policies, creating inclusive products and campaigns, and more.

Mental Health

Mental Health is something we talk about a lot in 2025, from Bell Let’s Talk Day in Canada, to Mental Health Awareness Day, and everything in between. It’s important. Brands can support and focus on mental health by helping to reduce the stigma associated with mental health and by supporting mental health. For example, brands can give back to or partner with organizations that support mental health initiatives and can have policies and benefits that support employees mental health.

The moral here is that if you are going to focus on social issues, be genuine, make sure they align with your brand, and don’t just talk the talk.