Beyond the Green Wash: An Inconvenient Reality
August 19, 2008
For every unseasonably warm day this year, the noose gets tighter and tighter. The idea that everyone has a major impact on the environment is changing the way we look at ourselves. It is changing the way we look at corporations. A green image is becoming more and more important every day.
By Dennis Walsh
We are at a defining moment in history. Climate change is the single most important issue that the world has ever had to face. Ever since The Wall Street Journal reported on the global response to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary, the Green economy has exploded throughout North America. Green consumerism is a powerful marketing force driving environmental innovation and, in some cases, environmentally responsible behavior. Marketers around the world jumped onto the green bandwagon. Today it's coffee companies, furniture companies, retailers, credit cards, banks, restaurants, and even TV networks. These days, if you're not touting your green image, then you're way behind the curve. But don't worry, anyone can be green, and everyone soon will be.
With the worldwide green-business market worth more than $600 billion, the environment has become a strategic issue that can be used to "crush the competition," Time reports. Americans are master consumers. In the beginning, our intentions were probably pure. What we did not know did not hurt us. The more we learned the more we came to realize that we had to change our spending habits. Some of us began to suspect that our addiction to buying and selling products was creating an increasingly unbearable planet. That led us to ask the question, "Do we really need many of the products we purchase to begin with?"
Perhaps it is time to ask much deeper questions; time to hold corporations more accountable. The sheer volume of environmental advertising and the flimsiness of the claims in some campaigns show signs of an unintended side effect—instead of serving as a call to action or casting brands in a positive light, these ads are generating an increasingly skeptical response.
Because the marketplace is flooded with goods and services that claim to be green, it is no longer just possible to say something is green. You have to prove it.
Does anyone really believe there is marketing gold at the end of a rainbow? Is there really a competitive advantage to green marketing? After all, green marketing does live a precarious existence that depends completely upon relative comparisons. Since no company can be completely green and no product can make a zero impact on the environment, success depends on making green products seem more environmentally friendly than the competition. There is potential for backlash. Green is misunderstood. Americans may consciously try to buy green, but few understand that "green" or "environmentally friendly" is a matter of degree.
Green Marketing Is Incredibly Fragile
The truth is no one’s product can be 100% environmentally friendly. There is really no such thing as green; there are only shades of gray. And since green is such a gray area, it is tough to say what is right and what is wrong. So, deciding whether or not a product is truly green will have to be an individual choice. And that’s what makes it very difficult to market green.
Deep, uncomfortable issues in the background have lead to a green washing debate. Some of us will remember some of the previous trends, like the time when suddenly everything on grocery shelves was purportedly "lite," and most of it was not. More than half of the eco-labels on today's products hype some narrow eco-friendly quality (say, recycled content) while forgetting to mention more significant environmental drawbacks, such as manufacturing intensity or travel costs. This is called the "sin of the hidden trade-off."
Being efficient on the big stuff packs much more environmental punch than the benefits that come from choosing between competing light-green product A and the kelly-green product B.
While there's certainly a role for better oversight of green marketing, there are built-in limits to green honesty in a wealthy materialist culture. Companies need to be sure their eco advertising and marketing is seen as authentic and not just a sales ploy. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission, which monitors the contents of advertising, has begun to hold hearings and workshops on possible changes to FTC codes related to green marketing.
Each promise interlocks with all the others and with the company's overall reputation. When a promise breaks, it puts a crack in the entire foundation. These days, the people who think that global warming is an issue have wildly different interpretations of what constitutes green. If we are not careful, the people who think that global warming is simply a "crock" will begin to ignore green marketing altogether.
Formerly the publisher of Green At Work Magazine, S&MM online columnist Dennis Walsh is a well-informed sustainability writer, motivational speaker, session leader, thinker, and strategist who campaigns to gain increased support for corporate national and international coalition building, grassroots organization, media networking, product endorsements and market development. He is a sustainability advocate, and consultant with corporations and communities in the delivery of economic and environmental ROI. Contact Dennis at walsh.wired@gmail.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
|
|
RSS
