A friend recently alerted me to this great video presentation about motivation based on a presentation by Daniel Pink, whose new book is Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It got me thinking about how we make assumptions when we’re communicating about sustainability and marketing green initiatives.

Pink points out that research on what motivates people to excel at their work flies in the face of common assumptions when the work involves cognitive skill and critical thinking. Monetary rewards actually backfire; studies show that motivation comes from self-direction, mastery, and  making a contribution. I’d like to see more about motivation where sustainability initiatives are concerned. I hear anecdotes that “doing the right thing” isn’t enough to get people to act. Research I’ve seen about energy conservation behavior shows that’s true. But we don’t know enough about what does make people conduct their business in sustainable ways. It’s always assumed that the clincher always has something to do with money (you’ll save it or spend less) or effort (it’s easier) or competition (looking better than your neighbor).

It’s not that simple. In my work I’ve recently seen how sustainability goals unite employees and inspire them to go the extra mile. I also see customers making the green/sustainable choice because it’s the right thing to do. In both cases, these groups are active advocates. What can we learn about the other two factors, mastery and self-direction, that will help us market more effectively and change behavior—and bring about lasting results that will make a dent in climate change?

So I’m off to find a copy of Drive at the library. (And forgive me if this sounds like an ad for the book, which was published in December.) I’ll report back.

One last note: The video is incredibly creative—an artist draws cartoon illustrations on a whiteboard in time with Pink’s talk. It’s a production of RSA, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. RSA are brilliant (they’re British so I can say it like that), and so fun, progressive and insightful that you’d never guess the organization is 250 years old.

We touch on support for claims in this blog with some regularity—it’s a key factor in communications credibility (and thus the Thinkshift Credibility Quotient™). But with BP’s epic greenwashing staring us in the face every day (remember the green oil company? beyond petroleum?), the credibility of green claims generally may be more suspect than ever. Now feels like the ideal time to unpack what it means to support claims.

Here are three major elements we look for:

Data or testimony from credible third parties. Support from any believable source (fully attributed customer testimonials, for example) can enhance credibility, but verification by a trusted third party is the gold standard. Eco-seals can be a good shorthand way to support claims, but be careful: They have to be well-recognized—if people don’t know what a symbol means, they’re not going to put a lot of trust in it—and they have to have real standards behind them.

Details. The support should be specific and detailed enough to be understandable—and verifiable.

Relevance. To be credible, support has to be relevant to the claim at hand. A great company recycling program isn’t support for a claim that a household cleaning product is green. Nor is a statement that the product is free of some chemical that no product of its type contains. (This is a reverse use of the old advertising ploy of highlighting some common product characteristic so that it appears to be a special feature of your product—Mad Men fans will immediately flash on “Lucky Strike—It’s Toasted.”)

Any time you can’t muster this kind of support is a good time to think about whether you should be making that claim.

Sometimes I imagine all the companies claiming to be the “the world leader,” “best,” “greenest,” and most whatever having a smackdown in some sort of marketing Thunderdome to see who’s really on top. OK, so I’m a communications geek. But the point remains: almost certainly, none of these companies is the ultimate, and if any of them are, they can’t prove it.

What of it? Some would say (and I’ve heard some green gurus say) that these kinds of claims are “just marketing”—people know it’s hype. True, and that’s how companies that make unprovable claims start teaching their customers that they are untrustworthy and their marketing is B.S.

Probably not a huge problem if you’re selling diet snack cakes (your customer has agreed not to question the implausible), but if you’re selling sustainability, think again. This kind of marketing can undermine a great product by inspiring skepticism and overshadowing claims that are well-supported. It can also raise the suspicions of greenwash monitors (see Carolyn’s earlier post on spotting greenwash).

To be credible, claims first have to be provable (that’s why this is a highly rated factor in the Thinkshift Credibility Quotient™). And provable claims are both specific and verifiable. Make the strongest statement you can support, be specific, and back it up. Then you’ll have some support when you get challenged for a smackdown.