State of Green Business: A Communications Wake-Up Call

Published February 4th, 2009 in marketing, sustainability | No Comments »

GreenBiz.com released its second annual State of Green Business report Feb. 2, heralding the report’s release with a daylong forum that drew nearly 500 people from 20 states to San Francisco.

One report conclusion highlights a trend we’ve followed for over a year: green marketing is failing to communicate. While green is going mainstream, and many companies, large and small, are doing good, there’s also a lot of greenwashing. And surveys show that people are overwhelmed and befuddled by vague and conflicting claims. The report notes, “…with the new players and products has come a new wave of claims that companies aren’t doing enough, aren’t telling their stories well, or both.”

The upshot, says the report, is that “despite the continued upswing in green business activity, there’s no concomitant rise in consumer awareness or trust.” The challenge for companies is credibility. Green messages and sustainability claims need to be specific and substantiated. That will help not only with customers but also with internal audiences: The report points out that while green has had C-suite attention for years, companies are failing to engage lower ranks. Communications (backed by genuine actions) are key to bringing management and lower ranks on board. Green can make people feel good about their company.

Forum participants readily admitted that there’s little consensus about what is green. For instance, everyone is talking about the new green economy and how it will spur job creation, but the definition of a “green” job varies.

But I think we’ll soon see less greenwashing and less confusion all around. Marketers are realizing that people want credible information, and universal standards and independent verification will help. (Two recent developments: Just last month, Underwriters Laboratories announced UL Environment, its green verification service, and in 2008 the Federal Trade Commission began a serious review of its environmental marketing guidelines—a year earlier than planned, due to the storm of green marketing.)

Green is also an imperative for the new administration, confirmed panelists who provided an insider’s view during the forum’s closing session. President Obama is following through with his commitments to curb global warming and promote a green economy. And it’s not just an add-on: green policy is coming out of the White House economic team.

You can see webcasts of all the forum panels at http://www.greenbiz.com/stateofgreenbusinessforum.

The Essential Message: Everything Is Related

Published January 24th, 2009 in sustainability | No Comments »

People in the trenches of remaking the way we live along more sustainable lines know that everything—transportation, community planning, energy sources, buildings—is related. (Thanks to Thinkshift client Joe Stagner, director of Sustainability and Energy Management at Stanford, for drumming this into my head.)

People who make policy have lagged behind in recognizing (and more importantly, acting) on this truth. It appears that might be changing, though. At CALSTART’s Target 2030: Solutions to Secure California’s Transportation and Energy Future conference earlier this month, John Barna, executive director of the California Transportation Commission (not normally thought of as a visionary agency), had this to say:

“The traditional thinking is, our goal is to build more, to allow more vehicle miles traveled. If we shift our thinking to person miles traveled, we’ll get to different solutions.” All the relevant state agencies, he said, “need to migrate to metrics and outcomes defined by actions and behaviors. It’s really about changing behavior. … We need to start talking about people and moving people, so transportation planners can start understanding it’s … about people. It’s not all about building. A measure of success is that the CTC could be renamed the California Sustainability Commission.”

Unfortunately, policy on the federal level still seems stuck in past—despite all the talk of change. California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols, just back from a trip to Washington, reported, “I heard from D.C. staff that they’re ready to go on climate change legislation and a new transportation bill, but they don’t think the two can be linked because it’s just too hard. It still looks as though air quality and climate change will be off in some small ghetto in the transportation bill.

“It’s too depressing to contemplate,” she said.

Indeed. Those of us who understand the importance of looking at the whole picture need to start pressing our representatives to do it.