So you've put a few recycling bins around the office and decided against that company Learjet. You've even got some herbal tea for the kitchen. But if your business is serious about going green, you’ll need a more substantial, sustainable environmental strategy. Green issues can no longer be dismissed as a passing fad. Yet far from restricting business practice, they can offer significant marketing opportunities.

Grant's latest book

John was recently voted London’s most in-demand speaker. His clients include IKEA, BT, Innocent and O2, and his latest business book, The Green Marketing Manifesto was published this month. So he knows his onions - especially the locally produced organic ones.

However, John isn’t some parsnip wielding eco-warrior. By way of introduction he declared himself as ‘not a Green’. John simply shares the broader environmental concerns of most people and, as a marketer and commentator, is interested in how these concerns will affect brands. And the effect cannot be underestimated. LSE President, Anthony Giddens declared,

“Environmental technologies are likely to be for the next 20 years what IT has been for the last 20.”

John Grant compares the revolution in green marketing to the digital revolution regarding the impact it will have on how all brands connect with consumers. However, in the early days of digital the mass market were very much in tow; brands took the lead in educating and, to an extent, dictating behavior – only now with web 2.0 are we seeing the power shift to the consumer. But with green issues, the public are already informed and setting the agenda that businesses increasingly must follow.

This gives businesses and brands a unique opportunity to reconnect with consumers who have become cynical about corporate communications. The environment is a humanitarian issue, which ultimately affects us all on a personal level. As such, brands are able to genuinely share people’s concerns, play a part in addressing them and take responsibility towards a solution. This can garner a level of trust and integrity few brands would otherwise get through traditional marketing: if a company is seen to be taking genuine steps to help the environment then people are much more likely to accept their product messages/claims.

But green policies must be genuine. There are any number of environmental groups to police corporations’ green claims, and bring any ‘greenwashing’ to the wider public’s attention: in 2004 the Ford Motor company ran an ad in National Geographic magazine stating, ‘Greener vehicles. Cleaner factories’. The Environmental Protection Agency were quick to counter that in fact Ford had only produced 20,000 of its hybrid SUVs that year, while manufacturing 80,000 F-Series trucks per month. 

Ford: taking the wrong road?

TBWA\Manchester CEO, Robert Harwood-Mathews warns of the potential ‘tyranny of green’. For businesses to survive they must cut through and beyond any hysteria. While we may have a moral obligation to adopt a green agenda, it should not be seen as an end in itself. Harwood-Mathews observes that going green per se is fast becoming the convention and will soon cease to be a differentiator, rendering specific green marketing moribund, and ultimately unproductive. Moreover, it is how we embrace and challenge the new green norm to help us make our products better, more beautiful, better handling and more satisfying than ever before, that will make businesses and brands successful.

Everything has already gone green. The next challenge for brands is to find their own unique marketing response, and realise that not everything green is black and white.

Further reading: John Grants’ blog:  http://greenormal.blogspot.com/

Did you enjoy this article? Please share it!

Comments (1)