by roxineplummer on November 1, 2009
How often do you trust a product’s claim to be ALL true, especially when it comes to green marketing?
Many companies can dye their products green, make their packages green, or use the word “green” or “natural” on their label. They’ll do so to persuade consumers and critics such as NGOs that they are well-intentioned, or to attract potential investors interested in social responsibility, or of course to increase profit by expanding their market share to rival those not participating in greenwashing.
This seems to be a touchy subject for some folks because according to Suzanne Shelton, the head of market research firm, The Shelton Group, “Shoppers want green products, but they don’t know how to define what green product is. They don’t trust manufacturers to tell them the truth about how green their products are, but they’re turning to manufacturers because they don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
Yet they’re ready to slam a company for lying to them.
GREEN EYED CHALLENGES
Stephen Wenc, the president of Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Environment, sums up four basic challenges to effective green marketing:
• Lack of credibility or trust by consumers and end-users
• Confusion regarding green or sustainable product claims
• Reputational risk from “misleading claims”
• Liability risk from “greenwashing” under Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Green Guides
GETTING CLEAR
Brooks Beard, a partner at law firm Morrison Foerster, showed how the FTC offered four steps to avoid claims — and possible legal charges — of “greenwashing”:
• Pick the products or services you promote on green grounds with care
• Be specific with word choices (focus on the specifics rather than the
broad)
• Be specific about what part of your product or packaging is green
• Substantiate, substantiate, substantiate — always back up your claims
By following these simple procedures, manufacturers will gain integrity and customer loyalty, all while trying to reduce their carbon footprint in producing goods that are genuinely environmentally-friendly.
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Technorati Tags: environmental, green, Greenwashing, Marketing, natural, roxine plummer
by Sunny Lam on April 19, 2009
The Solarshuttle boat on the Serpentine in London has proved popular but experts fear for the future of new solar projects. Photograph: D Burke/Alamy/Alamy
Solar power companies in plea to maintain green jobs |
Environment |
The Observer: “Staff are being laid off by British solar power companies weeks after the government promised to create thousands of jobs in the ‘green’ economy. Companies from across the industry will this week accuse ministers and civil servants of damaging their business with funding cuts, ‘delay and disinterest’.”
(Via Guardian.)
If the government were a person on Twitter they’d definitely have been marked “fail whale” by @apesphere or @TomRaftery (and many others). We all know governments these days are so mired in bureaucratic red tape they might as well as be drowning in it. The economic crisis didn’t help either.
Of course if any government were serious about building real partnerships and doing their best to keep as many promises as possible, cutting green power funding is not strategically sound. Of course fighting the status quo and the inertia behind it is tough. Odds are that Canada isn’t going to fare much better considering the current government in power. Then again if we all made strategically sound decisions, the authors of Predictably Irrational would have had nothing to write about (an amusing read by the way).
So if one were to try to forecast the future of green energy it remains very uncertain (you try looking through the haze). Germany is certainly ahead of the game except even their go-to-man Dr. Hermann Scheer admits that Canada has a long way to go (see the CBC documentary The Gospel of Green for more details). There are a lot of bureaucratic, systemic and political barriers at work (like ramming your head into a brick wall – has the OPA come out with a better Standard Offer yet? I heard vague rumours they might be killing it off).
“Change is going to require some serious torch lighting if the latest protest riots at the G20 London summit were any indication.”
Remember: Solving the power crisis is only 1 pie part of saving the human race from itself-the other ones are water, food and of course population.
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
VN:F [1.8.1_1037]
Technorati Tags: barriers, British, bureaucracy, Canada, challenges, Energy, EU, Germany, government, green, Hermann Scheer, management, politics, power, renewable, sustainable, UK, uncertainty
