The Marketing Practice

Is Green marketing sustainable?

A recent post by Chris Koch of ITSMA goes under the title ‘Green Marketing is a Crock of…’ Assuming he didn’t mean to end the title with ‘Gold’, I have to take issue with his point of view. Essentially, he looks at the idea of marketing around Green credentials as being unsustainable: that having/causing slightly fewer emissions than a competitor is not a differentiator that will stand up to scrutiny (and, after all, slightly-fewer doesn’t mean that it benefits the environment, just that it harms it a bit less).

The main reason for my disagreement is that so long as Green remains important to consumers (who are, of course, also employees) B2C companies will continue to want to sell on this angle. And as long as it’s on the agenda for senior decision-makers, there’s an opportunity for B2B organisations with something different to say to capitalise on Green.

Two recent articles illustrate this point.

First, Accenture shows that sustainability is becoming a more concrete issue in the eyes of consumers: for example, nearly nine out of 10 consumers worldwide said they would switch to energy providers that offer products and services that help reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions.

And second, Socially Responsible Outsourcing tops the 2008 trends for the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals: “Companies providing, using and advising on outsourcing will become known for adhering to and advancing the highest ethical standards, contributing to communities, bettering the environment, and expanding career opportunities and training for employees.”

In our recent experience, fresh angles on Green are very successful at creating new opportunities to be noticed by decision-makers. Of course, as any resulting leads move down the pipeline, the audience’s considerations move quickly to more practical issues – for example, they will quickly want to know how much money off the bottom line promised energy savings will deliver.

Final thought: let’s not forget the other issues coming up fast on the heels of Green. It’s hard to predict the next bandwagon, but issues like the consumerisation of IT or utility computing certainly offer the potential for organisations to carve out new propositions in the way that Sun has done with Green.