Newsletter
| December 2007 Greenwashing Part 2 Recently the environmental marketing company TerraChoice released a list titled the "Six Sins of Greenwashing." For those involved in green marketing or in any green-business a lot of the "sins" were familiar but even I was surprised by some of the egregious things manufacturers and marketers do to sell their products to well-meaning but unsuspecting customers. Marketers and businesses can easily avoid these sins by following two important concepts: transparency and authenticity. Transparency Providing accurate information about a product or in some cases a service creates credibility with customers. Information about a product's manufacture or makings should be available and easy to find on packaging or a web site. If there is something about the product or its manufacture that isn't as environmentally sound as it could be; make it clear that this will be the case until an alternative is available. Let's face it, all manufactured goods have some kind of footprint at this point. Letting consumers know what it is, how it is being reduced and where things are or can be improved makes for more credible claims of being a green company. Authenticity Transparency is a large step towards authenticity. When a company walks the talk customers recognize it. Authenticity isn't just important for green-minded companies either. Corporations who take advantage of their customers, lie about their earnings to stock holders or make products that don't resonate with consumers' values are at the very least perceived as detrimental to the economy or society. That translates into loss of trust, sales or investment. Authenticity validates claims of values and positive actions. Find Out More JP Collins wrote an article about the LOHAS consumer market. You can download a copy in PDF. www.pylonstudios.com/pdf/lohas.pdf You can also download the Six Sins of Greenwashing PDF from the TerraChoice web site. Back to the Newsletter page Sign up to get your copy of the Pylon Page |
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