No matter what your personal opinion is about climate change, there is no doubt that it is having a profound impact on the marketplace. A huge amount of attention is focused on what companies are doing and whether they are part of the problem or part of the solution.

Today more than 90% of peer-reviewed scientific studies say climate change is real and humans are contributing to it in one form or another.  Images that flash across the Weather Channel compete with the Chiller Channel for sheer horror as tornadoes devastate, rivers rise and flood, heat sears the nation, and cyclones leave thousands homeless or dead.  

All this attention, plus record-breaking energy prices, are motivating consumers across the globe to demand action.  

Billions of dollars are being invested in companies developing alternative energy and other sustainable technologies. Customers, shareholders and employees are pressing companies to reduce their carbon footprints and adopt other sustainability initiatives.  

The risk of inaction overwhelms the benefits of taking action to protect your hard-earned reputation and standing. We live at a time when opinion-driven news and commentary spreads like a virus. What does it say about your company if you don’t say or do something positive and proactive?  Can you afford to sit in silence on the sidelines?  The answer I think is a resounding no.

It is incumbent on every organization to state its actions and intentions. Not with platitudes and hot air, but with substance.  You have to say what you are doing and what you intend to do and state it clearly, precisely and without grandiosity.

Energy company commercials with central casting Granddads teaching their cherubic Grandsons how to fly fish are not going to do it.  We need to hear how much they are investing in alternative sources of energy that will get us off our addiction to foreign oil.  They need to show us that they are not just sucking money out of our pockets, but rather investing profits in a more sustainable future.  We have reached the point where it’s not just polar bears that are endangered, it’s us.

Once again it comes back to our basic premise that meaningful change is beginning to take place because the issue has become personal, not just planetary. With the East Coast boiling, the Mid-West flooding, and the West Coast burning, climate change is no longer something we can just talk about; it’s something we all have to do something about. Buying green, thinking green, talking green and insisting on green may not be the entire answer, but it is a start.

Developing, implementing, and effectively communicating a coherent sustainability strategy will cost real money, but failure to act will cost a lot more. Are there steps you can take now to protect and enhance your reputation?  What actions can you take to enhance your competitive position? Can you grow your business by developing green products that educated consumers will want to buy?  Those are just a few of the questions every business leader has to answer — not someday, but now.

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Sustainability is one of those words that you hear repeated over and over again, but strangely enough most companies cannot decide what it really means.  According to The Economist, only 29% of executives surveyed have a coherent sustainability strategy.   Of those that do have a strategy, few communicate it effectively.

A recent commercial for a wind energy company took a predictable and ineffective approach by featuring lofty images, stirring music and a garbled message.  The commercial failed to take into account one of the Ten Commandments of Green Marketing, which is to appeal to the head as well as the heart.  Green consumers are more inquisitive, less trusting, and better informed than the average consumer.  

What really struck me about the commercial was its emphasis on local action, which was delivered by an announcer with an Australian accent.  It shows once again how big companies make big mistakes trying to appeal to green consumers.

Effective green marketing respects the consumer’s intelligence and delivers the message with authenticity and credibility.       

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The current controversy about Ethanol brings into sharp focus the need for clarity in green marketing.  If you take everything being said and written about Ethanol at face value, it’s easy to blame Ethanol producers for rising food costs, when in truth they are responsible at most for a 2-3% increase in world food prices.  It’s really drought, increasing demand and, most of all, the sharp spike in gas and diesel prices that have driven food prices so high.  

So, why all the finger pointing at Ethanol?  Two reasons.  First, the need to shift blame away from spiraling fuel prices and the weakness of the U.S. dollar, and second, the Ethanol industry’s inability to effectively communicate its own position.

This is yet another reminder of the need to bring green communications down to earth.  We have to illustrate that green products are more than just lofty concepts and ideals. We have to show consumers that our green products have real, practical, and economic value.  If Ethanol has the potential to free us from dependence on foreign oil, outrageous prices, and further degradation of our environment, isn’t it worth trying?  Shouldn’t we be taking a hard look at all alternatives to fossil fuels to meet our energy needs without running us into the ground?  

As green marketers, we need to clearly explain to consumers that purchasing our products will bring them real, practical, and tangible benefits today, rather than lofty, esoteric, and poorly-defined benefits in the future.  Ethanol is a perfect case in point.  It may not be “the solution” to our energy problems, but it may be part of the solution if it isn’t undermined by bad PR and ineffective communications. 

What do you think?

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