We know plastic water bottles are overwhelming our landfills and severely clogging mother earth’s pores, yet we mindlessly grab a bottle when offered. We know pesticide-free apples are way better for us, but still we eat the heavily sprayed ones. Here’s the dilemma: We say want green products and healthy foods, but we don’t back up our words with actions. The very actions, Dr. Renee Lertzman says, “…we know from an ecological, economic, political and spiritual standpoint would do us all a lot of good.” So what’s holding us back? Why are we talking the talk, but not walking the walk?

Renee has some answers. She’s a writer, researcher and communications consultant focusing specifically on the psychological dimensions of sustainability. Her article “The Myth of Apathy” laid out some concrete truths and insights into this dilemma, so I invited her on Women Of Green to share those with me. What I uncovered is a fresh, new perspective on what it means to be green and how to engage the mainstream consumer in really caring about the environment. A very cool interview so listen in!

Listen to interview with Dr. Renee Lertzman here.

About my guest: Dr. Renee Lertzman provides practical and professional guidance on sustainability communications, public engagement, and outreach strategies. Through consultations, presentations, and the development of written materials and online resources, Dr. Lertzman helps companies, organizations, and individuals incorporate psychodynamic and psychosocial dimensions into the planning, design and implementation of communications initiatives.

– Carolyn Parrs

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It’s amazing to see what has taken hold across our country. Average people regularly vote against their own interests and now it seems they increasingly purchase against their own interests as well. Especially where the green world is concerned.

Stand in the checkout line of your average American supermarket and you’ll see what I mean. Judging by what consumers continue to buy and not buy, eatists far outnumber and outweigh supposed green elitists by record numbers. Green products continue to retreat according to recent studies reported by Carol Pierson Holding in a recent post.

She quotes an Ogilvy Earth study that shows that while Americans have good intentions, their purchasing patterns show where good intentions lead.

I can sight the economy as a cause, which is obvious, and the granola aura, which is obvious as well, but I think there is another factor which most have not thought about and that’s the general feeling of depression that has settled in. When people think their own lives are not going to get better, why would they bother pursuing products that are better? When they think their own lives are compromised, then needs of the planet pale in comparison.

Of course, as we have written countless times, many green marketers have blown it from the beginning. All the “saving the planet” and none of the saving yourself is certainly at the root of much of the reported failure. Poor labeling, and even worse, poor messaging is really the root cause.

Global warming gets scoffed at every time it snows, but imagine the traction it might have gotten had it been labeled climate change or ever better, weather disruption from the start. Imagine the power that label would have had during this year’s record flooding, tornadoes and forest fires.

Wouldn’t a focus on healthier, safer food, especially after the record numbers of e-coli incidents jogged people into purchasing more carefully, and caring about what their families were eating? Wouldn’t the physical evidence of increases in Diabetes and the astounding increases in obesity be proof that Americans better change their living and buying habits? I think its undeniable. Sadly, none of these important issues were the focus of green products.

The first thing I learned as a young copywriter was to examine the facts, lay out the advantages, and have a strategy that created a compelling case for what you were selling. The marketing pioneers I was so lucky to work for knew you could be educational and still be entertaining. They insisted that we say something relevant first and then say it in a clever way.

We could have had a lot of  fun with the Nissan Leaf and why you should love it and want it. Not why a polar bear should. That execution would have been labeled “borrowed interest” — a device you use when there’s nothing innately advantageous about the product you are promoting. In this age of gas pump sticker shock, I venture to say there’s plenty of fuel to launch a meaningful campaign.

When a client of ours who makes environmental paint products for children’s rooms wanted to promote their line, we told mothers that there “really was a monster in their kid’s room” and it wasn’t under the bed, or in the closet, but on the walls. We changed buying habits and made their paint a hit. We weren’t saving the planet one nursery at a time, we were appealing to motherly instincts that said protect your child from toxic pollution.

Suddenly the extra two dollars a gallon paled in comparison to the health of their family.  That”s what we call the “The RELEVANT in the room”.

The other point Ms. Holding made in her post was that green is perceived to be feminine, as though that were a problem. It’s not because women make 85% of all the purchases in America. My suggestion: Make your green communication appeal to women. They’re the ones whose DNA is programmed to protect the health and welfare of the family. They’re the ones who go shopping. They’re the ones who sign the majority of checks.

Personally, if the green world fails or slips back to where it began, it will be a sad day for all of us. Not just us greenies. And that will lead to further deregulation of safety standards and encourage polluters to keep on going because it will make them think no one really cares.

Is it too late? I don’t think so. Here at Mind Over Markets, we’ve seen the battle can be won but it ain’t gonna be “Kermit” or icecaps or polar bears who are going to win it. It’s going to be intelligence and appealing to consumers self-interest.

Most marketers are slow to get it. They still believe the only demographic worth pursuing are 18-24 year olds, even though the concentration of wealth and purchase power is much much older.

In that spirit, we say it’s not that green can’t sell, it’s just been sold from the wrong point of view. When you make green important to my life and my needs, then you are talking to me. When polar bears get their own credit cards and make their own purchase decisions, then we can talk about it again.

What do you think?

– Irv Weinberg

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Whether or not you believe in global warming, no one can debate that the green movement has taken the planet by storm. What started out as a cause has become a because. Because, in every way from the ecologic to the economic, green is not just a good conscience move, it’s a good business move with direct correlation to the bottom line. It’s the domino effect played backward.

By that we mean if you increase your energy efficiencies, you use less power. If you use less power, not only does your energy bill decrease but your need for power decreases so less energy has to be generated. If less energy is generated, less fuel is burned to create more power, less money is spent building plants, and less land is cleared to build energy producing plants, and so on and so on. In the end, even one energy-efficient LED bulb is one bright idea because it can produce a lot more savings than just on your energy bill.

But where do you begin? For many companies, greening their business might start with purchasing recycled paper or using soy inks. This is a good beginning. However, greening your business needs to begin with defining what green is in the first place. So it’s not merely a checklist but a “checking out” of your company’s social, environmental and economic beliefs and aligning them with your goals in order to meet the needs of the present without comprising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.

This internal exploration helped our team at Mind Over Markets define what is at the very core of green. We developed several ideas described below.

Green is about first what you believe and second what you buy.

Green is about making decisions, taking the time to decide what you really need, not just what you want. Green people buy from their intellect as well as their values.

Green is about long-term thinking not short-term. It is living as part of something, not apart from everything. It concerns believing in a future for everyone, our kids and their kids.

Green is not about stopping industry or progress. It’s about creating more efficient industry and progress.  It’s about new opportunities and new jobs, new careers and new technology.

Green is education. It is information, making decisions, and knowing that your choices make a difference.  It is about being transparent. Green is not just about the talk, it’s about the walk.

Green is not necessarily about moving off the grid or changing your life. It’s not even about hugging a tree although that would be nice. It’s about trying to walk more softly. It is understanding that we are a species among other species.

It’s about thinking about what you do before you do it. It’s about reusing, recycling, and picking up after yourself, or even after someone else.  It’s about all of us caring about all of us.

Ways to Change

This internal exploration led to an exploration of how we, as a marketing company, can change the way we look at everything in the marketing business and beyond.

Can we host a presentation using Webcams instead of driving to the airport and flying to a meeting?

Can we contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gasses by phone conferencing instead of driving?

Can we send PDF files over the Internet instead of printing brochures?

Can we place our marketing materials and our client’s materials on a flash drive and hand them out at a trade show instead of leaving a paper trail?

Can we allow our employees to telecommute a portion of their workweek?

Can we send our company holiday cards via the Internet instead of using paper and post?

And what about work space health?  Is our flooring off-gassing harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) into our workspace air?

Do we use as much natural light as we can?

Do we use nontoxic cleaning products?   All of these things contribute to healthier workspaces, which contribute to greater worker productivity and a better bottom line.

Can we source bleach-free recycled paper and print on both sides?

Can we print on our outgoing e-mails, “Please do not print this e-mail unless you really must?”

Can we encourage our printers to switch to toxic free soy-based inks and recycled paper?

Can we help green industry events by offering organic foods, less paper products, and an acoustic band instead of an electrically powered one?

The answers to these questions for us are yes, and more. Once you start thinking green, green grows all around you. Actually greening our business is an ongoing, highly creative process. It takes a little adjustment to your reflexes to ask yourself questions like, “Do I have to print that e-mail?” What would that little act save when multiplied by 200 e-mails a day, five days a week for a year? A lot of trees and money.

Here’s another good example of green thinking. Simply reducing the margins of our documents to .75” on all sides, results in a total reduction of paper use by 4.75 percent, according to a study by Penn State Green Destiny Conservatree. For one ton of paper, the savings would be 19 reams, which then saves 1.4 trees. Multiplying that by 5.4 million tons of office paper, which is the amount the United States consumed in 2003, saves 6,158,000 trees. Not to mention the energy costs and waste products generated:

1,459,535,366 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to CO2 emissions from 132,528 cars.

584,398,539 pounds of solid waste, equaling 20,871 fully loaded garbage trucks.

4.8 billion gallons of waste water, enough to fill 7,408 Olympic-sized pools.

You see, one margin can go a long way.

Once we recalibrate the decision-making process by thinking of all the ways we can be more efficient and less wasteful, making other adjustments gets easier and easier. Even simple changes like printing our presentation boards on both sides cut our usage in half. It is the domino effect once again. Use less paper, need less paper, need less trees, and less paper manufacturing plants and less energy to run them. By now you get the picture.

How are you greening your business or office? Share it here.

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It’s hard to wake up in the morning these days and watch the continuing gush of the Gulf oil spill and not think shudder about the consequences of not going green. It’s amazing that every alternative energy option is not being pursued the way weapons technology would be during a war. Make no mistake about it, we are at war and the enemy is coming ashore in the Gulf everyday. Would we allow even for a minute an invasion of American soil? Worse, this is only the most visible spill, there are many more that go unreported.  

It’s amazing that green energy companies are not seizing the moment to rally all of us to insist, demand and scream at the top of our lungs about the current and constant need to green up everything we do. It’s amazing that we are holding onto this dangerous, rapidly depleting, filthy 19th century form of energy that has us by the throat and budget.    

Yes, someday the leak will stop. And yes, someday the clean up will succeed but what about the other 5,000 deep water drilling operations? What about the sustained drumbeat to keep on drill baby drilling? What about the lives of generations of fisherman and millions of acres of precious shoreline? What about the natural gifts of the Gulf of Mexico that may never recover? What about the fish and wildlife? What about the natural treasures and the long range effects of everything that has been unleashed in the Gulf? No one knows.

If you are in the green world, if you are in alternative energy, if you make safe and healthy products, if you are part of the green revolution, stand up and shout. There has never been a more important issue, there has never been a more important moment than now. Seize it. Take your story and your reasons why to the people. Set the alarm for a giant wake up call. Use this moment to reach the ears and eyes of everyone. Raise you green flag and shout. This is your moment.

– Irv

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According to a recent Pew Research study, 75% of Americans think climate change is an important issue.  How important you ask?  Stunningly, it’s last on a list of 20 compelling issues, far behind terrorism and the economy. The reasons seem simple enough. Bombs exploding and banks imploding have immediate impact. Rising temperatures and shrinking icebergs do not. It will probably take Nevada becoming beachfront before climate change moves to the top of the list.

It seems these issues are not so far removed from other messages in the green world that we have written so much about. The issue of global scale and not personal scale.  In other words, if “What’s in it for me?” is not in the message as an immediate takeaway, most people won’t take away its importance. 

So much anti-reality messaging is flying around today, from Obama’s supposed death panels to the town hall fiascos of people screaming that they don’t want the government involved in their Medicare, that no one knows what to believe any more. 

Environmental Leader just reported on makers of artificial rayon clothing who are selling themselves as bamboo. Their headline read, ”FTC Charges Clothing Firms with ‘Bamboo-zling’ the Public.”  A line, by the way, I wish I had written. What’s so sad is that real change can’t take place when people think what’s really happening isn’t happening to them. It means that all of us in the green world had better do everything we can to tell the story and tell the truth, and make sure that the story gets told in ways that are meaningful and impactful to their audience.   

My advice: Make every word count. And if you can’t figure out how to do that then please hire someone who does. We cannot allow the words, green or eco-friendly or environmentally safe, to go the way of “low-carb” and “natural”.  We can’t allow the lack of information or misinformation to help glaze over the eyes of the public who will do what’s right if they know why and how. We need to make the green movement the road back to sanity, economic as well as environmental.  We need to tell the world that switching to energy efficient light bulbs not only saves energy but saves money. Wal-Mart saved more than $7 million last year alone with that one act.

If you’re a marketer of a green product, put the real and rational reasons on top of your list. We don’t only have to deal with climate change, we have to deal with mind change and priority change if we want to see real change, or pretty soon we’ll all be surfing in Las Vegas and that will be a wipe-out for all of us.

Irv

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It’s easy to point your finger at Coca-Cola’s environmental effort and use your middle finger instead of your index finger. But when one of the world’s largest fillers of landfills, that’s where 75% of all Coke bottles end up, adopts the PlantBottle, a more eco-friendly bottle made in part from sugar cane and molasses, we should all drink to that. 

This move alone doesn’t make Coke a green champion but it certainly will help make them less of a culprit. And all that green money they’ll spend to promote it will help to get the environmental message out to a much broader segment of the population. We should all hope this will start a trend in the beverage world and their competition will follow, as they usually do. Since we started writing the Green Marketing Blog, our hope was to help marketers take their messages and their products more mainstream so the green world becomes the everyday and not the alternative world. 

A marketing professor interviewed for this article said, “Anything you wrap in green is going to sell.” I don’t agree. Green, as we’ve said many times before, needs to make sense if it’s going to be viable for the long haul.  If not, it will stay on the fringes and that’s not where the real change takes place. 

Irv

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