Like many of us, when the notice from our utility company came offering wind energy to us at a slightly higher cost, we signed up right away. We figured it was a clean and sustainable way to get electricity and help the environment at the same time.  According to an article in The New York Times, to date over 1,000,000 customers have volunteered to pay more for this type of power, but it seems a lot of that has been hype, not hope. 

Florida Power and Light had a program called “Sunshine Energy”  with more than 38,000 customers which was terminated by the Florida Public Service Commission after an audit found that 76.4% of the money taken in by this program went to administration and marketing costs instead of to building more solar facilities and generating more clean, renewable energy. 

A California based advocacy group called the Utility Reform Network reported, “There is little evidence to suggest that customer subscriptions have resulted in any new additions of renewable power.”  And that is the shock, not only to energy customers but to all of us in the green marketing space. 

These blatant green claims, all wrapped up in slick marketing campaigns, do more than turn off energy customers, they have the potential to turn off the greater population to many green claims and products. And this hurts us all. 

We speak a lot about green marketing and one of our primary rules is transparency and walking the talk.That means if you say something about green or sustainability, you need to back it up with action. If you claim something, it had better be supported by facts.  

As green grows, so does the danger to the entire movement. Couple that with green fatigue, greenwashing and empty meaningless claims, and green can go the way that low-carbs went. What happens is that once someone is duped by a green marketer, they don’t just turn off that message, but potentially get turned off to the green movement and we all suffer the consequences. 

Everyday the airways are filled with messages that confuse us all. Look at the  current healthcare debate and all the special interest groups pouring millions into bending your opinion one way or the other. No wonder the average person no longer believes what they read and hear.

If you want the green movement to succeed, and your product or service along with it, all of us need to be the green police and be sure that what green says, green does. It would be a tragedy if companies like Florida Power and Light are instrumental in pulling the plug on what all of us have worked so hard to accomplish. Take my word for it, it is much harder to bring someone back in once they have been disappointed than it is to bring them in from the start.

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