02.11.11 By Jay
Being Green Is More Cost Effective Than Looking Green
arketing to sustainability-minded consumers can be a difficult endeavor because of the faddish nature of being “green.” Many businesses use a cherry-picking approach. They choose initiatives those that have little impact on the bottom line but have the greatest positive impact on the company’s branding and reputation.
Makes sense from a business point of view, right? But their choice is often made with little attention to how these practices work together strategically. So they go in without a plan. They just pick the latest green fad and run with it. Suspicious consumers have labeled these businesses as “greenwashers” because they prioritize profits and branding before their consumers’ core environmental concerns and values.
By creating a set of green company values and not changing course every year in order to avoid losing market share to the latest new trend in green business, successful companies save money in the long term. Far from having to defend their eco-friendly reputation, they can watch trust in their brand grow every day as more and more consumers discover that the best new strategies for saving the planet are the ones these organizations have been using for years already. These companies don’t appear “greenwashed” to savvy green-values consumers and opinion leaders. It’s obvious that they’re not just chasing the latest trends, but are keeping their focus on their consumers’ core values. 
Consumers face an onslaught of ever-changing information about what’s green. One day, the fad is all recycled paper, the next day it’s the paperless office; one day corn plastic will save the planet, the next day corn plastic increases global warming and takes food out of the mouths of hungry people. While consumers can change their minds about the best green practices at the drop of a blog post, businesses face significant lag time before they can implement a change in practice and get the word out. Companies marketing to ecologically-minded consumers are increasingly facing a need to jump from one low-cost sustainability measure to the next almost as quickly as green consumers change their minds. It’s a vicious cycle.
But some businesses consistently maintain a stellar reputation for sustainable practices because they avoid this cycle; they don’t jump on the bandwagon. They begin by defining their core green values and then look for initiatives that match those values. Green is a company value, not a line-item expenseGreen-minded consumers want to know which sustainability measures do the most to minimize pollution, habitat destruction, carbon footprint, global warming, loss of biodiversity, and waste of natural resources, not which measures are lowest cost or most trusted.