Some stories are shocking, others are intriguing, and then there are those that fill you with nothing so much as a wearying sense of inevitability. Reports the Advertising Standards Authority has launched an investigation into the government's latest advert encouraging people to cut their carbon footprint after receiving over 350 complaints falls firmly into the latter category.

You've probably seen the ad, which shows a father telling his daughter a bedtime story in which he warns of a future in which rising sea levels and droughts have devastated the land. There's even a cartoon dog that sinks beneath the waves, and a stark message that adults can help play a part in protecting their children from this future by tackling the 40 per cent of carbon emissions that result from day-to-day activities.

Cue an entirely predictable avalanche of complaints from people with far too much time on their hands, arguing that climate change is not happening, that there is no consensus on climate science, and that it is wrong to scare the little children.

The ASA now has to decide if it is going to take issue with the suggestion that scientists have said carbon emissions contribute to global warming and uphold complaints that there is no overwhelming consensus on the issue. If it were to go down that route (and if it does then it had better have its peer-reviewed science ready) then the government should get its chief scientist to organise its defence and tell the watchdog to "bring it on". Either that or simply change the voice over from "scientists said..." to "many, many, many respected scientists said..."

Slightly more interesting is the accusation of scaremongering and unsuitability for children - although again the ASA would have to set a pretty remarkable precedent if it is to uphold the complaints.

If the ad is to be banned on the grounds that it's a bit dark then all ads concerning road accidents, smoking and health will have to be banned too. If an ad about climate change is scary for a kid, I don't doubt those adverts telling them their parents are going to die if they smoke are pretty terrifying too.

The ad might seem hard hitting to some, but it is also entirely justified. Environmentalists have long complained that if people knew the full scale of the climate change threat they would be storming parliament demanding action, while the government's own research has shown time and again that one of the main reasons for inaction on carbon emissions is that people think the global warming threat is distant and ill-defined. Having tried almost everything else to instil greener behaviours, it is about time the government tried a more robust approach and it is to be applauded for giving it a go.

Of course, businesses would be wise not to emulate this approach in their marketing - promoting the benefits of a green product is always going to be more effective than trying to scare people into buying it - but there is a lesson for firms in the government's increasingly stark warnings.

Despite all the evidence that we are going to see fundamental changes to the climate during this half of the century, there is still a tendency for businesses to underplay the existential nature of the risks they face. This is entirely understandable given that no one really wants to spend too long thinking about devastation and destruction. But if a business really wants to accelerate its development as a low carbon operation then senior executives need to comprehend both the scale of the threat and the scale of the opportunity - after all, nothing focuses minds like fear and greed.

Increasingly, business leaders get the opportunity side of the equation as more and more reports highlight the rapid growth enjoyed by the clean tech sector and the huge potential presented by new regulations and incentives. But many are still burying their heads in the sand over the risks. Whether its climate change, carbon regulations or peak oil, there is a tendency to dismiss or downplay the risks businesses face.

Personally, nothing has had a more profound impact on my understanding of the need for urgent action, than a couple of days spent earlier this year listening to the world's top climate scientists present their latest findings. Every politician and business leader in the world should be made to sit through two days listening to these scientists and see if they still think they cannot make the case for investing in low carbon. Or, failing that, they could just watch the government's new ad and ask if they really want to be responsible for the drowning dog.

Posted by James Murray on October 21, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (6)

It's time for action stations.

It is one of immutable truths of the court of public opinion that you can not hold people's attention for more than six months. So, with six months to go to the Copenhagen culmination of the UN's seemingly never-ending climate change negotiations the various political, public, and corporate campaigns surrounding the talks have finally slipped into top gear.

In the past few weeks we have seen a flurry of climate change activity on both sides of the Atlantic (and some typical heel dragging from Australia's government, but we'll put that aside for a moment): both the US and UK released bone chilling climate impact reports painting the bleakest picture yet on the likely effects of global warming on the two countries; the White House launched an orchestrated campaign to secure support for the proposed US climate change bill, culminating in a direct appeal to action from Barack Obama; the UK announced plans to power 20m homes using offshore wind; the US issued $8bn of green car loans; the UK launched the world's largest electric car trial and kicked off its carbon capture strategy; and green groups the world over released more studies projecting a boom in green jobs than you can shake a wind turbine at.

And this is just the start. As the UK government confirmed last week, six months of high profile activity is planned in the run up to Copenhagen, all of which is designed to hammer home the message that aggressive and ambitious measures will be required to avert planetary disaster.

Meanwhile, arguably the most compelling stimulus for greener business models has quietly re-emerged with the realisation that oil prices are on the rise again. They may not be anywhere near the record highs of last year, but with the first green shoots of recovery slowly emerging economists are deeply concerned that oil supplies will not be able to keep track with the rising global demand that will come with any recovery.

Add in the fact that investment in carbon capture and renewable energy, coupled with expansion of carbon cap-and-trade schemes, will inevitably drive up long term energy prices and it becomes clear that energy efficiency initiatives still make a great deal sense regardless of the economic climate.

All of this presents a huge opportunity for green businesses - and an enormous headache for those firms yet to embrace more sustainable practices.

On a purely tactical level, the public awareness campaigns being orchestrated by governments and NGOs offer a one off opportunity for those businesses offering green products and services to push their message to a ready primed audience.

But on a broader level the next six months offer a great opportunity for green businesses to really open up a gap on their carbon-intensive rivals.

Regardless of how the US climate change bill goes in tomorrow's vote and regardless of how the Copenhagen talks eventually resolve themselves, the fact is that more environmental legislation is on the way, along with more low carbon incentives, higher energy bills, and ever increasing investment in low carbon infrastructure and technologies.

Those firms that seize on the opportunity presented by this six month long "perfect storm" and act now to prepare for the post-Copenhagen settlement will be the same firms that are rewarded with higher profit margins and lower risk profiles over the next decade.

Like I say, the time for action stations.

Posted by James Murray on June 25, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Greenwashing is A Bad Thing, right?

As we all know, companies that promote products and services by overstating or lying about their green credentials not only insult customers' intelligence, they also stoke cynicism against the entire green business movement.

And yet I'm starting to think that the vociferous criticism that greenwashing increasingly attracts is starting to do more harm than good.

Yesterday, I appeared on a web TV show for small businesses from the IT company Dell and the British Chamber of Commerce to discuss how businesses can still make the case for going green in the current economic climate.

During the broadcast, one audience member emailed in to ask what the point was in undertaking green initiatives when your customers would only end up seeing it as a cynical marketing ploy, an example of "greenwash"?

You have to say it is a valid question.

My colleague at BusinessGreen.com's sister title vnunet.com, Iain Thomson, neatly summed up the attacks those companies that seek to promote their green credentials can in a blog posting from the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.

In it he complained that if he had to listen to one more company talk about its environmental commitments he would seriously countenance an assassination attempt on the offending party.

His criticism of the raft of green technology announcements that dominated this year's show centred on the oft-argued point that businesses promoting new recycling services and energy efficient products were only interested in the bottom line and did not really give a stuff about the environment.

"All this supposed 'green' focus is nothing more than an attempt to sell us products," he wrote. "What these companies have recognised is that consumers want to buy green products so that they can feel better about themselves. I'm willing to bet some of these companies would cheerfully club seals or burn rainforest if people liked the idea and it got them more sales."

Thomson is certainly not alone in levelling such criticism at firms' green marketing campaigns, but the question his attack begs is "so what?"

If the end goal is to reduce businesses' impact on the environment, then should we really care whether or not a firm's motivations are in some way ethically "pure"?

Surely all that matters is whether they are seeking to cut their environmental impact or not and whether they are doing so effectively? In fact, I prefer it if their green initiatives are driven by a desire to make profits, as at least that gives them the ultimate incentive to make sure they are successful.

Obviously green marketing that relies on inaccuracies or lies is fair game for criticism and should be eradicated, but if companies start to get attacked for simply promoting their environmental improvements there is a real risk they will ask themselves why they are bothering.

Much of the criticism levelled at green marketing campaigns centres on the fact that green products and initiatives undertaken as part of some huge multinational often look incongruous when set against the firm's wider activities - the BP paradox if you will.

This criticism boils down to whether you think a firm should be allowed to promote green activities when they make up only a small fraction of its overall operations?

Well, I can understand why it grates with some old school environmentalists, but the answer has to be "yes, they should".

Green marketing messages might run ahead of a company's overall ability to deliver green products and services, and will almost certainly run ahead of their ability to decarbonise their operations. But what they demonstrate is the company's awareness that these products and services are desirable and will resonate with customers. They give you a vision of the way the company wants to be seen and sees itself. Advertising is a window into, if not quite a company's soul then certainly its ego.

For example, Samsung, which this week debuted a new range of energy efficient monitors at the CES show, may still make plenty of products that use lots of energy and contain potentially harmful chemicals, but the fact it made such a fanfare about its new green technology suggests it knows demand for these types of products will grow. Regardless of my colleagues protestations, Samsung has every right to communicate that understanding to as wide an audience as possible.

Like the food companies which in the 1950s routinely produced laughably inaccurate adverts trumpeting the health benefits associated with their products, many firms are now guilty of overstating the scale of the environmental benefits they can deliver. But those old school adverts, ridiculous as they may look now, displayed an awareness that healthy food resonated with modern consumers, and in so doing heralded the start of a 60 year long transformation that has seen nutrition become the issue that arguably defines the way the food industry operates. It is entirely conceivable that the raft of new green marketing campaigns that have emerged in recent years mark the beginning of a similar journey.

Moreover, if environmentalists do want to find misleading campaigns to criticise, they would do far better to train their sights on the Daily Mail and its ridiculous and grossly unbalanced criticism of energy efficient light bulbs and the UK recycling industry.

This "brownwash" does far more harm than even the most blatant examples of greenwash, and yet, while those companies attempting to produce genuinely green products get criticised, others are allowed to spread this type of self-serving misinformation almost unchallenged.

Posted by James Murray on January 9, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (2)

For the second time in almost as many months I have managed to get myself blindsided by a talk radio host.

As you can imagine I am now feeling suitably sheepish, not least because this is up there with getting outwitted by a tea towel in terms of intellectual embarrassment, but also because the best definition of stupidity we've got is an inability to learn from one's mistakes.

Still, in my defence, it was Monday morning and when the researcher for BBC Three Counties Radio rung up to ask if I'd be available to talk about Tesco's plans to put carbon labels on some of its products I had no reason to be suspicious.

She said the show's host, Jonathan Vernon-Smith, wanted a view on how the scheme could work and whether consumers would see it as a case of the supermarket jumping on the green bandwagon, which all sounded fair enough (although, in retrospect the alarm bells should of sounded when she signed off with the words, "try to enjoy it").

What followed was straight out of the talk radio host handbook: leading questions, incredulous tone, refusal to accept any of the positives to be found in the scheme, all culminating in a rather long-winded rant.

I was asked why anyone really wants to see carbon data on products, why supermarkets are trying to make people feel guilty, and why Tesco wants to do something that is only going to confuse customers, "just like the traffic light fiasco" surrounding food labels (that'll be the fiasco of improved nutrition labelling that most supermarkets report has led to a decline in sales of the most unhealthy foods, then).

My attempts to defend the scheme - which is after all only a pilot and is on balance likely to prove beneficial - only served to prompt a slightly bizarre rant in which Vernon-Smith asked, I can only assume rhetorically, "who has the time to start checking the carbon count of products? Who really has the time? Not me that's for sure."

Well, erm, thanks for that.

Now, I know I've posted on this before - after I found myself trying to debate the case for curbing carbon emissions on LBC Radio with people who think global warming will be a good thing because they'll be able to grow oranges and lemons in their garden - but what are you supposed to do when faced with these types of questions and the environmental scepticism they embody.

Last time, I think I espoused ignoring them, on the grounds that the point of view of the questioner - climate change scepticism, wilful ignorance of the global warming threats, refusal to countenance new green technologies even where they bring huge benefits – is  essentially based on a series of beliefs rather than facts and consequently it is almost impossible to change their mind.

But now I'm not so sure. Of course, it makes sense from a marketing and communications perspective for businesses to target the receptive audience offered by the new breed of green consumers. But at the same time green products will only go mainstream if the entrenched hostility towards green issues embodied by the talk radio hosts is challenged and defeated.

So how do you go about beating them at their own game? Where is the nuclear option that stop's the next "yeah, but" rejoinder dead in its tracks?

I'm pretty sure losing your temper and pointing out to the green cynics that they are just plain wrong is not the answer (although it is a tempting option), just as I would never advocate any sort of censorship to force such opinions from the media spotlight. So what do you do?

So far all I've come up with is to try and ensure you have facts at your disposal that counter the anti-environmental argument, to always focus on the positive benefits green products and services can deliver, and to try to explain that principles of risk mitigation mean that at the very least green measures represent a sensible precaution.

This all makes sense and is equally good advice for any firm putting together a green campaign as it is for individuals stuck talking to climate sceptics. But I'm sure you'll agree it isn't the most impressive rhetorical arsenal when you are faced with an adversary armed with the far more potent weapons of knee-jerk hostility and an only passing acquaintance with the concept of logic.

What all this is leading to is an unashamed plea for help. If you have any ideas on how best to engage with those who are convinced all green business activity is a case of hype, or conspiracy, or both, then please put the answer on the back of a postcard (or at the bottom in the comments box – it's greener).

It's either that or I'm going to have to get used to be outmanoeuvred by tea towels, which, as you can imagine, is a less than attractive prospect.

Posted by James Murray on April 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (3)

One of the more intriguing aspects of investigating green companies is trying to work out the extent to which they are different to conventional firms.

There are two schools of thought.

The first argues that green firms represent a completely different way of doing business, requiring different priorities, different skill sets, different management techniques, different managers and even a different understanding of what a business is and does.

The alternative view, and the one I generally ascribe to, is that green businesses are not really different to conventional firms at all. They follow the same business principles that have always existed, it is just they are the ones adapting fastest to the changing social, political and economic landscape around them. So old-fashioned business rules governing risk mitigation and cost control explain the focus on cutting energy use, while entrepreneurial nous and the ability to spot a gap in the market explains investment in developing new green products.

However, while the business principles that define green and conventional firms are much the same there are still differences to be detected in their operational approaches, and perhaps the most important of these is found in their differing sales strategy.

I recently met with Simon Francis, vice president for energy solutions at PC management software outfit 1E, who was convincing in his argument that firms selling green products to business customers needed to develop a whole new sales approach if they are to find a receptive audience.

"If you've got any sort of green message you need to get higher up the management chain than your traditional market," he argued. "Green products of any type need to be pitched at the highest level possible."

It is a lesson Francis claims 1E has learnt with its automated PC turn off system Nightwatchman, which it now frequently pitches at CEOs and CSR officers rather than its traditional target customers in the IT department.

It's not that IT managers aren't interested in the technology and the energy savings it promises, he claims, it's just that their priorities are more likely to lie elsewhere or they are reluctant to assign their budget to a product that tends to deliver the bulk of its cost savings to the facilities department.

In contrast, the CEO cares about the overall budget and increasingly cares about the environmental implications of energy saving measures, making him or her a far more receptive target for the sales pitch.

It is a model that can be applied to any number of green products and services: a green car company is better off targeting a CEO than the fleet director who will have to deal with any staff disgruntled at getting a less powerful company car; a salesman for energy efficient air conditioning systems will probably find the COO provides a more receptive audience than a cash-strapped facilities manager balking at the prospect of a sizable upgrade project; while a green energy firm is better off talking to the managing director about risk mitigation and marketing opportunities than a finance director or energy manager who can't see beyond the raw cost implications.

The simple fact is that green products tend to deliver benefits that stretch far beyond the departments that procure them and as such sales staff need to get beyond the operational managers who, through no fault of their own, tend to have more immediate concerns on their mind.

Of course, getting access to those in the upper echelons of the corporate hierarchy will test any sales team's mettle. But then again, when it comes to green products the more senior the exec you pitch to the higher the chances of success.

Posted by James Murray on February 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

So polar bears are passé, apparently. Snow scenes are soporific and interest in ice floes is melting as fast as the ice floes themselves.

That is the view of picture agency Getty Images, which this week unveiled a major new report suggesting that the conventional images used in firms' green marketing campaigns are fast becoming "visual clichés" that are resonating less and less with customers.

You have to agree it has a point.

The visual language used to communicate green marketing campaigns in general and climate change initiatives in particular have become staid and repetitive to the point of boredom. To the list of images that should be removed forthwith from the corporate marketing armoury I'd like to add melting glaciers, belching smokestacks and generic tropical rainforests. Any power these images once had has diminished in direct proportion to their ubquitous familiarity.

In many ways it is surprising they have retained an impact for as long as they have. Few people have seen a polar bear, even fewer have seen an ice flow, and as such marrying the climate change message with such exotic imagery was always a high risk strategy that would ultimately alienate much of the audience.

But if it is time to put the polar bear's out to pasture, or wherever it is aged polar bears go, then what should advertisers replace them with?

It is a tricky question and one advertisers and marketers need to answer quickly if they are to avoid further alienating an audience that is already showing some signs of green fatigue.

The answer lies in reconnecting the issue back to the customer. One of the reasons that action on climate change is still so limited is that it is too big and broad a topic for most people to get their head round, a sense only amplified by the use of alien and exotic imagery. If firms want to promote their climate change strategies they have to show what such strategies, or their absence, means for the customer.

In this context floods, famine, droughts and changes to local wildlife are all more powerful warning symbols than the polar bear. Better still, images of green jobs and green technologies provide a far more positive visual backdrop for any corporate climate change strategy.

Moreover, if climate change is too big and scary a topic for customers to comprehend then firms need to find a way to promote their environmental credentials that ties them in with other issues.

This week's survey of Co-op members found that customers are prioritising ethical trading, animal welfare and smaller scale environmental concerns such as packaging over climate change. What is interesting about the findings is that while consumers bury their heads in the sand over climate change sizeable numbers are concerned over issues that relate to global warming.

As Co-op chief executive Peter Marks pointed out fair trade and climate change are inexorably linked when you consider that climate change will disproportionately impact developing economies. Make this connection and carbon reductions become part of a company’s ethical positioning.

Equally, animal welfare can be protected as much through attempts to protect habitats as through ethical farming policies, while reducing packaging cuts carbon emissions as well as waste.

There are plenty of images out there to replace the poor old polar bear and revitalise green marketing messages. It just requires a bit of imagination and a desire to educate the customer about the real, local impacts of both climate change and greener business models.

Posted by James Murray on February 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was the US businessman John Wanamaker who is reputed to have first observed that "half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half".

But that was back around the turn of the Twentieth Century and it looks like the old adage may have become a bit outdated for this cynical Millennium.

According to a new survey from BT of 600 UK consumers, just three per cent of customers think businesses are honest about their actions regarding what they are doing to become more environmentally or socially responsible.

That means every time your company releases a green ad or constructs a green marketing message just three out of every 100 customers believe you. The rest think that at best you are exaggerating your green record and at worst you are telling outright lies. Forget half your ad budget being wasted, it looks like it is all being flushed straight down the pan.

Advertisers and marketing professionals will, of course, find ways to downplay the implications of BT's poll. They will argue, with no little justification, that green marketing can prove hugely effective if it is done properly and insist that in an increasingly cynical age customers may not believe every claim they hear but that does not stop ads proving highly effective at raising brand awareness and creating a "feel good" factor around a product.

But deep down they must be worried about the sheer scale of the breakdown in trust between company and customer. There has to be a fear that some hardnosed finance director is going to look at the number of customers scoffing at companies' green marketing claims and ask why they are bothering to waste their breath.

Like a philandering husband or a scandal-rocked politician, the green marketing community needs to urgently restore trust if it is to survive. The problem is how it should go about doing this.

The recommendation from most green communication experts can be summed up in two words: stop fibbing.

It is hard to claim customers are being unreasonably cynical about green marketing claims when within days of the BT survey being released the Advertising Standards Authority slammed the Malaysian Palm Oil Council for having the nerve to claim in an advert that its palm oil was "sustainable" and reprimanded BA for an email to customers that claimed the proposed third runway at Heathrow will make it easier for planes to get a landing slot and cut annual emissions by 330,000 tonnes, but which forgot to mention that the extra flights will result in an overall increase in emissions of 2.6m tonnes.

Eradicating such misleading messaging would of course help restore some customer trust, and it goes without saying that it is critically important for all marketing departments to do their upmost to ensure green claims are verifiable, accurate and placed in their proper context. But it strikes that any company attempting to tackle the problem of "greenwash", as it has become known, has to do far more than simply ensure that the lawyers and advertising watchdogs are happy.

Just as the breakdown in trust between politicians and voters has as much to do with MPs mealy-mouthed tendency to evade questions as it does with the still relatively rare occasions when they are caught telling outright lies, consumers' lack of faith in green ads is caused as much by a sense they are being spun as by glaring factual inaccuracies.

Late last year I met with Antony Young who works as director of security and services at IT distributor Bell Micro. As a distributor of IT kit Bell has an interesting insight into the activities of both the manufacturers pushing new green technologies and the retailers and resellers who actually have to sell the stuff.

Young's view was that despite all the hype from the global IT giants about greener, more energy efficient systems demand for the technology had largely disappointed thus far. He attributed this to "snow-blindness" amongst customers who had become jaded by the sheer number of green marketing messages emanating from IT companies.

It's an analysis that will sound worryingly familiar to countless other sectors. It's not that you could accuse any of the IT companies' individual green marketing campaigns of being inaccurate or untrustworthy or misleading, it's just that there were so many of them that customers assumed vendors were just jumping on the bandwagon. Sadly, good green adverts and campaigns that could never be described as greenwash were still regarded as such by cynical customers.

The only answer to this problem is for marketing professionals to display a characteristic that hardly comes naturally to them: restraint.

As the green marketing sector matures, businesses will have to learn that inundating customers with messaging every time they launch a new product or service that is fractionally greener than the previous version will only prove counter productive in the long run.

As Young observes, companies would be advised to "keep their powder dry" for the green products and services that really outperform the rest of the market, rather than waste precious marketing capital on yet another offset scheme or fractionally more energy efficient system that offers nothing new to jaded customers.

It is extremely difficult to display such restraint, particularly when businesses are increasingly excited about their environmental initiatives and keen to show them off to a growing band of environmentally conscious customers. But resisting the temptation to trumpet every green initiative from the rooftop may ultimately help restore trust in environmental claims and ensure that customers greet the really big and meaningful green announcements with more than just a weary shrug of the shoulders.

Posted by James Murray on January 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, I posted on the importance of ensuring your company's green message is delivered through a green medium.

A point ably demonstrated by the good folk in the Mercedes-Benz press department and their woefully daft decision to snail mail a press release and a photo to journalists to promote its new wind turbine.

Well, perhaps they could learn a thing or two from their counterparts at US energy giant Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), who last month decided to promote the company's green energy investments using, wait for it, a solar powered billboard.

In a word: genius.

Posted by James Murray on December 6, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know a journalist moaning about the world of public relations hardly constitutes news, but sometimes you just can't help it.

This morning an envelope appeared on my desk containing a two page press release (two sheets of one-sided printing) telling me that Mercedes-Benz has just installed a wind turbine at its site in Milton Keynes. It was accompanied by a colour photo of said turbine.

Now, I'd like to be the first to congratulate Mercedes-Benz on this excellent green initiative, but am I the only person that finds their means of communicating it a trifle strange?

Have they not heard of email? What is wrong with double sided printing? What exactly am I supposed to do with the photo? Frame it and put it on my desk.

I feel a bit mean pointing this out - after all the company is investing heavily in an indisputably green technology and it is a bit unfair to focus on two sheets of paper when the turbine will generate enough green energy to power a 20 person office.

But it is still hard to imagine what possessed the PR team behind the press release to send out a green announcement using the most carbon intensive and wasteful means they could find.

The world of green business has opened up a whole new line of attack for marketing and PR departments everywhere, but it comes with risks and the need to marry green content with the appropriate communication medium has never been more important. You wouldn't promote a green initiative by hiring a plane to write about it in the sky, so why put it on a paper press release?

The paperless office may still be decades away and I am as guilty as the next man when it comes to occassionally wasteful behaviour, but if you are going to tell people that your company is going green then cutting down on paper use and using electronic documents wherever possible is one of the simplest things you can do to create the impression that you are walking the green walk.

Posted by James Murray on December 5, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Firms investing in green initiatives are likely to attain competitive advantage through improved customer and employee retention, according to a major new global survey of almost 17,000 people.

The survey from polling organisation Ipsos MORI questioned members of the public across 15 major markets found that over half said they prefer to buy products and services from companies with good environmental reputations, while almost eight out of 10 claim they want to work for "environmentally ethical" organisations.

Rick Snyder, Americas president at video conferencing technology specialist Tandberg, which commissioned the survey, said the results proved that firms that invest in greener business models can gain a competitive advantage.

"It is clear that a company’s green credentials impact employee and customer retention," he said. "And in the long term that can help determine competitive advantage."

The survey also found limited variation in attitudes towards green brands across different economic groups, countries and age groups.

"We expected attitudes to vary a lot, but while there were some differences across different countries, overall support for greener business models was fairly constant across all groups," said Snyder. "It means that customers for green products are everywhere and anywhere."

The report did not assess the extent to which a preference for green suppliers and employers is translating directly into improved retention rates, but Snyder maintained that there was little doubt people's positive attitude towards green brands was informing their purchasing and employment decisions.

"Because the idea of green brands is still relatively new we don’t have quantitive evidence that shows how much financial value you get from green initiatives," he explained. "However, those companies that are running green campaigns are seeing huge engagement from employees and in the coming years they will begin to more clearly see competitive advantage in the form of improved staff and customer retention rates."

Posted by James Murray on October 8, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)