By now you've heard the expression Greenwashing, right? A marketing team decides they want to join the Eco Bandwagon (which, by the way, is getting pretty full) so they play up some "green" part of their company.
Say run two-page spreads during Earth Day featuring their regular products with eco tips interspersed throughout, as Macy's did.
Or build minimal impact LEED gas stations, as BP has done.
Many times marketers, it seems, confuse the playing field for their own company's profits. Not that I mind playing up the green part of a company and telling the world about it (I did it myself when we ran an FSC certified direct mail piece), but to pretend your entire company is out to save the planet to make a buck is about as honest as selling snake oil.
Look, snake oil salesmen weren't curing tuberculosis with their bogus medicine and BP sure isn't making a dent with their gas stations considering they make most of billions in gas and oil revenues.
So what's a company to do?
Patagonia may just have the answer.
Fast Company has a terrific article on Patagonia's challenge to 10 employees to "track five products from the design studio to the raw-materials stage to Patagonia's Nevada distribution center".
The company decided to post the employees findings, good and bad, on a microsite called The Footprint Chronicles. The site covers 10 products' journey to the factory and its energy consumption, CO2 emissions, waste generated, and distance traveled.
They then ask for the consumer's feedback and post the feedback on their Cleanest Line blog.
This is no bogus marketing ploy, this is honest-to-goodness "put your ethics where your wallet is" marketing.
Congrats to Patagonia for, again, raising the bar when it comes to corporate, and marketing, honesty.
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