In the B2C world, consumers have become accustomed to ‘green’ marketing – claims that a product or service is more environmentally friendly than its competitors. However, a confusing array of logos and a growing mistrust of potentially misleading claims have frequently led to cynicism around so-called ‘greenwashing’. As a result, any marketer, whether B2B or B2C, must carefully consider the claims their brands make in order to avoid significant reputational risk.
According to Andrew Morris, business development director at BSI British Standards, there is a more mature approach evident in the B2B world, where purchase cycles tend to be longer and consideration processes more rigorous. “The consumer is not sophisticated enough to demand back-ups of green claims and therefore is more susceptible to spurious green labels. In the B2C space, there is lots of confusion, and the consumer tends to be more nakedly cost driven,” he says. This was only exacerbated by the recession, which made purchasers in small companies, in particular, disregard all other issues, the environmental implications amongst them.
A focus on systems and processes
Morris believes attitudes to green marketing have evolved significantly over the last two years, and consequently so have brands’ use of it in their messaging. “It’s gone beyond doing green for the sake of it,” says Morris. “There is now a more focused, hard-headed approach and a requirement to cost-justify initiatives. Companies need to become more efficient with their use of resources. Buyers are insisting on it.”
Whether or not an individual is a signed-up member of Greenpeace, few would say they are unconcerned about the environment. As consumers seek to make ethical choices, frequently via their purchasing power, brands relay that pressure onto their suppliers, and the whole chain becomes affected. In a B2B sense, the pressure may not have been so immediate, but it is still there, and it is growing.
Legal requirements
For many, moves to become more ‘green’ are the result of legislative or regulatory requirements, or demands to meet certain standards. The Central Office of Information (COI)’s director of direct and relationship marketing, Marc Michaels, for example, recently stated that adopting sustainable marketing practices is now a “commercial imperative and ethical objective” for the marketing industry. The COI will be demanding minimum standards from the agencies it uses, and Michaels’ comments came as the COI was named one of the first organisations to achieve certification in PAS2020, an environmental quality mark that has been produced specifically for the direct marketing industry.
The PAS2020 certification is just one of many new environmental standards to be created in the UK recently. Take, for example, the Government’s CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, which requires companies that exceed a certain electricity consumption to monitor and report their usage. Under this scheme, the least efficient companies will be financially penalised. CRC, which came into force on April 1 2010, has been designed to encourage changes in behavior and infrastructure in large organisations.
Robert Keitch, the DMA’s former chief of membership and brand, and one of the architects of PAS2020, believes that further, tough environmental legislation is on its way and that failing to prepare for its impact will cost businesses dearly. This year, for example, will see the implementation of the EU Landfill Directive, he says, which has also been devised by policymakers to improve the environmental behaviour of both businesses and consumers.
“We’ve got some issues in the UK in terms of how we use resources and manage waste,” says Keitch. “Policy makers will have to move into that space, so there will be an inevitable hardening of environmental obligations.
“Businesses will also be under pressure to back up claims around green labelling. There is an ongoing consultation with DEFRA at the moment regarding green claims best practice, so people can’t just push spurious claims,” he adds.
Procurement departments seek guarantees
Many senior B2B marketers also believe that the notion of ‘risk’ – which includes the risk of doing business with suppliers that cannot answer questions about their environmental impact – is an increasing concern for procurement departments. According to Robert Keitch, “It’s in the buyer’s interests to ask questions. A procurement professional might ask a supplier about its environmental impacts because they themselves are being asked.”
Along with the new regulation and legislation, as well as social pressure, this careful questioning from procurement departments is galvanising many B2B suppliers into action. Yet those that fail to grasp the fact that a mature – and, more crucially, genuine – approach is needed when it comes to a company’s ‘sustainable’ agenda will fail to produce any remotely effective or convincing green marketing collateral. This, according to branding experts, may do more harm than good.
Patrick Danaher, marketing manager at GyroHSR, stresses the need to prove your credentials in today’s climate. “In the last 12 months there has been a step change,” he says. “It’s no longer just, ‘Have you got a green policy?’ The question has become, “What is your green policy? What exactly are you doing?'”
The need to defend green claims
As a first step, businesses need to take steps internally to gauge their environmental impact, and to create a culture of sustainability before pushing any claims to be ‘green’. According to Laura Haynes, chairman at brand and communications agency Appetite, “2008 and 2009 are now recognised as the years of greenwashing. Grabbing on to an issue and using it for self promotion is really dangerous for brands.”
Haynes adds that now is the time to examine your company’s sustainability practices and procedures. By way of example, she uses an international oil company client, which has discovered the importance of true sustainability for investors, government and employees over the past 12 months.
“When I spoke to them before about sustainability, they said, “But we don’t sell things to consumers,'” she explains. “My response was ‘What about your investor community?’ They are now reviewing their processes, and their communications is a part of that. Change has to be about business practice.”
Benefits and risks
Being realistic, it is important for all businesses that any initiatives are commercially viable – especially in the current economic climate. Laura Haynes says that frequently, saving the world is nothing more than ‘a nice by-product.’
Chris Stead, joint managing director of market research firm RS Consulting is in agreement. His firm has recently made moves to become more green but he explains that the starting point was trying to save money.
“We wouldn’t have done this purely as a marketing strategy. But the initiatives have helped to create an identity for the company. They have helped to give us a ‘face’ and we are perceived as having some integrity,” he says, adding that one of the potential risks of marketing an environmental message is the continued perception that green means more expensive. Yet this hasn’t put Stead off. “Your environmental positioning may well be important in government tenders,” he says. “And elsewhere it can help to act as a differentiator.”
Being perceived as offering a premium product can be both positive and negative. Sue Igoe, MD at RecycleBank UK, a rewards for recycling scheme that is ultimately aimed at households but engages local and national businesses as reward partners, says that green or environmental labels “still have a journey to make” so that it is not assumed that they entail increased cost. “We still have to convince buyers that green can be economical. It’s important for marketers to convey how it can benefit the bottom line,” she says.
Igoe believes that the political will for greater sustainability is being driven down from the brands to the suppliers. “I think it’s rare to find that service providers are pushing brands to be green,” she says.
This needs to change if B2B marketers are keen to embrace the opportunities that truly sustainable businesses can represent.
Ten steps to effective green marketing
1. Be aware of what your environmental impacts really are and reflect the reality in your claims.
2. Greenwashing doesn’t wash. If this is your approach, don’t bother.
3. Consider initiatives that will cut costs, which you can justify to your CEO. Are you delivering value back to shareholders?
4. Be consistent, clear and transparent. Show the workings out and consider ratification by independent third parties.
5. Do not regard green marketing as a bolt-on. It needs to be an integral pillar, something you focus the business around.
6. Being green starts at boardroom level – make sure senior people at your organisation are buying into these initiatives.
7. Get your staff involved, with a long-term plan that is internalised into the company’s ‘pysche’. Establish clear best practice.
8. As a supplier, be proactive. Don’t wait for requests to come to you. Ask what your clients and customers are interested in, and go beyond what governments ask for.
9. Demonstrate how you can make your buyers look better. Local authorities, for example, love statistics. All brands love tangible measurements.
10. Take small, incremental steps. You can’t do it all at once.
