Avoiding Greenwashing By Talking About A Journey
Your brand is on a long sustainability journey. Your business does its part to help the environment. How can you effectively demonstrate, message, and communicate your commitment?
Maybe your company wants to show consumers its commitment to environmentally friendly products or that your business has adopted a zero-waste culture. Perhaps you do many things that are already eco-friendly and demonstrate investment and a promise – but you don’t know how to tell that story.
Telling the story of your journey can be challenging, and you need to be sensitive to greenwashing.
And if your company falls short, it risks missing out on opportunities to use its marketing to engage with eco-friendly consumers, your concerned employees, and you don’t want to be accused of being disingenuous.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing your brand to eco-friendly consumers. But being mindful of greenwashing can help keep you on the right track.
However, there are several approaches you can use to connect with these consumers and other stakeholders that will foster long-lasting partnerships.
Four Steps
1. Integrate sustainability into your business operations
Assess your business’s values and what drives your company. From here, you can revamp these values in alignment with eco-friendly initiatives. You can then make sustainable changes across your operations.
A journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet. Start with some simple steps.
- Invest in LED light bulbs. Replace incandescent light bulbs with LEDs. That way, your business can reduce its energy consumption. Furthermore, LEDs last longer than their incandescent counterparts. Thus, your LED bulbs can deliver long-lasting value.
- Install low-flow water fixtures. Leverage low-flow water fixtures on myriad business plumbing. These fixtures are generally inexpensive and simple to install. And they can help you conserve water.
- Start a recycling program. Set up recycling bins across your business. These bins can be placed in an office breakroom and other areas and encourage workers to recycle regularly. You can even launch recycling competitions that incentivize employees to recycle at work.
These changes can have immediate and long-term effects on your business. But most importantly, you are demonstrating a commitment, especially to associates inside the building without the risk of greenwashing.
You can highlight these changes in your marketing campaigns but don’t oversell them.
The key is always to be talking about your actions as the beginning of your journey – the low-hanging fruit.
In doing so, you can show consumers your company’s dedication to maintaining an eco-friendly business. Your message might be that these were easy things to help us get started and build momentum. But don’t overpromise. Don’t claim you are a green company – instead, use language that describes your path towards doing your part, making small but meaningful changes, and taking early steps.
2. Carefully evaluate your target audience
Define and analyze your target consumers. This requires you to assess your business’s products and services and perform market research. Gain insights into consumer patterns, trends, and behaviors. Understand what they care about, and you can begin to tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.
If you sell cosmetics to young teenage girls, they may care about reusable packaging or water conservancy. Learn what matters to your audience and focus your efforts on how you can do the right thing. Your marketing can come later – start by authentically addressing their needs.
What would need to be true to make our customers excited about something new that serves them and the environment?
Younger consumers have a high B.S. meter – so don’t overpromise. But highlight the small steps you are taking on your journey. “We aren’t perfect, but we are improving every day.”
Stakeholder mapping can make a world of difference relative to marketing your brand to eco-friendly consumers. Mapping involves the following steps:
- Perform a stakeholder analysis. Figure out why eco-friendly consumers would want to engage with your brand and how you can help them address various concerns or issues. It can be beneficial to use a stakeholder visualization to organize your data. This visualization can help you determine the best course of action to engage with eco-friendly consumers and meet their expectations.
- Chart a course. Create a roadmap that illustrates your final stakeholder analysis. Your roadmap can include a marketing plan to connect with eco-friendly consumers. It should consist of realistic goals to drive consumer engagement.
- Monitor your results. Assess a stakeholder analysis in combination with your overall digital marketing strategy. Remain proactive and keep an eye out for any improvement areas. Conduct an ongoing investigation to ensure you are well-equipped to create and maintain positive relationships with eco-friendly consumers.
Your target audience can evolve. For instance, today’s eco-friendly consumers are often part of Generation Z, consisting of individuals born after 1996. Gen Z is unlike any generation, mainly due to its unique financial habits.
Gen Zers are prone to forgo traditional savings options and do everything to avoid spending regrets. Plus, they frequently develop extensive financial plans and guard against debt. They typically prefer ethically created goods and services over others. How can you serve them?
Your marketing campaigns can communicate and tell a story. Don’t tell them your strategy; show them. Demonstrate how you are keeping 10,000 tons of plastic out of a landfill through the subtle change in packaging. Or, by using rail instead of trucks, you are reducing the energy required to get your product to domestic markets. Always be careful not to make greenwashing claims that overpromise.
3. Set the Tone for Your Industry
Explore ways to drive environmental friendliness across your industry. One of the best ways to do so: prioritize education.
Learn about common environmental issues and ways to address them. Environmental problems that affect businesses globally include:
- Air pollution: The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates air pollution kills 7 million people annually. Meanwhile, WHO points out 99% of the worldwide population is exposed to air that contains high levels of pollutants and exceeds its safety guidelines.
- Climate change: The global temperature has increased by 1.18° C since 1880, according to NASA. Also, NASA reports that 19 of the warmest years have taken place since 2000.
- Water pollution: Approximately 2 million tons of sewage, industrial and agricultural waste are released into international waters daily, the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security notes. This is roughly equal to the weight of 6.8 billion people.
Your employees can play critical roles in helping your business promote its devotion to environmental friendliness. But you first need to get your workers up to speed on what you are doing and why it is a step in the right direction.
First, develop a training program to teach your workers about environmental problems and how your changes are part of your journey toward an improved environment.
You can host training sessions at different points during the year. Each session allows you to share your business’ commitment to eco-friendliness with your workforce. It enables your workers to understand the importance of sustainability and learn ways they can support your company’s eco-conscious mission and goals. You were specific matters.
Consider a Did You Know campaign with fun facts. Did you know that we reused 400 gallons of water last year in our plant, and we will reuse 4,000 gallons this year? Did you know by making our package square instead of round, we increased how many bottles fit on a rail car and further reduced our carbon footprint?
Collect feedback from your workers. You can use surveys to retrieve feedback regarding your company’s environmental mission and goals. As a result, your employees can share insights you can use to further advance your company’s ecological initiatives.
As your employees become well-versed in your company’s environmental mission and goals, they can spread the word. Your workers can engage in ecological programs across your business. And you can share content surrounding your workers’ efforts via social media and other marketing platforms.
You can encourage customers to become a part of your business’s environmental initiatives. For instance, you can offer incentives to customers who sign up for paperless billing. You can promote these incentives via email notifications. Then, your customers can get rewarded for helping you maintain a sustainable business.
4. Connect with Eco-Friendly Organizations
Establish partnerships with eco-friendly organizations. For example, you can partner with any of the following nonprofit organizations that are dedicated to building a sustainable world:
- Earth Day Network: The Earth Day Network promotes the world’s most significant environmental movement. It provides educational resources and tools to help people prepare for Earth Day, held annually on April 22.
- Climate Reality Project: Founded by former vice president Al Gore, Climate Reality Project focuses on educating people about climate change and global warming. It explores ways to foster a sustainable future.
- Friends of the Earth: Friends of the Earth advocates for a “healthy and just world.” It promotes clean energy solutions and makes sustainable and healthy foods available to all.
Seek out eco-friendly organizations with interests that align with your company’s environmental mission and goals. You can find common ground with these organizations. And you can work with them to discover the best ways to achieve common goals.
Look for local organizations that are committed to environmental friendliness as well. Once you find these organizations, reach out and partner with them. You can then lay the groundwork for mutually beneficial relationships with local organizations. These relationships can help you grow your local presence.
As you find eco-friendly partners, establish joint marketing campaigns as well. These campaigns can extend across digital platforms. They can help you promote your environmental commitment to your existing customers and new audiences.
Don’t forget to offer donations to nonprofit organizations. For example, you can allow your customers to donate a small portion of every purchase to the nonprofit organization of your choice. This enables your customers to give money toward a worthy cause. It also allows you to highlight your business’ devotion to supporting an eco-friendly organization.
The Bottom Line on Effectively Marketing Your Business to Eco-Friendly Consumers
Your business is committed to eco-friendliness. But to date, your marketing has missed the mark in highlighting its eco-conscious mission and goals to prospects and customers.
This is a guest post by Amanda Winstead, a Zillenial who can’t be reached via cable ads. Amanda is a writer focusing on many topics including technology and digital marketing. Along with writing she enjoys traveling, reading, working out, and going to concerts. If you want to follow her writing journey, or even just say hi you can find her on Twitter.
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free, and we can explore if working together makes sense. Watch a short video about working with me.
