Do We all Need to Jump on the Green Bandwagon?
We are all aware of the various repercussions continued indulgence in a lifestyle bad for the environment will have. The question is, do we care? Do we want companies to lead the revolution into a sustainable, eco friendly society?
There has clearly been a noticeable shift from many companies, from a stance that was once nonchalant to one where they actively market their brand through their green credentials. We have seen a massive shift in green advertising where brands outline their good deeds for our environment and provide convincing arguments as to why their brand is more economically vied than their competitors.
However, many companies have been found to exaggerate green credentials in a bid to look good, but act the same; a phenomenon known as “greenwash”.
I propose that companies wrongly claiming that they are good for the environment have 3 negative impacts. Firstly, they ruin their own reputation and brand trust takes a knock, secondly consumers will end up assuming that all claims are exaggerated and thus this will devalue the efforts of companies that actually make a difference. Thirdly, with too much media coverage of green marketing, we face the risk of consumers becoming blasé about such matters and loosing interest.
Therefore there needs to be tighter restrictions on companies claiming green credentials. The green card should not be used as gorilla marketing; to pull people in on an exaggeration of the truth. Companies that work hard to improve the stability of our environment should be rewarded and their work celebrated. Hopefully, if legitimate green companies see a soar in profit due to consumer favourability, more companies will opt for green policies. This would be a fantastic development. Corporations hold both the power and the funds to make a difference, let’s hope they use it wisely.
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August 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm
you’re right!
I’ve seen many company promoting their products as eco-friendly but at the same time their product appears to be just the same as before.
Only the package of the product might be eco-friendly but the product itself still does harm to the environment.
what’s the point for the company to join eco-friendly campaigns if they just can’t deliver the eco-friendly product.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:34 am
The thing about the current recycling craze, is it’s become political sadly, local governament, central governament and commerical companies are using it to push and promote themselves and their agenda’s. They spend extra money on buying recycled products and promotional literature to promote recycling, that means more production, more energy waste, crazy! , recycling should be about USING LESS, not funding more and more promotion production through literature, printing and promotional recycled products, it will take even more years sadly before people realise what eco-friendly really means.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Oh Stan how right you are and whats with all these electrical companies with all their heavy duty plastic packaging. I brought a wireless adapter the other day and it took me nearly 10 minutes and a cut finger to get into the packaging and of course it was not recyclable plastic either. I think we have all gone mad, don’t get me wrong I’m all in favour of recycling but first lets get the supermarkets and shops to cut back on their bags and packaging.
August 29th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Recycling is big business now, generating it’s very own waste, the next big message will be really to think hard about carbon footprint and not even produce at least amount of production as possible including recycled production.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Environmental protection is not only the mainstream movement now but is also the right thing to do. Being a socially responsible corporate citizen not only makes good moral but economic sense and a company should make this known to its prospects and present customers. Gifts using recycled material and indicatiing so is the way to go.
August 30th, 2008 at 11:08 am
People in business are moral, but when they go to work they just are programmed by their need to be successful to use any means possible to get ahead of the competition or get promoted, often loosing sight of the fact that you should not use the environment problems of the planet as a marketing angle to increase business.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
I completely agree with charlie.In my company there is the same problem.The company joins the eco-friendly products but they still don’t change the old ones,and this annoys me a lot.However we don’t need to jump on the green bandwagon.
September 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Yeah, I agree with stan. Sometimes, certain company have their own agenda. There is no need to spend more on this. Besides, this recycling campaign should benefits us by reducing raw materials
cost and at the same time keep the environment clean.
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:44 am
“Jumping on the bandwagon” sounds too opportunistic to me! I think socially responsible companies of today’s business environment cannot ignore the environment and get away with it. It is better to do everything in a green way rather than just pay lip service.
September 24th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I believe that the change in business attitude towards being environmentally friendly, is mainly due to consumer demand.
Most businesses are concerned with their market and what their customers wants, needs and desires are.
If there is a market for environmentally friendly products, companies will do their best to comply.
I believe that with the progressively changing attitude towards being environmentally friendly more and more companies will choose to go green rather than go out of business.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
If you make your consumers think your are an eco friendly company it will bring you allot of advantage especially in these days with all those enviromental problems.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
From a promotional point of view I think this is an important change companies need to make. More and more people are refusing to use certain businesses because of their reputation of being harmful to the environment. Blogs, websites, and even television show and magazines are making it a point to promote eco-friendly companies.
You could really increase your clients by using more environmentally safe policies.