In business the bottom line is to make money. But many companies also care about saving the planet at the same time. A growing number of major corporations (albeit some dragged kicking and screaming by environmental activist groups) are now taking on green concerns and marketing their efforts.
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“What we’re really talking about is sustainability and corporate social responsibility; being green is a subset of those concepts,” says Darrin C. Duber-Smith, president of Green Marketing Inc.
It is important for the solution to begin at all levels of the supply chain and work its way to the consumer. “Sustainability is best as a corporate commitment and it starts from the top mission statements and continues through the supply. Consumers are driving all this because they want to buy from companies whose beliefs are most like their own,” explains Duber-Smith.
Once your company does an audit to determine the effects it has on people and on the environment, you can determine where changes need to be made. It is important to understand what happens to products once they have been used. Stopping pollution, managing resource recovery, and making sure zero waste and zero emissions are going into the atmosphere are the goals of such an assessment.
After your company has taken responsibility at all levels, including the suppliers you choose to work with, you can then go to the public and explain the benefits. You can market directly to the personal concerns of your target market. For example, pointing out increases in energy costs, gas prices, food prices, and so on, is a way to show how the consequences directly affect everyone.
