Environmental Branding: Why “Going Green” Could Mean More Green
Lawrence Turner, Staff Writer - Winter 2008
Kermit the Frog once sang “It’s not easy being green,” but these days, touting your company’s “green-ness” can be profitable and enhance your corporate reputation.
Even companies thought to be on the wrong side of environmental issues have experienced success in branding themselves as a more “green” organization.
G.E.’s corporate “EcoMagination” campaign generated $10 billion in revenue in 2005 from their EcoMagination product line. ConocoPhillips developed carbon sequestration technology to clean emissions from new coal-fired electricity generation plants, and earned media respect and began to positively change public opinions about the environmental concerns of the company.
The impetus for purchasing a product—or doing business with a company—based on its green attributes varies from person to person and client to client. Regardless of an environmentally-aware customer’s philosophy, they want more than green products. They want a product or service that provides a solution, but also demonstrates a positive impact on the environment. In other words, doing the right thing might be a priority, but your customers will also make decisions to buy based on price, convenience and quality.
”Rather than focusing environmental branding efforts on a particular green niche, we encourage clients to create or revise a product or service in order to tell the company’s sustainability story and promote the company’s ‘green’ behavior,” says Darlene Rotch, CEO of Panorama Public Relations. “Environmental branding is an increasingly critical business development tool because consumers, particularly Generation Y consumers, are very passionate about the environment, and prefer to do business with “green companies.”
Business and industry has an opportunity to leverage its environmental brand to build its client base and increase the bottom line. If leveraging your environmental brand could be beneficial, Rotch says there are actions you can take to increase the effectiveness of an environmental brand campaign, including:
Green Up Your Values: Your company’s mission and value statements should include your philosophy of corporate responsibility regarding sustainability practices.
Toot Your Horn: Work with a professional PR firm or your internal PR department to identify the sustainability practices most likely to appeal to print and electronic media. It is vital to convey your company’s environmental brand via articles and coverage in business, professional, and industry publications as well as newspapers, television and the Internet.
Cast a Wide Net: Your website is a powerful environmental branding tool. After all, this is probably the first place current and prospective clients go to learn more about your business. Define what your company does with regard to environmental practices and provide measurable results such as recycling statistics, and recognition and awards you have earned as a result of your environmental branding efforts.
Finally, Rotch advises clients to work toward developing their environmental brand sooner rather than later. The on-rush of new federal and state environmental regulations, especially those addressing the reduction of CO2 emissions, could make it more difficult to develop your green credentials and shape your environmental brand while being perceived as an environmental foe.
And as Kermit also says in his song Bein’ Green, "It's beautiful! And it's what I want to be..." The assets are there for you too – take time to define and develop your green message and let people know what your company stands for…it might be easier than you think. 
Kermit – YouTube
It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
Kermit the Frog – Sesame Street
The Jane Henson Foundation and The Jim Henson Legacy
