“Green Marketing”

• Definitions range from communications/positioning to

operations.

– “Attempting to sell to a particular segment that responds to a

particular attribute” e.g., green energy produced from renewable
sources sells to consumers who ascribe value to it and are willing to
pay a premium.” (DTE)

– “Marketing something because it has environmental appeal. Better:

Zero to Landfill, e.g., closing material loops, re-evaluating business
models. (Commercial perspective and environmental benefit, but not
mutually exclusive.” )(Plug)
 “Green Marketing”

• “Green” has negative connotations—and this gets in the

way when communicating to consumers and internally.
– “Usually means it doesn’t work as well and costs more money” (Plug)
– “People involved in selling green are hesitant. They fear that selling green can
hurt the company. We are looking for leaders who can help change that mental
model.” (HD)
 “Green Marketing”

• It’s risky—communicating and not communicating

– “Nike is one of the most targeted companies in the world. If we say too much
about what we’re doing, then we open ourselves up for more grief. They (e.g.,
Greenpeace) would find the 99 things that we did wrong.” (Nike)

– DTE scored in bottom quartile in a corporate reputation survey of U.S. utilities

re: env. performance, env. risk, and env. liability. “Wow! What are the
implications there? Is it really about performance and risk and liability, or is it a
communications issue? Is there a good relationship between share price and
this?” (DTE)
 Your Challenges

• How to Make the Business Case

– “We’ve got a green rubber compound..less toxic and cheaper. In trial. “We’re
about making business more valuable and less damaging. It’s very much the
business case. Just do the right thing is not a good enough reason to do it.”
(Nike)
– “How do we play a role in renewables, and can we make money there?” (DTE)
– “Some benefit (of green power) is outside of Plug as enterprise.”
– “Customers want it but are they willing to pay for it? The market isn’t big
enough.” (Visteon)

» Cont’d...
 Your Challenges (cont’d)

• How to Communicate with Consumers?

– “As far as the sustainability piece goes, we don’t know whether consumers want
to hear about that. There is some value, but do we do mass communication or
specific communication?” (Nike)

• How do Marketing and Education for Sustainability Fit

Together?
– “The trick is, there are some issues we’re going to have to educate people on.
We’re going to have to look at our consumer base, know and understand the
level they understand the issues, and target our products at that level.” (Nike)
 Your Challenges (cont’d)

• How to Get Recognition for What We Do?

– “We’ve made a commitment to reducing our emissions 5% below 2005 levels
(including offsets) but we got very little publicity.” (DTE)

• How to Motivate Internal Stakeholders to Communicate

Green?
– “There’s such a barrier internally that people don’t believe they have the
background knowledge to communicate what they are doing, or don’t believe
it’s truly important, e.g., for the retailers.” (Nike)
– “We need to do a better job of flagging the things we do internally and
externally, e.g., $30,000 cost savings in plant managing unused chemicals…
Most people don’t have any idea that these things are going on. It’s hard
because we don’t have a culture that encourages us to brag about things.”
(DTE)
» Cont’d...
 Implementation Needs
• Tools, materials and processes
– “There’s a huge void of (product development) tools, and primarily a lack of
materials and processes that are friendly and affordable.” (Nike)

• Measurements
– “We’re trying to put some measurements on our efforts. We want to be able to
quantify what we mean when we say green. We want measurements and
quantifications as evidence against arm waving.” …We are thinking of
introducing an environmental product declaration for our products.” (PW)
 What Wasn’t Mentioned in the
Interviews
• Design for Environment (DfE); LCA
• Eco-labels (lack thereof, desire for)
• Reverse marketing/take back
• Syndicated research
• New processes for developing products
• Successes of other companies you admire
 Towards Phase II

How do you want to define this project?

What questions do you want to answer?

Some possibilities...
 Going Forward
• How do we identify consumer needs vis a vis sustainability? How
are these different or similar to their desires for quality,
performance, etc.?

• How do we get traction internally for sustainability? In what ways

might we leverage each others’ stories to make the business
case?

• What are the implications for our product development

processes?

• What metrics can we use to measure our success/greenness?

How can we define success?
 Going Forward
• How can we work positively with government to help us
create the markets we want to be in? (Kate’sQ)

• How do we market our products? What is the role for

environmental and sustainability benefits, what is the role
for consumer benefits, performance, quality, etc. ? Are they
the same?

• What new alliances may need to be formed to achieve our

objectives?

• How can we nurture and protect our “eco-innovators”?