A while ago someone asked me whether my business card was printed on recycled paper. Yes, it is, I replied. Why, then, the response went, is there nowhere on my card a corresponding symbol to be seen? And, What if, when deciding whether to keep the card or do business with my company, a prospect tosses out mine because that sign of my environmental consciousness is missing?
My ultimate response boiled down to this: If a prospect makes her decision to do business with me based on the presence or absence of the recycled-content symbol on my business card, we’re probably not a good fit. My reputation and work, not symbols on my business card, should speak for me.
What are the pros and cons of eco-labeling? Should you greenmute instead? Are there other ways to convey environmental friendliness of your products or services?
Eco-labeling
Eco-labels are marks awarded by third parties to indicate environmental or health attributes of a product and build credibility with receptive consumers.
So many government entities, nonprofits, and corporations issue eco-labels that today there are more than 300 eco-labels in North America alone, in many industries and product categories. The eco-label landscape is confusing, and as a result eco-labeling as a marketing tactic has lost some of its cachet.
In addition, many labels have been misused or downright abused, as when the Smart Choices label adorned sugary cereals. Greenwashing is alive and giving eco-labels or eco-language a bad name. Just prior to writing this post, I read about UK’s advertising watchdog banning a Finnair ad because it called flying “eco-smart”. TerraChoice just added the use of false in-house eco-labels to their list of greenwashing sins.
Eco-labeling and related issues can be quite daunting for a business. Which is why I look forward to attending and reporting on tomorrow’s Sustainable Life Media virtual conference “Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash”*.
Greenmuting
Companies practice greenmuting when they deliberately avoid communicating their work or accomplishments in the environmental realm.
In most cases, the fear of being accused of greenwashing motivates greenmuting. Companies recognize their environmental claims will be subjected to close scrutiny and so they opt to avoid it by not making such claims.
I wouldn’t go as far as some, including TreeHugger, who call greenmuting a sin. While greenmuting has its disadvantages, it’s just a risk management technique (when some authors sell sustainability as a risk management practice, no feathers get ruffled). It’s also one that saves us from a lot of green blabber; if companies greenmute because they fear greenwashing charges, the market deterrent is working.
I see another angle on greenmuting, one that is more relevant to my story. What if you don’t highlight your greenness because you’d prefer not to differentiate yourself that way? Green is a niche strategy with limited reach, at best. Greenmuting because green is irrelevant to your positioning certainly makes sense.
The third way(s)
Jacquie Ottman has suggested a number of alternatives to eco-labels, which fall roughly in two categories: third-party endorsements and credibility. The former use disinterested persons, organizations, or awards to endorse your product’s eco credentials. The latter build green communications on the company’s reputation and transparency.
In my case the absence of eco-symbols on my card is closer to counter-signaling. Think of the last time you heard someone tell you, Trust me. Or how you felt when you saw Ph.D. after an author’s name. Your guard probably went up, and you thought, Well if you have to say it…
I don’t use eco labels for the same reasons I don’t include the acronyms of my graduate degrees behind my name: it’s irrelevant and unnecessary. What others say about me matters more than what I say about myself. My work and its results should speak louder than my eco-labels.
Ultimately, I stand with Adam Werbach, who maintains that eco-labels are unsustainable as a marketing practice because sustainability must come from the organizational core. What use is the label if sustainability isn’t within? And who needs labels if you’re sustainable through and through?
(That’s not to say I’m perfect when it comes to sustainability; it’s an ongoing process for me as it is for every other company.)
What’s right for you?
Use eco-labels if
- you can use a well-recognized, meaningful, and credible one, or one from such an institution or other third-party
- you can afford it
- you have nothing to hide or can credibly defend your claim
- you can use a narrow one, describing one significant aspect of your product without greenwashing
Use greenmuting if
- you have significant work to do when it comes to sustainability
- you aim for mass appeal
- you care not to differentiate on green
According to Tyler Cowen, of the Marginal Revolution fame, counter-signaling works best for situations when there’s a great potential reward and low downside risk. Many high-margin/low-volume products or services can use counter-signaling to their advantage, as can those that entail narrow, specialized expertise.
What’s your take on eco-labels and greenmuting?
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* Disclosure: Sustainable Life Media granted me a free press pass for the “Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash” conference – the virtual conference registration costs $295.
Image credit: jamieleto
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I have a little cc-sized card I use at shows as a give-away/aide memoire.
It came about because i used to have an A5-sized effort by way of a flyer, and some beard and sandals decided its lack of clearly defined recyclability vs. all the other good things we were DOING was critical enough to create a scene about.
There was a sense of sweet vindication when, a few years later, at a similar event, this paragon of eco-priority flustered up to flex his credentials again.
‘What’s this?’ he roared.
“We like to think of it as the world’s smallest brochure,’ I suggested.
Sensing an opportunity, and an audience, he puffed up and declaimed ‘Well, I don’t see any sign that it is recycled’.
It was with some satisfaction that I was able to point out that it was actually better than that; it also had a second use. We’d designed a fun way of turning it into a wallet-sized picture frame to hold and protect passport-sized pictures.
Both an eco-statement and a reward-based, end-benefit driven marketing tool that is nestling in many a reuse-convert’s wallet to this day.
But I am sure his dogmatic, trivial, niche-interest badgering wins many converts to the eco cause too.
@Peter: I hear you on the self-righteous greenies who point out environmental shortcomings of everything wherever they go while offering no constructive solutions themselves. The behavior, as well as the misunderstanding of the issues at hand, certainly give environmental sustainability a bad name. Recycle is, by priority, the last rung of the reduce-reuse-recycle ladder. Designing for reuse, well, that’s much harder to do.
How do I get me one of those brochure-frames so I can use it as an example?
Eco-labels are mostly a scam in my opinion. First, because we have no real idea of the environmental savings they provide, if any. All we have is a set of arbitrary rules and marketing spin. Second, eco-labels means we all get to pay a voluntary tax; a new green tax. Well, not everyone; marketing firms that sell the logo make money. In the end, the “green” movement is all about money. The big boys have found another way to get money from out of our pockets. We’ve been fooled to believe that we need to pay money to “save the planet”. We don’t even care whether or not it’s really being saved or not, we pay out of guilt. Finally, because eco-labels cost lots of money, only the big corporations have a foot in the green door and can secure the market. Very soon, it your product doesn’t have a cute pretty green logo we will not be able to sell. Say bye-bye to the small mom and pop shops. There are many other reasons why eco-labels are flawed. The more you dig the more we’ll find how corrupt it’s become. “Third-party” means nothing! Heck… “third-parties” take money for their verification services. For example, a company pays fees to Terrachoice, a for-profit firm, who will then decide if the company gets the EcoLogo logo or not, according to an auditing process they also happen to manage… Should we trust such a system just because it’s called “third party”.