Putting a Number on Green Marketing

Thousands of business people around the world are sitting in conference rooms today working on how to leverage consumers' growing interest in the environment in order to sell more products and services.  It's predictable that businesses will exploit any change in consumer buying patters.  It's also predictable that many businesses will exaggerate what they are doing - a practice known as green washing.  Unfortunately, backlash against green washing threatens to kill the entire idea of buying with an eye for sustainability.  What's to be done?

Well, master-marketer Seth Godin suggests a single number that can be used to simply compare the environmental impact of our spending options.  For example, he writes:

Drive to Philadelphia: 150.
Take Amtrak: 22.

Stick with the light bulbs you have throughout your whole house until they burn out: 175.
Replace them all now with something better: 142.

Organic strawberries from California: 88
Frozen strawberries from California: 80
Apple from Dutchess County: 4

The idea of a "core score" is essential in The Challenge Dividend concept.  A core score allows competitors to track their progress, compare each other, and it defines a winner.  Imagine the airlines competing to offer the best sustainability score, a key number alongside price and on-time records.

While it's a great idea, I really don't think this will ever get off the ground.  There are simply too many ways to interpret environmental impact, and too many businesses with trillions of dollars in profit on the line.  If government was impartial, it would be an ideal creator of this concept.  But special interests and political bickering make this a non-starter.

The only way I see this happening is if a group of large companies gets together on its own to create and concur on a system.  An 80-for-20 of industry could establish rules and an auditing process.  And it their number starts running on enough products and services, other businesses will be compelled to join in.  It's a tough challenge, but challenge drives improvement.