GREEN MARKETING Insurance companies are finding that there is money to be made in green technology.

In response to growing demand, new types of policies are emerging that provide protection for businesses involved in the green economy. Some insurance companies are backstopping warranties on solar panels, or protecting against lulls in the wind needed to drive turbines. This is helpful to start-ups whose customers can rely on guaranteed performance. These types of policies can also help to make project financiers feel more secure. The number of companies offering warranty insurance policies is growing quickly, from only a few a year ago, to approximately 12 companies today. Some property insurance rebuilds a structure in a more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient way in the event of loss. Other policies are geared to cover the activities of carbon traders. Green policies support modernization by encouraging the development of new technology and enhancing innovation. The research conducted by the insurance companies who underwrite these policies helps the market to better understand itself. This information can prove helpful in very practical ways, for example some insurers are advising clients on issues like solar panel installation. The green insurance industry can expect meteoric growth in the next five years, particularly as the government introduces green energy mandates. These new policies respond to the needs of companies who are investing in green technology and looking for ways to shield themselves from risk. By assessing, quantifying and spreading risk, these policies have an important role to play accelerating the adoption of green energy.

Definition: What is green marketing? Green marketing refers to the process of selling products and/or services based on their environmental benefits. Such a product or service may be environmentally friendly in itself or produced and/or packaged in an environmentally friendly way. The obvious assumption of green marketing is that potential consumers will view a product or service's "greenness" as a benefit and base their buying decision accordingly. The not-so-obvious assumption of green marketing is that consumers will be willing to pay more for green products than they would for a less-green comparable alternative product - an assumption that, in my opinion, has not been proven conclusively. While green marketing is growing greatly as increasing numbers of consumers are willing to back their environmental consciousnesses with their dollars, it can be dangerous. The public tends to be skeptical of green claims to begin with and companies can seriously damage their brands and their sales if a green claim is discovered to be false or contradicted by a company's

other products or practices. Presenting a product or service as green when it's not is called greenwashing. Green marketing can be a very powerful marketing strategy though when it's done right. See Three Keys to Successful Green Marketing. Also Known As: Environmental Marketing, Ecological Marketing, Eco-Marketing. Common Misspellings: Geen marketing, gren marketing.
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Promotional activities aimed at taking advantage of the changing consumer attitudes toward a brand. These changes are increasingly being influenced by a firm's policies and practices that affect the quality of the environment, and reflect the level of its concern for the community.

For green marketers, social networks provide a compelling channel to communicate with consumers that have an affinity for green or are at least open-minded enough to listen. Today, those users can be found across a wide variety of social networks, including both general interest and vertically focused networks that connect those interested in social responsibility or, more specifically, in the environment. Here are six different types of social networks that appeal to those with a green affinity. Each network type provides the opportunity for users to connect, share and/or collaborate with others online. And because many view green as a social cause, participation in such networks can generate both personal as well as societal benefits. After reading if you have suggestions for sites that should be included leave a comment below.
The six types of social networks include the following: Interaction sites connect online user to facilitate offline interactions. For example, online users can connect with other likeminded individuals for dating or socializing on sites such as Care2, Earthwise Singles,dharmaMatch, Green Drinks, Green Passions, Green Party Passions, Planet Earth Singles and VeggieDate. Alternatively, online users can find out about green events, political rallies or local meet ups on social action sites such as Leonardo DiCaprios 11th Hour Action, Care2, Do Something, Meetup, Step It Up, TakingITGlobal, and WorldCoolers. Other sites allow members to arrange carpools on sites like GishiGo,GoLoco, pooln and WorldCarShare (Yahoo Groups), as well as rent, loan or reuse products (rather than purchase new or dispose of as waste) on sites like freecycle, gigoit, loanables and rentoid. Commitment sites enable users to share a personal pledge to make their lives more eco-friendly. On certain Commitment sites, users can even collaborate with others to support their pledge or to encourage others to make similar pledges. Examples include sites such as Actics, Low Fly Zone,Make Me Sustainable, PledgeBank, The Carbon Diet, Who On Earth Cares(Aus), Yahoo Green and the I Am Green page on Facebook. Utility sites enable consumers to connect and share online with others that have a green affinity and/or want to live a greener lifestyle. Examples include general interest networks such

as Facebook, MySpace, Tribe andYahoo Groups (focused on green), as well as vertically focused networks such as beTurtle, Care2, Common Circle, Dianovo, ecoMetro, Eco-munnity, Good Tree, Green Bin, Holistic Local, Lime, Neutral Existence, rethos, TheNag(UK), Zaadz and Zelixy among others. Sites like Baagz are emerging that should, in theory, enable users to connectwith a far greater number of online users across the Internet, rather than simply those within a particular social network. Considered an early Web 3.0 application, Baagz leverages semantic web principles to allow software agents to connect people with common interests by reading embedded tags in web content (rather than natural language descriptions). Shopping sites allow consumers to connect and share green purchases and product reviews. Examples include FiveLimes and Sustainlane. Additionally, traditional social shopping sites such as Kaboodle, StyleHive,ThisNext and Wists include a wide range of eco-friendly (eg, organic) products. Today, online users have the opportunities to integrate their favorite purchases into their personal profile page on sites like Facebook using a Yahoo web application called My favorite Things. This application enables users to share favorite products, create a wish list and send virtual gifts to friends online. Importantly, integration of social shopping into Facebook enriches personal profiles and allows users to connect based on shopping preferences. Alternatively, consumers have the option to connect with other likeminded consumers based on their brand and/or product affinity. One example is Toyotas community site for hybrid owners, Hybrid Synergy Drive. Another example is Methods community of advocates. Engagement sites enable users to share ideas and collaborate on new ones. These social networks tend to attract members from specific vertical sectors. Examples include local community sites such as ecoTreadsetters(Yokohama Tire), Gusse and Transition Towns (UK); innovation sites such asGreen Building Forum (UK), Sustainability Forum and wattwatt; and business forums such as OpenEco (Sun) and OPEN Forum (American Express) among others. Activism sites enable collaboration to promote change through social and political activism. Example sites include: 2People, Care2, Change, Do Something, GreenVoice, idealist, just cause, Razoo, TakingITGlobal, tree-nation, Wiser Earth and Youth Noise among others.

GREEN MARKETING

Promotion of environmentally safe or beneficial products. Green marketing began in Europe in the early 1980s when certain products were found to be harmful to the earth's atmosphere. Consequently new types of products were created, called "green" products, that would cause less damage to the environment. The movement quickly caught on in the United States and has been growing steadily ever since. The development of ecologically safer products, recyclable and biodegradable packaging, energy-efficient operations, and better pollution controls are all aspects of green marketing. Green marketing has produced advances such as packages using recycled paper, phosphate-free detergents, refill containers for cleaning products, and bottles using less plastic. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Environmentally-responsible or "green" marketing is a business practice that takes into account consumer concerns about promoting preservation and conservation of the natural environment. Green marketing campaigns highlight the superior environmental protection characteristics of a company's products and services, whether those benefits take the form of reduced waste in packaging, increased energy efficiency in product use, or decreased release of toxic emissions and other pollutants in production. As the Encyclopedia of the Environment noted, marketers have responded to growing consumer demand for environment-friendly products in several ways: "by promoting the environmental attributes of their products; by introducing new products; and by redesigning existing productsall components of environmental marketing." Indeed, marketing campaigns touting the environmental ethics of companies and the environmental advantages of their products have proliferated in recent years. Most observers agree that while some businesses engage in green marketing solely because such an emphasis will enable them to make a profit, other businesses conduct their operations in an environmentally-sensitive fashion because their owners and managers feel a responsibility to preserve the integrity of the natural environment even as they satisfy consumer needs and desires. Indeed, true green marketing emphasizes environmental stewardship. Environmental Marketing author Walter Coddington, for example, defined environmental marketing as "marketing activities that recognize environmental stewardship as a business development responsibility and business growth responsibility." Another analyst of green marketing, Greener Marketing editor Martin Charter, defined the practice as "a holistic and responsible strategic management process that identifies, anticipates, satisfies and fulfills stakeholder needs for a reasonable reward that does not adversely affect human or natural environmental well-being." Such interpretations expand on the traditional understanding of business's responsibilities and goals. Reactions to "green Consumerism" A number of factors have caused business firms in some industries to incorporate an environmental ethic into their operations. The principal factor, of course, is the growing public awareness of the environmental degradation that has resulted as a consequence of the growth in population and natural resource consumption throughout the world during the last 50 years. The issue is particularly relevant in America, which accounts for fully one quarter of world consumption despite having only a small fraction of the world's population. This growing public awareness of environmental issues has brought with it a corresponding change in the buying decisions of a significant segment of American consumers. As the Encyclopedia of the Environment observed, "many consumers, and not just the most environmentally conscious, are seeking ways to lessen the environmental impacts of their personal buying decisions through the purchase and use of products and services perceived to be environmentally preferable." Businesses took heed of this growth in "green consumerism," and new marketing campaigns were devised to reflect this new strain of thought among consumers. Companies with product lines that were created in an environmentally friendly fashion (i.e., with recycled products, comparatively low pollutant emissions, and so on) quickly learned to shape their marketing

message to highlight such efforts and to reach those customers most likely to appreciate those efforts (an advertisement highlighting a company's recycling efforts, for instance, is more likely to appear in an outdoor/nature magazine than a general interest periodical). Ironically, studies have shown that the most environmentally aware consumers are also the ones most likely to view green claims of companies with skepticism. As George M. Zinkhan and Les Carlson wrote in the Journal of Advertising, "green consumers are the very segment most likely to distrust advertisers and are quite likely to pursue behaviors and activities that confound business people." Corporate reputation, then, has emerged as a tremendously important factor in reaching and keeping these consumers. A company that touts its sponsorship of an outdoor oriented event or utilizes nature scenery in its advertising, but also engages in practices harmful to the environment, is unlikely to gain a significant portion of the green consumer market. Of course, such tactics are sometimes effective in reaching less informed sectors of the marketplace. Environmental or green marketing differs from other forms of advertising in some fairly fundamental ways. The Encyclopedia of the Environment summarized the most striking differences effectively: "First, unlike, price, quality, and other features, the environmental impacts of a product are not always apparent and may not affect the purchaser directly. Thus environmental claims are often more abstract and offer consumers the opportunity to act on their environmental concerns. Second, unlike most advertised product attributes, environmental claims may apply to the full product life cycle, from raw material extraction to ultimate product disposal, reuse, or recycling [see the discussion of life cycle analysis below]. Third, and most important, environmental marketing provides an incentive for manufacturers to achieve significant environmental improvements, such as toxics use reduction and recycling, by competing on the basis of minimizing environmental impacts of their products." Green Products In their book The Green Consumer, John Elkington, Julia Hailes, and John Makower discussed several characteristics that a product must have to be regarded as a "green" product. They contended that a green product should not:
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Endanger the health of people or animals Damage the environment at any stage of its life, including manufacture, use, and disposal Consume a disproportionate amount of energy and other resources during manufacture, use, or disposal Cause unnecessary waste, either as a result of excessive packaging or a short useful life Involve the unnecessary use of or cruelty to animals Use materials derived from threatened species or environments

J. Stephen Shi and Jane M. Kane, meanwhile, noted in Business Horizons that the consulting firm FIND/SVP also judged a product's friendliness to the environment by ultimately simple measurements: "FIND/SVP considers a product to be 'green' if it runs cleaner, works better, or saves money and energy through an efficiency. Businesses practice being green when they voluntarily recycle and attempt to reduce waste in their daily operations. Practicing green is inherently proactive; it means finding ways to reduce waste and otherwise be more

environmentally responsible, before being forced to do so through government regulations. Green promotion, however, requires businesses to be honest with consumers and not mislead them by over promising." LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS. Most analysts agree that the "life" of the product and its parts is one of the most important components in determining whether a product is "green" or not. Most people think only of the process of creating a product when gauging whether a product is green, but in reality, products impact on the environment at several additional stages of their useful lives. Life cycle analysis (LCA) and/or product line analysis (PLA) studies measure the cumulative environmental impact of products over their entire life cyclefrom extraction of the resources used to create the product to all aspects of production (refining, manufacturing, and transportation) to its use and ultimate disposal. These studies are sometimes referred to as "cradle to grave" studies. Since such studies track resource use, energy requirements, and waste generation in order to provide comparative benchmarks, both manufacturers and consumers can select products that have the least impact upon the natural environment. Some detractors of LCA studies, thoughwhile granting that they do provide useful informationcontend that they are subjective in setting analysis boundaries and claim that it is difficult to compare the environmental impact of disparate products. Green Promotion Perhaps no area of green marketing has received as much attention as promotion. In fact, green advertising claims grew so rapidly during the late 1980s that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued guidelines to help reduce consumer confusion and prevent the false or misleading use of terms such as "recyclable," "degradable," and "environmentally friendly" in environmental advertising. Since that time, the FTC has continues to offer general guidelines for companies wishing to make environmental claims as part of their promotional efforts:
y y

Qualifications and disclosures should be sufficiently clear and prominent to prevent deception. Environmental claims should make clear whether they apply to the product, the package, or a component of either. Claims need to be qualified with regard to minor, incidental components of the product or package. Environmental claims should not overstate the environmental attribute or benefit. Marketers should avoid implying a significant environmental benefit where the benefit is, in fact, negligible. A claim comparing the environmental attributes of one product with those of another product should make the basis for the comparison sufficiently clear and should be substantiated.

The FTC regulations apply to all aspects and forms of marketing, including labeling, advertising, and promotional materials. "When a business makes any environmental claim, it must be able to support that claim with reliable scientific evidence," summarized Shi and Kane. "A corporation trumpeting an environmental benefit that it is unable to substantiate is treading on thin ice and leaving itself open to substantial penalties if a legal suit is brought against the company."

In addition to delineating marketing claims that might be regarded as false or misleading, the FTC also provides guidance to businesses on how to make specific claims about environmentally-friendly aspects of their operation, in part by clarifying the definitions of such commonly used terms as "recyclable," "biodegradable," and "compostable." These guidelines were issued (and remain in force) not only to curb businesses engaged in misleading advertising practices, but also to clarify the regulatory environment for companies. Various entities, from states and cities to industry groups and standards-setting organizations, had developed their own definitions in the years prior to the publication of the FTC report precisely because of the dearth of federal guidelines. "As a consequence," said the Encyclopedia of the Environment, "marketers faced a patchwork and sometimes costly marketplace where relabeling, legal actions, and negative publicity can create additional costs, can cause market share losses, and may deter some from making credible claims altogether." Eco-Sponsoring One avenue commonly used by companies to promote their specific ecological concerns (or polish their overall reputations as good corporate citizens) is to affiliate themselves with groups or projects engaged in environmental improvements. In eco-sponsoring's simplest form, firms contribute funds directly to an environmental organization to further the organization's objectives. Another approach is to "adopt" a particular environmental cause (community recycling programs are popular), thus demonstrating the company's interest in supporting environmental protection efforts. Sponsorships of educational programs, wildlife refuges, and park or nature area clean-up efforts also communicate concern for environmental issues. Environmental organizations charge, however, that some businesses use eco-sponsorships to hide fundamentally rapacious attitudes toward the environment. Eco-Labeling Another vehicle that has been used with increasing frequency in recent years to convey environmental information to consumers is "eco-labeling." Ecolabeling programs are typically voluntary, third-party expert assessments of the environmental impacts of products. "By performing a thorough evaluation of a product, but awarding only a simple logo on packages, ecolabels offer consumers clear guidance based on expert information," claimed the Encyclopedia of the Environment, which noted that government-sponsored ecolabeling programs have been launched with great success in many areas of the world, including Europe, Canada, and Japan. Indeed, those programs, which provide consumers with easily understandable information on the most environmentally sensitive products and services in various market areas, can be a potent factor in guiding the purchasing decisions of consumers. Recognition may be given for several different reasons. For instance, a product may have particularly low pollutant or noise emissions, give off less waste material in its production, or be more recyclable than competing products. Eco-labeling programs increase awareness of environmental issues, set high standards for firms to work towards, and help reduce consumer uncertainty regarding a product's environmental benefits. Thus far, however, the U.S. government has resisted instituting an officially-sanctioned eco-labeling program.

The 5 Simple Rules of Green Marketing

When it comes to shining a spotlight on specific sustainability issues, NGOs and consumer groups will target the most respected and trusted brands in the world. Its the reason why Home Depot was targeted for sustainable harvested wood, Nike for child labor practices, McDonalds for Styrofoam clamshells and now obesity, and why Coke is similarly a target for sugar and packaging. What does this all mean for your business? Simply stated, if you dont manage your business with respect to environmental and social sustainability, your business will not be sustained! But the converse is true, too: A strong commitment to environmental sustainability in product design and manufacture can yield significant opportunities to grow your business, to innovate, and to build brand equity. All you have to do is get the word out...right? As with any other major business endeavor, easier said than done. Many a responsible company has run into trouble with these very same sustainability-minded NGOs and consumer groups thanks to a poorly planned and crafted marketing message. Protect your company from these common pitfalls and start taking advantage of new opportunities by heeding my Rules of Green Marketing:

1. Know your customer. If you want to sell a greener product to consumers, you first need to make sure that the consumer is aware of and concerned about the issues that your product attempts to address. (Whirlpool learned the hard way that consumers wouldnt pay a premium for a CFC-free refrigerator because consumers didnt know what CFCs were!). 2. Empower consumers. Make sure that consumers feel, by themselves or in concert with all the other users of your product, that they can make a difference. This is called empowerment and its the main reason why consumers buy greener products. 3. Be transparent. Consumers must believe in the legitimacy of your product and the specific claims you are making. Caution: Theres a lot of skepticism out there that is fueled by the raft of spurious claims made in the go-go era of green marketing that occurred during the late 80searly90s one brand of household cleaner claimed to have been environmentally friendly since 1884! 4. Reassure the buyer. Consumers need to believe that your product performs the job its supposed to do they won't forego product quality in the name of the environment. (Besides, products that dont work will likely wind up in the trash bin, and thats not very kind to the environment.) 5. Consider your pricing. If you're charging a premium for your product and many environmentally preferable products cost more due to economies of scale and use of higher-quality ingredients make sure that consumers can afford the premium and feel its worth it. Many consumers, of course, cannot afford premiums for any type of product these days, much less greener ones, so keep this in mind as you develop your target audience and product specifications.

The "Rules" in Action

According to the American Marketing Association, green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe.[1] Thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising. Yet defining green marketing is not a

simple task where several meanings intersect and contradict each other; an example of this will be the existence of varying social, environmental and retail definitions attached to this term.[1] Other similar terms used are Environmental Marketing and Ecological Marketing. Green, environmental and eco-marketing are part of the new marketing approaches which do not just refocus, adjust or enhance existing marketing thinking and practice, but seek to challenge those approaches and provide a substantially different perspective. In more detail green, environmental and eco-marketing belong to the group of approaches which seek to address the lack of fit between marketing as it is currently practiced and the ecological and social realities of the wider marketing environment.[2] The legal implications of marketing claims call for caution. Misleading or overstated claims can lead to regulatory or civil challenges. In the USA, the Federal Trade Commission provides some guidance on environmental marketing claims.[3] This Commission is expected to do an overall review of this guidance, and the legal standards it contains, in 2011.[4