Green Marketing

I’ve mentioned previously that I am blogging on social media best practices for the Atlanta Green Chamber of Commerce.  I’m not sure that I’m the most qualified person for the job, but I took the challenge and have enjoyed learning and writing about how to use social media in your business.

Yesterday afternoon, I flew back from Houston and wondered if there was criteria which defined Green Marketing.  Sure enough, with a quick Google search, I found a far amount of information on this topic.  I’ve read through a couple links, and found AWEA’s Principles of Green Marketing to be quite thoughtful, except for number 8 (Other Issues), which I assume is a mis-enter.

Principle number 4 focuses on full-disclosure and,  I believe, this the most important green marketing principle.  After reading EcoIntelligence by Daniel Goldman, I learned of companies like Good Guide and Skin Deep who have started focusing on full disclosure whether companies liked it or not.  A couple thoughts on this, first it puts more onus on the consumer to weight the implications of their purchase.  As learned in Paradox of Choice, more information and choices make decisions exponentially harder for a person – particularly maximizers.

Second, full-disclosure creates a new level intimacy between customers and suppliers.  A supplier who practices full-disclosure is vulnerable, however, if they open and honest about their efforts for improvement and end goal customers will reward them.  Jeff Jarvis has practices full disclosure on his blog and he has earned my trust as a journalist.  I thought of a couple  suppliers that I support that are open about their efforts and impact, Coke, Google and Nike.  I admit that when I walk through the aisles of Kroger, I’m not thinking about a products impact nor do I take the time to research a purchase prior to my trip.   Part of this is my fault and part is the availability of information.  Information flow and availability will improve and resolve that my efforts will as well.  I hope that enough consumers will also make similar improvements.

In closing, I haven’t posted in some time and would like to recognize some of the new web-sites and blogs that I read.  LowImpactLiving and SocialMediaB2B – both are very good and informative.