The following article is adapted from The New Rules of Green Marketing: Strategies, Tools and Inspiration for Sustainable Branding (Berrett-Koehler, February 2011).
Is Tom’s of Maine toothpaste really green if consumers leave the water running while they brush their teeth? Is an ENERGY STAR-rated light bulb really green if it remains on after everyone leaves the room?
It is one thing to design a product to be greener, but the negative environmental impact made throughout a product’s life-cycle cannot be minimized unless the consumer uses (and disposes of it) responsibly.
“Responsible consumption”—what I consider the next frontier of green marketing—is about conserving resources associated with using products. That includes encouraging consumers to use only what is needed and consciously reduce waste.
Sustainability leaders are striving for the ideal goals of zero waste and zero energy, but we will never get to zero until people learn to responsibly consume and properly dispose of the products they buy.
The Consumer’s Role
As any life-cycle assessment will show, consumer usage can account for a significant portion of a product’s total environmental impact, especially products such as laundry detergents, soaps, and shampoos that require resources, energy, and water to work.
Manufacturers can design products to make it easier for consumers to minimize resource use, such as a duplex printing feature on a printer, or a dual-flush toilet. Real-time information, such as Toyota’s dashboard and the new crop of energy meters and monitoring services, also help. But only consumers can push the “cold” button on the washing machine or turn off the water when they brush.
Industry Incentives
Businesses have lots of incentives to encourage such behavior, and some already are pioneering innovative ways to enlist consumer support. That’s because, when markets fail to address environmental ills, governments tend to intervene. Witness mandated shifts to energy-, fuel-, and water-efficient appliances, light bulbs, and cars. Will cold-water, laundry detergents, organic cotton, and leather-free shoes be next?
Another issue that industry needs to be mindful of is “the rebound effect”—whereby consumers will buy or use more of a product if it costs less due to enhanced efficiency. A classic example of that is fuel-efficient cars that are driven more miles than less-efficient cars.
Enlisting consumer support for responsible consumption is a surefire way to build credibility and reduce risk. Consumers intuitively understand that it is not possible to spend our way out of the environmental crisis. At the micro level, simply switching one supermarket-cartful of “brown” products with “green” ones will not cure environmental ills. Creating a sustainable society requires (among other things) that every one of us use only what we need and that we help recapture resources for successive use by recycling and composting.
