The Bay Area Publicity Club hosted a green media lunch around the corner from our office with green media figures Todd Woody, popular writer of Green Wombat, Betsy Rosenberg, former radio host of Air America’s EcoTalk, and Brian Back of Sustainable Industries magazine. The event was very well attended by PR professionals and some great questions were asked.
A few main points:
• “Greenwashing” is prevalent and journalists are skeptical of all companies claiming to have green initiatives. Red flags include giant, over-the-top statements and even overuse of the word “green.”
• The panelists emphasized talking in real terms and using specifics about a company’s green initiative(s). It’s fine to admit that a project is small, as long as the discussion is truthful, reflects a real effort to make environmentally focused improvements and has a true impact.
• As with all good marketing and PR stories, the pitch should be unique and innovative. Todd Woody used the example of Apple eliminating paper receipts as a rather simple program with great impact that’s very different from other programs.
• Hot topics in the green industry include solar power plants, energy efficiency, biofuels, securing access to safe and clean water for the future and eco option programs such as that at Home Depot.
• For pitching stories on energy efficiency, which many companies are publicizing these days, emphasize cost savings as a major points of success and find catchy and unique ways to discuss the campaign. Key factors for business are money and innovation, and it’s no different in the green business.
The Chasing Glaciers event kicks off tomorrow – two women hiking Mount Koser Gunge in Pakistan, following the same path of the first person (a woman) who hiked it 100 years ago. They’ll be reporting with daily podcasts and blog posts about the change of the glacial conditions since the original hike as well as the people of the area. This is a very unique event, so if you want to check it out, the hike starts tomorrow, June 27th.
The event is being co-produced by Matter Network (a network partner of our client, Adify) that is dedicated to clean tech and sustainability.
Filed under: CleanTech, Events & Conferences, Green Observations, Green PR & Communications
Last month, I attended the Target Green conference from PRWeek. The opening keynote came from Jeffrey Hollender, President and CEO of Seventh Generation, a company that makes non-toxic household cleaning products. I really liked what he had to say about making fundamental changes within corporate America, that we must work to improve the whole system of business, not just one area and ignore the rest. He emphasized that the goal of “green companies” should be greater than recycled paper and hybrid cars, and should include more systemic changes in the way companies and employees think, act, work and do business. A key element of making change, Hollender said, is to break daily office patterns of repetition and that reliance on automatic pilot takes us all in a direction we already know is detrimental to the environment.
The point was a great way to start off the conference, though I couldn’t help noticing that some of the other speakers and company representatives were in direct contradiction to this point, such as Philips North America CEO Paul Zeven, who really only talked about the company’s manufacturing of energy efficient CFL light bulbs. Of course, these little light bulbs can make a huge difference, as the Philips Lighting web site states, “If every household in the US replaced one light bulb with an Energy Star CFLi, it would prevent enough pollution equal to taking more than 800,000 cars off the road for an entire year.” This is a great contribution, though considering the amount of medical technology and home electronics the company produces (sales of EUR 27 billion in 2006) and the amount of people it employs (over 121,000), it would have been nice to hear additional ways the company is going green.
Communication strategies around green initiatives varied based on the size of the company, though pretty much each campaign emphasized transparency and openness in their messaging. From the large Ecomagination campaign of GE to the smaller Horizon H-Racer toy car, communication efforts centered on providing honest information about the advantages and also the difficulties around their products and ideas. GE for example wanted to be completely transparent with plans and intentions in talks with customers, NGOs, governments and the media. The company had to be willing to discuss its reputation and history with environmental and social issues, so they soft sold the idea to the public and the media with no attempts at manipulation or spin, but with the tone of, “We want to help, but we can’t do it all and we can’t do it alone.” The Ecomagination campaign was incredibly successful and has put GE on the list of top 10 perceived green brands in the U.S. and U.K.– not bad for an electric company.
UPDATE: PRWeek is hosting another Target Green conference in October and a “Greening your pitch” webinar on August 7th.
