DriveBuy Blog

We’ve entered the post-political era of environmentally-friendly products, services and businesses. Green has moved on. It’s no longer a code word for “lefty elite”, and it’s about time.

Let’s be cold and calculating here (it feels good, just try it). As far as this post is concerned, I’m not interested in the actual environmental benefits of going green. In fact, I rather dislike the word “green”. It’s too much of a catchall, and it’s slapped on too many things that have little or negligible positive impact. Notwithstanding my preferences, America seems to have decided on this particular label, and so be it. Bandwagon or no, going green makes sense for businesses in almost every locale and vertical, and this has only become true of late. So, should you hop on or hold out?

Just a few years ago, it wouldn’t make sense for most small businesses to green their images. Unless your customers were willing to pay a premium for environmental peace of mind, you’d almost be crazy to do so. Granted, in some areas, in some industries, letting customers know the pains you’ve taken to reduce waste and the like actually paid off. Markets like Portland, San Francisco and Austin have long had customer bases that respond positively to such efforts. In most large cities, for instance, home builders could find enough of a niche to specialize in green construction if the field wasn’t too crowded.

There is another reason that going green didn’t make sense for most small businesses until recently. Environmentalism has always been associated with the political left wing. It may not have been entirely fair, but attitudes regarding the environment were a remarkably accurate predictor of political orientation. Businesses understood, quite correctly, that such steps might alienate the right-leaning members of their customer base, especially when such changes required passing on a premium to customers. In most communities within “red” states, it made little financial sense to go green.

This is not the case anymore. For a variety of reasons, many green products and services no longer carry prohibitive premiums. Consumers are starting to understand that more sustainable, less impactful choices also tend to save them money in the long run. This is due in part to an overdue shift in the marketing paradigm that has finally begun to associate “green” with “savings”. Sacrifice is no longer necessary. Enter mainstream America.

Green has transcended our political dichotomy because it finally makes sense to consumers. Things that make sense to consumers make sense to businesses. Still, an April 2009 Gallup Poll found that only 37% of small business owners say they are “taking steps to show their customers they are environmentally friendly.”

Even WalMart is going green—at least partially. Hate them if you must, but the über-retailer never takes a dip without testing the waters, and now they just took the plunge.

From Slate’s Marc Gunther:

The giant retailer ($406 billion in revenues in 2008) is developing an ambitious, comprehensive, and fiendishly complex plan to measure the sustainability of every product it sells. Wal-Mart has been working quietly on what it calls a "sustainability index" for more than a year, and it will take another year or two for labels to appear on products.

WalMart isn’t exactly known as progressive, and neither are its shoppers. They simply responded to their own data, which was compiled by “tracking consumers' decisions to purchase five key eco-friendly products since April 2007,” according to a 2008 press release. The outside data tell the same story.

From Chicago Business:

The number of U.S. consumers who regularly buy green products tripled in 2008, to 36%, according to London-based market research firm Mintel International Group Ltd. That number has held this year despite the recession. That's consistent with another finding from a 2008 Boston Consulting Group survey: 82% of U.S. consumers are willing to pay a premium for green products, as long as those products provide added benefits. To command the premium, green products need to be healthier, higher quality or of greater efficiency.

Your business, of course, is not WalMart. You may still have valid reasons for not going green or marketing your products as such. It’s clear, however, that if you can manage to make changes that help the environment at little cost to you or your customers, you can safely tout your efforts without fear of losing business.

Next week, I interview Kevin Micalizzi of DimDim, regarding green savings and cost reductions. I’ll also be talking about “retroactive green marketing”.