Blog Action Day: It’s Pretty Easy Being Green

It’s Pretty Easy Being Green

Happy Blog Action Day!

What’s Blog Action Day, you ask? It’s a day (today) designated for bloggers to blog on issues that pertain to the environment. My contribution to the festivities is to discuss “green marketing.”

Green is hot right now. It’s, ironically, what fur coats were 20 years ago. Everyone wants to be green, eat green, and wear green. But what is green? The definition varies, but usually it’s one or more of the following:

Companies do everything they can to let consumers know their products are green (and if they can raise the price tag a little too, so much the better for them).

Car companies, naturally, are having to jump on the greenwagon quickly in order to compensate for rising gas prices and growing frustration with gas guzzling SUVs.

But car companies aren’t the only ones striving to present an earth-friendly face. Office Depot offers a catalog of environmentally friendly office products, as well as resources for recycling. Hotels like Hilton are working with guests to reduce the water consumed by washing laundry less frequently and are offering eco-friendly sheets and products.

So what does green marketing achieve? For its demographic, the upper middle class who can afford to spend a little bit more to help the earth effective green marketing creates that warm fuzzy feeling that makes us feel like the company advertising cares about the environment. Whether they do or not, they are taking advantage of a huge market (and saving the planet, so who cares what their motivation is). Good green marketing makes us buy green, and there’s everything right with that.

My opinion? I hope we can shift to a place where there is nothing but green. Until then, kudos to those forerunners and early adopters. Maybe China with its lead paint toys will get the hint and join us.

-Susan
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