Eco labels: how to market sustainability

"We want to focus on how to find a solution to the problems we’re facing in marketing," said Jonathan Shopley, managing director for the CarbonNeutral Company. "The main thing people are saying is, 'don’t rush in until you’re ready to deliver’, but how do you know when you’re ready?"

These and other questions were posed at the three-hour seminar held in London on October 12.

Sustainability message
One of the problems addressed at the seminar is the issue of how to make customers engage with a company’s brand and its sustainability message.

"There’s a lot of noise around the subject of sustainability and it’s hard to stand out," said Paula Olivera, associate director of Brand Valuation and Analytics for Interbrand. "Most importantly, your sustainability strategy has to be consistent with your brand proposition. Whatever you do, it needs to be consistent within your company. If you say you’re green, you need to be consistent all the way through the customer process."

She said one of the dangers companies face when advertising their green credentials, is the possibility that people will point out other ways they are not sustainable. The key, she said, is maintaining transparency so that customers know exactly what you’re claiming.

"You can also gain visibility by having a tangible demonstration of your commitment through branding," she said.

Olivera said companies can incorporate sustainability into their branding through the corporate brand, sub brands, or individual product brands. GE’s Ecoimagination is an example of a company using a sub brand to show its dedication to sustainability.

It’s important to make sure businesses use language and visuals that represent the brand identity, though, and not just the overall sustainability movement, she said, or customers won’t be able to differentiate them from other businesses claiming to be eco-friendly.

"It’s important for businesses to explain what they’ve done and how it differentiates them from their competitors," said Giles Gibbons, founder and ceo of Good Business. "What most businesses haven’t done effectively is tell anyone what they’re doing in a compelling way. If consumers don’t know what the brand has done, they can’t get involved in the brand."

Green communications
Consumers want to see the personal benefit in buying a product, said Nicola McLauren, Consumer and Market Insight manager for Unilever.

"With our laundry product Omo we wanted consumers to see it as a brand that helps the planet, but that it is also better than other brands, by getting whiter washes," said McLauren. "Hitting that consumer sweet spot, which is the benefit to the consumer and the benefit to the environment, is the key to success."

John Grant, founder, Abundancy Partners, and author of 'The Green Marketing Manifesto', said that the most effective way to market greenness, is to simply get involved in the community.

"Businesses have no business marketing their greenness," said Grant. "Effective green marketing is just working with people and communities. It’s all about community engagement and it works."

He said this can be accomplished through programmes aimed at getting people to change their habits and live more sustainably. Supermarkets encouraging customers to purchase and use reusable bags is an example of promoting sustainability through community engagement.

Accreditation
The issue of sifting through the montage of eco-labels, green certifications, and environmental accreditation schemes was one of the main concerns voiced by seminar attendees. Speakers at the event highlighted one certification option for businesses.

"Consumers are confused about all the claims out there that are being made," said Rebecca Fay, marketing director for the CarbonNeutral Company. "There’s a confusing range of statements. But the most important is carbon management, and a carbon neutral statement can deal with some of that confusion. But in order for it to be used as a powerful statement, it needs to be consistent."

She said a variety of organisations, including the British Standards Institute (BSI) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), have published guidelines for businesses on making carbon neutrality claims. Defra will also be publishing a guidance paper on green claims in November.

Defra’s guidelines will say a company should market, present and substantiate its claim using an independent third party assessor. The development of a carbon management plan is also highly recommended to help businesses have a transparent process for calculating, reducing, and offsetting carbon.

Carbon neutrality
BSI’s PAS 2060 guidelines were released earlier this year and were designed provide the businesses with a standardised guideline for carbon neutrality.

It outlines a series of steps that have to be taken to attain carbon neutral status, starting with full measurement of a product or firm's carbon footprint using established standards such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or BSI's PAS 2050 specification. It then requires that steps are taken to reduce the carbon footprint before approved carbon credits are purchased to cover unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions.

"PAS 2060 is a really important practical piece of work which should enhance the transparency of carbon neutrality claims by providing a common definition and recognised method of achieving carbon neutral status," said Mike Low, director of Standards for BSI. "The standard encourages a behaviour change to help drive society towards a low carbon economy."

The CarbonNeutral Company also offers its own carbon neutral accreditation scheme. It works with manufacturers, retailers and organisations that want to reduce their CO2 emissions to the point of net zero CO2, thereby achieving the CarbonNeutral brand certification. The company encourages reductions through external and internal processes, which may include actions like swapping coal-fired power stations for hydropower or shifting delivery change patterns.

Each of the guidelines differs, but Fay said they all carry a similar message about the need to reduce emissions and offset the remainder before claiming carbon neutrality.
"To claim carbon neutrality, companies should have gone beyond planning and measuring and have actually made reductions," said Fray. "When used effectively, this can differentiate a product or business. You may only be a small part, but to have a strong statement about what you’re doing is going to differentiate you."

Though the seminar didn’t focus on it, the Carbon Reduction Label is an example of a label that has provided businesses with increased revenue.

The total annual retail value of consumer goods sold in the UK bearing the Carbon Reduction Label has reached £2 billion, the Carbon Trust announced yesterday, as new research shows that nine out of 10 households in the UK bought a carbon labeled product in the last year.

The Carbon Trust is urging businesses to take part in its Carbon Reduction Labelling scheme in order to reduce the carbon footprints of their products and take advantage of a market, which the Centre for Retail Research predicts could reach £15.2 billion by 2015.