Shiny Green Button

Photo credit: genisrp on Flickr

I woke up this morning with this blog post from egglog on my mind. It’s about the one step forward, two steps back path that people take to get to a more sustainable way of living.

Here’s a little bit of my own meandering path:

One step forward
Committed (and so far have succeeded!) to riding my bike to work at least once a week.

Two steps back
Twice last week, I made two car trips a day, back and forth between Portland and Vancouver, to run errands.

It’s the same with businesses on the road to sustainability. I see it here at AHA!, and with our clients too. We push forward, we’re pulled back by costs, lack of time or attention, and then we find a way to push forward again.

In a way, this thought gives me a more hopeful perspective on the FritoLay campaign that my co-worker, Laura, blogged about yesterday. I agree that their attempt to position their chips as a local food is pretty lame. Even so, it’s clear that someone over there has heard the message: people care about what they are eating and where their food comes from. And you have to hope that this is their version of one step forward, two steps back.

Perhaps the public outcry will force the brand to get its act together and back up their marketing campaign with some credible action. Because, as we now know, an effective sustainability initiative needs to involve every part of the business—from marketing to product development and manufacturing. All functions need to be working toward the same (good) end.

Thank goodness there are vocal citizens, activists and organizations out there to keep us moving in the right direction. Take the folks at Terrachoice, who publish The Seven Sins of Greenwashing. In the work we do at AHA!, we take that report pretty seriously. We do everything we can to avoid committing those sins. We work really hard to write accurately, write with honesty about our clients’ products and services. Our clients expect this of us, and appreciate when we ask them tough questions. “Can we say that?” “Is this accurate?”

Some might see environmental activists and marketers on opposite sides. But I don’t see it that way. If we’re doing business with integrity, if we’re writing and marketing with honesty, we’re all on the same path.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 15th, 2009 at 3:53 pm and is filed under Brands, Communications, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.