Consumer Survey Finds Doing Good Is Good for Business

Americans are quick to identify polluting companies as "socially irresponsible" and make their purchasing decisions accordingly, says a new survey. The poll also found that American consumers between the ages of 18-29 are more likely to spend more on organic, environmentally preferable or fair trade products than other age groups.

The survey, by the research firm Global Market Insite, quizzed more than 15,000 online consumers in the U.S. and 16 other countries about their socially conscious business practices.
Americans placed the highest value on corporate community involvement; when asked what factor was the most important in determining if a business is socially responsible, "contributing to the community" (e.g. sponsorship, grants, employee volunteer programs) came in highest with 47%. On the other hand, all of the other countries surveyed (India, Canada, Australia, Germany, China, and Japan) selected environmentally preferable practices (recycling, using biodegradable products) as the top factor.

"In the high-tech era where employees are expected to work 24/7, it's significant that Americans rate giving back to the community as their top priority in recognizing socially responsible companies," said Marjorie Thompson, co-author of Brand Spirit: How Cause Related Marketing Builds Brands. "It shows that people want to feel connected to each other and that they are willing to reward businesses who tap into this sense of mutual support and belonging. Companies will need to start thinking of their community programs as core to their businesses and brands, and central to how they market themselves."

Not surprising, the U.S., along with other countries such as India and China, which have experienced environmental disasters caused by corporations (e.g. Love Canal, Bhobal, Exxon Valdez) or have had to deal with major polluting issues (e.g. coal plants, manufacturing), believe that damaging the environment is associated with acting socially irresponsible. Other countries, including France (60%), Denmark (52%) and Italy (45%) selected the use of child labor as the main factor in making them think a corporation is socially irresponsible.

Juxtaposing Americans' negative opinions on damaging the environment, the GMIPoll found that only 42% of all Americans are willing to spend more for products branded as organic, environmentally friendly, or fair trade, except for the Y Generation. While only 14% of 18-29 year olds label themselves as socially responsible consumers, half of this age group (50%) responded that they will spend more on these types of products (organic, environmentally friendly or fair trade) compared to their older and wealthier counterparts, with only 37% of 45-64 years olds saying they would spend more on green products.

Thompson adds: "Based on the findings, Generation Y is obviously more environmentally conscious and socially savvy, which is expected given that many are aware of the issues surrounding globalization and trade and how this can negatively affect the environment, labor pool and the local communities."

Surprisingly, a large majority of online consumers in the less developed countries of China and India, 91% and 71% respectively, will pay more for socially responsible products, while almost half (47%) of the U.K. respondents indicated they would spend more for these types of goods.

From sustainablemarketing.com

50 Ways to Green Your Business - Part III

21 Casual Friday might not resonate with natty Italians, but when the country's largest power company, Eni, wanted to save some energy (and money), it asked its workers to embrace "lighter and cooler" attire and raised the thermostats at HQ one degree Celsius. The summer's savings: 217,000 kilowatts and CO2 emissions equivalent to 140 employees taking public transport for a year.

22 The much-hyped Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) Tower, which will be the second-tallest building in New York when it's finished next year, is the first skyscraper in America to pursue LEED Platinum certification. Our favorite innovation: a geothermal heat-exchange system that's the first of its kind in a high-rise. In the winter, pumps will draw heat from groundwater to help warm the building; in the summer, the process will work in reverse, pumping excess heat into the bedrock beneath the tower. The system will contribute to the building's goal of using just half the electricity of a conventional building its size.

23 Meeting LEED standards isn't the only way to green a building. Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:JAVA) likes to nix office space entirely. Its Open Work program, 10 years and 20,000 participants strong (that's 56% of Sun's workforce), gives employees the option to work from home. Talk about a triple bottom line: In 2006, Sun saved $67.8 million in real-estate costs, prevented nearly 29,000 tons of CO2 emissions, and increased worker productivity by 34%. The master of the virtual workspace now has a consulting practice to help other companies do the same.

24 Timberland awards its employees who buy hybrids not only with a primo parking spot but also with $3,000 toward the car's purchase. Bank of America has a similar program. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) is one-upping both with a $5,000 incentive.

25 At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, about half the fleet--more than 334,000 vehicles--gets more than 28 mpg (nearly 10 times the number of fuel-efficient vehicles offered by its closest competitor, Enterprise boasts). The company is adding thousands of hybrids and FlexFuel cars.

26 At its Manhattan headquarters, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) is starting renovations at the top--on the roof, 53 stories up, where the bank is building what is essentially a giant pan to collect rainwater. The water will be funneled into a 55,000-gallon tank in the basement, filtered, and then piped up for toilet flushing. Coupled with new low-flush urinals and toilets, this system will cut the building's water use--and cost--by 30%.

27 The corporate restroom isn't fully green without Dyson's new Airblade hand dryer, which does its job in half the time (12 seconds) and with half the energy (1,400 watts) of conventional dryers. It costs four times as much up front, but the energy savings can pay you back in three years. AMC Theatres is testing the units now.

28 California-based managed-care provider Kaiser Permanente knew that its vinyl floors weren't doing Mother Nature (or patients or employees) any favors: PVC in the vinyl releases dioxin when it's created, and it lets loose other harmful particulates when buffed, to say nothing of the harsh chemicals used in cleaning it. Kaiser started replacing the floors in 2005 with PVC-free recycled rubber, which costs more to install but pays for itself in five years by slashing maintenance costs by as much as 80%. A side benefit: fewer slips and falls (and calmer actuaries as a result).

29 It was 1853 when Otis introduced the first safety elevator and forever changed the urban landscape. With the introduction of the company's Gen2 lift, the company has re-imagined what has largely been unchanged for more than 150 years. Replacing steel cables with a flat, polyurethane-coated steel belt, Otis was able to eliminate a bulky machine room and create a lubrication-free system. The result is not only a quieter and smoother ride, but combined with "regenerative drive" technology that returns electricity to the building grid, the new elevators are 75% more efficient than conventional drive systems. Gen2 lifts are becoming de rigueur in the slickest, greenest new towers, including Fast Company's new home, 7 World Trade Center.

30 Unlike most big-box retailers that are debuting discrete green product lines, Staples (NASDAQ:SPLS) has eco-modified a whopping 3,000 of its mainstream private-label products to include at least 30% post-consumer waste. From sticky notes to shipping boxes, nearly all of the new offerings do not have a nonrecycled alternative in the product line. The end goal: to pressure the entire industry to follow suit.


From: Fast Company

50 Ways to Green Your Business - Part II

11 Ford (NYSE:F) has sped up its painting process with technology that applies all three coats in one go, eliminating the need for the costly and energy-sucking drying equipment used between coats. In the process, Ford will reduce CO2 emissions from production by 15% and volatile organic compound emissions by 10%. More important (for the bottom line), the process will save $7 per car by reducing painting time by 20%.

12 Fox has redefined eco-boom on the set of 24, switching from regular fuel to renewable-source biodiesel to feed the show's many explosions and car-chase scenes. 24 uses more than 5,000 gallons of fuel a month, and the switch hasn't increased costs.

13 In a bid to shame lead-foot drivers, next year Fiat will roll out EcoDrive, a program developed by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). The system records performance data, such as CO2 emissions and fuel consumption, onto a USB key. Plug the key into a PC, and the program will analyze the data and provide driving tips to lower emissions.

14 Finally, something to do with skunked beer: In a partnership with Colorado engineering firm Merrick & Co., Coors produces 3 million gallons of ethanol a year by distilling waste beer. The brewery sells 200-proof ethanol to Valero Energy to be distributed at gas stations in Colorado. The program has been so successful that Coors doubled its capacity by building a $2.3 million facility in 2005.

15 This October, the Sierra Nevada Brewery in notorious party town Chico, California, installed a 250-kilowatt fuel-cell power unit and officially dropped off the grid. Drunk with power (energy efficiency is expected to be double what it was getting from Pacific Gas & Electric), the brewery plans to sell the surplus wattage back to the electric company.

16 Let there be less light! That was the conclusion of an energy audit at the Hong Kong headquarters of Star TV, News Corp.'s Asian broadcasting subsidiary, which found that by removing one out of every three fluorescent tube lights--about 1,300 in all--it would trim its CO2 emissions by 18,000 pounds a year.

17 Used to be, a 55-gallon drum full of silicon wafers unsuitable for computers sold for a paltry $100. But as the solar-power industry has taken off, those same chips now have real value; they work fine in solar cells. Today, chip makers are scrambling into a new market valued at $750 million. This year, Texas Instruments alone will sell about 1 million scrap wafers for $8 million. By reusing the silicon, TI estimates it has eliminated 15 million pounds of CO2 emissions and saved 3.7 million watts of electric power since the program began.

18 The hot zone in any office is the server room, where the ceiling-high racks of computers generate constant heat. The water that chills the rooms by absorbing heat is usually sent to cooling towers to evaporate. At Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) 's newest data center, in Haifa, Israel, the hot water will instead be recycled to warm the building in winter and to heat the showers in the gym year-round.

19 By 2009, the cost of powering and cooling data centers will eclipse the cost of the servers themselves. Hence IBM's (NYSE:IBM) Project Big Green, a billion-dollar-a-year investment in technology to double the efficiency of servers that currently can run at only 30% capacity--a move that could save clients 40% in IT-power costs.

20 Few things scream "waste" as loudly as the plastic containers you fill at salad bars. Even Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFMI) used them--until this spring, when it replaced them with ones made of sugar-cane waste. Salad containers have a useful life of about 35 minutes, but the plastic ones have an actual life of thousands of years; the new ones decompose in about 90 days.

From Fast Company

50 Ways to Green Your Business - Part I

Imagine asking today how the Internet affects business. It's an absurd question, like asking how electricity changed business. Asking the same about sustainability, it turns out, is equally absurd. Like the Internet, sustainability spurs innovation in everything, from how you see your business model to whether you see your employees (why not let them work at home more?). Here are our favorite ways companies today are greening up--and saving money and making better widgets in the process.

1 At $100 a ton, feeding a landfill is pricey. But in the past two years, General Mills (NYSE:GIS) has turned its solid waste into profits. Take its oat hulls, a Cheerios by-product. The company used to pay to have them hauled off, but realized they could be burned as fuel. Now customers compete to buy the stuff. In 2006, General Mills recycled 86% of its solid waste, earning more from that than it spent on disposal.

2 Moore's Law is great for producing speedier devices, but it's hell on the environment. According to Greenpeace, demand for new technology creates 4,000 tons of e-waste an hour, which often ends up on dead-hardware mountains in India, Africa, and China. Enter take-back programs, in which customers return spent technology to manufacturers, who recycle the parts for new gadgets. The United States has long lagged behind many European nations, which mandate the programs, but that's finally changing. Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) is leading the way. Last year, the PC maker recovered 40,000 tons of unwanted equipment for recycling, up 93% from 2005.

3 Trains were already the cleanest way to move massive amounts of freight long distances, but General Electric (NYSE:GE) raised the game with its Evolution locomotives, diesel engines launched in 2005 that cut fuel consumption by 5% and emissions by 40% compared to locomotives built just a year earlier. Up next, a triumph of sheer coolness: a GE hybrid diesel-electric locomotive that, just like your Prius, captures energy from braking and will improve mileage another 10%. According to GE, the energy dissipated in braking a 207-ton locomotive during the course of a year is enough to power 160 homes for the same period.

4 Not to be outdone in the freight game, Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) is providing funding to the biggest truck manufacturers--ArvinMeritor, Eaton, International, and Peterbilt--to develop the first heavy-duty diesel-hybrid 18-wheeler. Wal-Mart, which operates the second-largest truck fleet in the country, will test the prototypes next year.

5 Austin-based concert promoter C3 Presents made news when it banned Styrofoam cups from the sixth annual Austin City Limits Music Festival this year. Beneath the quick-hit media pop was a deeper story: Following the model the company created for Lollapalooza, C3 took a holistic approach to greening nearly every aspect of ACL, from bamboo-based concert T-shirts to gel sanitizer in the bathrooms to bio-diesel power generators.

6 It's not just hippies making the special-events world eco-friendly. The Philadelphia Eagles claim to be the greenest team in the NFL--and not just because of the color of its jerseys. Starting this season, the team's "Go Green" environmental campaign has its stadium cleaning crew making two full sweeps after each game--one to pick up recyclables and another for trash.

7 First we counted calories, then carbs. Now it's carbon, as retailers introduce product labels that encourage customers to weigh their eco-sins. The most ambitious: British grocery giant Tesco, which has a program to label all 70,000 of its products with carbon breakdowns.

8 Hamburger Helper helps your hamburger … save the planet? This year, General Mills redesigned the packaging of Mom's old standby, shaving off 20% of the paperboard box without shrinking its tasty contents. The astounding result: 500 fewer distribution trucks on the road each year.

9 Another recent player in the un-supersize movement, Unilever (NYSE:UL), reconfigured the plastic bottles for its billion-dollar Suave shampoo brand, saving plastic equivalent to some 15 million bottles a year.

10 Taking the packaging revolution a step further, the liquid-laundry-detergent industry, goaded by Wal-Mart, has cut the size of its bottles by 50% or more by concentrating the liquid to two and sometimes three degrees of magnitude. Unilever's triple-concentrated All Small & Mighty detergent has saved 1.3 million gallons of diesel fuel, 10 million pounds of plastic resin, and 80 million square feet of cardboard since 2005. This fall, Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG) is converting its entire collection of liquids to double concentration.

UK enjoys green consumer boom

The rapid growth of the market for firms producing environmentally sustainable and ethical products and services was again highlighted this week after a new survey revealed sales of "ethical" goods in the UK were now worth more than retail sales of beer and cigarettes.

The report found that UK ethical consumerism was worth £29.3 billion in 2005 up 11 percent on the previous year, and also accounts for a higher proportion of consumer spending, as overall household expenditure only grew 1.4 percent.

Sales of ethical food such as organic and Fairtrade goods soared 18 per cent to £5.4 billion while expenditure on energy-efficient electrical appliances, green mortgage repayments, home based renewable energy generators and green energy tariffs was up from £3.8 billion to £4.1 billion.

Spending on eco-travel, tourism and transport costs climbed fractionally from £1.7 billion to £1.8 billion, while sales of personal products, such as humane cosmetics and green-fashion, was up 5 per cent to £1.3 billion. Monies in ethical finance, which includes ethical banking and investments, stood at £11.6 billion, up from £10.6 billion last year.

The report proves there is a booming market for green products. However, the Co-operative Bank - which carried out the research in association with research group The Future Foundation and has established itself as one of the leading exponents of ethical banking - argued the market was not moving fast enough to tackle global issues such as climate change and as a result more government intervention was required to encourage more firms to adopt environmentally sustainable practices.

Craig Shannon, executive director of business management, urged governments to act, claiming in a statement that while the ethical market was booming spending was spread over a large number of different products and had only become the norm in sectors where legislators had intervened.

“Where the ethical or eco-choice has become the market leader, for example in sales of A-rated energy fridges (which account for some 60 per cent of the market), this has been underpinned by an EU labelling scheme, inefficient products being removed from sale and the support of well targeted subsidies," he said. “If, as many scientists are saying, we have ten years to make a dent in climate change, it is this type of radical overhaul of the choices made available to people that is going to deliver the rapid market changes required."

“The efforts of far-sighted, highly motivated consumers need to be leveraged and supported with business innovation and government intervention,” he added.

From: businessgreen

Top 6 eMarketing Tips for Reaching Green Consumers

Both green marketing and Internet marketing have been heating up in the last couple of years, and for good reason. They tap into mega-trends to get results as well as serve the greater good. Their popularity is apparent not just in the business world, but in the nonprofit, academic and political sectors as well.

A number of recent studies confirm what has become obvious to many of us who are a part of it -- the rise of an eco-conscious, or “green,” consumer base. A sizable and growing market has developed for sustainable and socially responsible products and services. These studies show that consumers are increasingly integrating their environmental, social, even spiritual values into their purchasing and investing choices -- and are seeking to support organizations that deliver on such values.

Benefiting from these trends, organizations from those as small as Orange Glo and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, to those as large as Toyota and Starbucks, have successfully used Internet marketing to reach conscious, green consumers. But the vast majority of businesses and nonprofits who serve such consumers still don’t know how to effectively use the Internet to reach their target markets.

Here are six tips that can help with reaching green consumers by Internet and email:

• Use paid search effectively. By placing ads on Internet search engines, like Google Adwords, you directly reach thousands or even millions of people specifically looking for exactly what you offer -- and you pay only when they actually click on your ad! This is almost like advertising on TV or radio and paying only for the leads your ad generates -- something no station would ever offer. And research has shown that green consumers love to use search engines as much or more than others. Add this to your Internet marketing mix and invest the time to learn how to do it effectively because it will pay off. For starters, spend at least of couple of hours brainstorming, and saving in a spreadsheet file, all keyword phrases you and your staff believe your customers might use to find you -- before logging into the advertising interface, where you can copy and paste.
• Microtarget your online advertising efforts. Research and find the most-targeted online publishers (Web sites and email newsletters) in which to advertise. There are lots of green Web portals for both B2C and B2B audiences -- those that provide resources and services to green consumers and green businesses, respectively. Many of them offer advertising on their Web sites or in their email newsletters, which often reach many thousands (even millions) of people -- for a fraction of the cost of comparable offline media. Care2 is an example of B2C and GreenBiz.com of B2B.
• Build and use, but don’t abuse, a good email list. Despite spam, the numbers indicate email is still very effective at building relationships, organizing events, and even selling when done right. Fortuitously enough, green consumers especially like having good relationships with people they buy things from. Invest the resources into building your own list, even if you rent others. Make it completely permission-based. In other words, don’t ever send bulk commercial email to anyone who has not requested or acquiesced to it -- period (usually in return for some information or something of value). Try starting your own email newsletter or Web log. But focus on providing the best content you can, that provides value to your target audience, with minimal self-promotion. Then promote the newsletter itself as hard as you would a new product or service.
• Specially design your landing page. Whatever Internet marketing tactics you use, be sure that the page you bring visitors to on your Web site -- your “landing page” -- is designed specifically with them (and the offer) in mind. Make it easy to read and understand your offer; build trust with a link to your privacy policy and your contact information provided at bottom; minimize distractions by removing your menu links; and tell them who you are and why your organization, product or service is good for the environment, their health, or society.
• Track your efforts. It’s now easier than ever to track your efforts. The main search engine advertising programs (Google, Overture) offer free tracking tools, and powerful, independent tracking tools are now available elsewhere for little or no money as well. Check out ConversionRuler, for example, for a free trial. By tracking all your e-marketing efforts, you’ll always know exactly what’s working -- what to stop doing and what to continue doing. It will save you a LOT of money over time.
• Use online PR effectively. Many of those same publishers with whom you’ll want to advertise in Tip 2, you will find, are good folks to develop relationships with for effective public relations as well. Find out who to contact at these online publications about a newsworthy event related to your organization, product or service. Build a list of these media contacts and then send them well-written press releases only when a truly newsworthy event arises (of course, one that works to your advantage somehow). Don’t forget to follow with a phone call and offer assistance -- an article, an interview -- or something else to make their job easier. You might also try distribution services for your press release targeted to green consumers and companies, such as eWire or CSRwire.

In determining what’s best for your company when using Internet and email marketing, it’s important to develop a written plan. It doesn’t have to be War and Peace, but should at least include the steps necessary to effectively execute your strategy. Testing out approaches and making improvements quickly, often in real time, is a major advantage of Internet marketing. So include more tools in your plan, including the tactics mentioned above, than you would intend to use over time. As you test them, you can weed out the ones that don’t perform to your satisfaction and continue with those that do.

If you try these tools and others identified here in your marketing mix, using best practices, you are likely to find at least one or two that provide an outstanding return on your investment and help you meet your organization’s toughest goals.

From: Greenbiz - Excerpted from "Conscious Clicks: A Guide to eMarketing for People, Planet & Profit," by Perry Goldschein

Who are the green consumers?

Understanding the demographics of green consumerism can help entrepreneurs explore the environmental market, and home in on likely prospects. Research has shown that green consumers:

• are sincere in their intentions, with a growing commitment to greener lifestyles;
• almost always judge their environmental practices as inadequate;
• do not expect companies to be perfect in order to be considered 'green'. Rather, they look for companies that are taking substantive steps and have made a commitment to improve.

However, they also:

• tend to overstate their green behaviour, including the number of green products they actually use;
• want environmental protection to be easy, and not to entail major sacrifices;
• tend to distrust companies' environmental claims, unless they have been independently verified;
• lack knowledge about environmental issues, and tend not to trust themselves to evaluate scientific information about environmental impacts. However, at the same time they are eager to learn, and this means that consumer education is one of the most effective strategies that entrepreneurs can use.

The most responsive age group tends to be young adults, many of whom are influenced by their children. In addition, women are a key target for greener products, and often make purchases on behalf of men.

The best 'green' customers are people with more money to spend. As a result, the most promising products for 'greening' tend to be at the higher end of the market. The most promising outlets for green products are retail stores frequented by better-off shoppers.

In general, green consumers have the education and intellectual orientation to appreciate value; they will understand evidence that is presented in support of environmental claims.
In the US, children and teens are generally more concerned than adults about the environment, and are more knowledgeable about green alternatives. Increasingly, they influence their parents' purchasing decisions. Equally importantly, millions of them will reach adulthood in the next decade, and gain purchasing power of their own.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum, US consumers born before the 1950s are the least 'green'. As their numbers diminish, their share of consumer purchases will dwindle.

In Canada, children and parents alike tend to have strong environmental concerns. Older people, too, tend to be active green purchasers.

From: bsdglobal