As green gets attention, marketing ramps up

Washington to step in for guidelines on green marketing

By Asher Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, January 04, 2008

How many advertising execs does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent light bulb?

So many, it seems, that Washington has decided to take a look at how Madison Avenue markets eco-friendly products.

In the background of a series of reviews starting next week by the Federal Trade Commission of "green marketing" claims is a phenomenon environmentalists call greenwashing, or inflating environmental initiatives to deflect criticism about environmentally destructive practices.

From Austin to New York, ad agencies are expanding their offices as they advise their clients to tell a green story.

"A lot of major PR companies are scrambling to create new environmental divisions," said Kevin Tuerff, a principal of the Austin public relations firm EnviroMedia Social Marketing.

In September, for example, St. Louis-based marketing company Fleishman-Hillard International Communications Ltd. launched its Sustainability Communications practice. The division is designed to help clients "articulate views and actions on critical resource management issues, such as fossil fuel consumption, water conservation and CO2 emissions," according to a news release.

Locally, Austin advertising agency GSD&M's Idea City, which recently laid off more than 100 employees, is considering building a green division, spokeswoman Melanie Mahaffey said.

It makes financial sense for firms to promote their green-focused business offerings. The 19 percent of the population that "push the market in terms of green products" tend to be better-educated and wealthier than the rest, said Ted Ning, director of the Colorado-based nonprofit Lohas, which stands for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability.

But ad executives say the message needs to be authentic to work. "If done poorly or derisively — if it's seen as a car going through a field — people will scoff at it; they'll say it's just greenwashing or windowdressing," said Jay Suhr, who directs the crafting of marketing messages at Austin advertising firm T3.

With a lack of national standards for green building or carbon offsets — planting trees or installing solar panels to compensate for carbon dioxide emissions — businesses, and the ad agencies they employ, have enjoyed a lot of latitude in their marketing efforts.

"As the opportunity to profit in this sector attracts more players, the potential for marketing claims to misleadingly portray the offset products in question also grows," U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., wrote in July to the Federal Trade Commission's chairwoman.

The trade commission will revise its green marketing guidelines based on discussions from this year's workshops. The guidelines were last revised in the late 1990s.

A report in the fall by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found in a study of 1,018 green products that all but one were marketed with false or misleading claims.

In Texas, companies large and small have touted their environmental bona fides, even as they've faced accusations about their environmental performance. A northern Hays County rock quarry that its neighbors have said is a source of noise and pollution has formed a partnership with the Wildlife Habitat Council to build bat habitats on its land, uproot invasive plants and set aside open land.

"This will be an on-site lab for teachers and students to study geography, birds and bats," Jill Shackleford, who operates the quarry, said during a tour in September.

Meanwhile, a November report by the United Steelworkers accused DuPont, which has plants in Texas, of using green marketing to cover its industrial activities.

"DuPont is skillful in giving the public the impression it truly is concerned and engaging in activities to create a 'better, safer, healthier planet,' but when its profit motive collides with the environment, profit usually wins out," the report said.

DuPont said in a statement that "what is good for business must also be good for the environment and for people everywhere," saying it had invested millions in energy efficiency measures at its Texas plants.

Companies trying to protect the environment, even if they're in the business of extracting the earth's natural resources, should not always be written off as simply looking for good press, some environmentalists say.

Auden Schendler, the executive director of community and environmental responsibility for Aspen Skiing Co., wrote in 2006 in the online environmental journal Grist that "If firms are afraid to hype their good environmental projects because they fear being labeled greenwashers, nothing will change."

asherprice@statesman.com; 445-3643