748 The Marketing Book
starting point for many companies’ green mar-
keting efforts, since packaging can often be
safely reduced without expensive changes to
core products or production processes and
without a risk of disaffecting customers. Varian
Medical Systems, a leading manufacturer of
medical scanning equipment, redesigned the
shipping packaging for its products to enable
the multiple boxes used to be easily ‘nested’
within each other for return and reuse. This
simple step produced worthwhile cost savings.
As with many dimensions of green marketing,
success in practice can be more difficult than
some of the prescriptive advice available for
marketers suggests. When Sony experimented
with reclaiming and reusing packaging materi-
als for its television sets, it led to a customer
misconception that the product inside the
packaging was also not new. For the reuse and
recycling of packaging materials to make a
meaningful difference, manufacturers need to
ensure that efforts are supported by the infra-
structure of collection systems and customer
information and education.
Green promotion
Many companies have sought to promote
themselves and their products through explicit
or implicit association with environmental or
social issues. However, promotion has been one
of the most controversial areas of the green
marketing agenda. Conventional advertising
has been criticized for presenting green prod-
ucts as oversimplified solutions to complex
environmental problems. Revelations about
unfounded and misleading claims have also
fuelled concerns about ‘greenwashing’ and
‘green hype’ (Carlson et al., 1993). Companies
like the Body Shop, for example, have deliber-
ately avoided above-the-line ‘brand sell’ style
advertising, preferring to concentrate on public
relations and in-store communications. There is
widespread consumer scepticism about envi-
ronmental advertising, which is being fuelled
by initiatives such as Friends of the Earth’s
‘Green Con of the Year Awards’.
The result of these concerns has been an
increasing emphasis on the concept of ‘sustain-
able communications’ rather than the more
narrowly defined concept of green promotion.
Sustainable communications strongly stress a
dialogue with stakeholders, particularly cus-
tomers, aimed at informing and educating
those customers, and seeking to establish the
social and environmental credentials of the
company and its products. Often, this has been
addressed through an emphasis on corporate
level communication campaigns, and through
partnerships and alliances. MORI survey
results indicated that 30 per cent of British
adults had recently bought a product or service
because of the company’s link to a charitable
organization.
A number of prescriptive and regulatory
guidelines have been developed to guide mar-
keters in formulating and using claims about
environmental performance. Davis (1993) sug-
gests the following: Ensure that the promoted benefit has a real
impact, e.g. reduced harmful emissions.
Identify the product’s specific benefit in terms
of the product attribute that contributes to
improved environmental performance.
Provide specific data about the benefits, e.g.
specifying the proportion and nature of
recycled content.
Provide a context to allow consumers to
make meaningful comparisons.
Define any technical terms used.
Explain the benefit, since consumers often
have limited understanding of environmental
issues.Different communications issues will arise
depending upon the nature of the media that
marketers use. Advertising brings with it the
danger that the company will be accused of
green hype or trivializing or exploiting serious
social and environmental issues. On-pack pro-
motion appears a useful and effective means to
influence consumer decisions, but it can be