By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Fri, 2008-04-11 11:42
Talking about environmental benefits in times of scepticism
Marketing and environmental protection are two seemingly very different worlds. But they can profit from each other. A good marketing campaign can boost the sales of environmentally friendly products and more generally increase the environmental behaviour of consumers. Conversely, environmentally friendly products can engage consumers on an emotional level, which is a dream for every marketer.
Unfortunately, the latter has stimulated marketers into developing 'greenwashing' messages which are misleading consumers by exaggerating the environmental advantages of a certain product or service. This is often easy to do, given the difficulty in understanding all of the complexities involved in identifying the actual environmental burden of a product and the ignorance of many consumers in this field.
On the longer term however, such greenwashing can seriously harm the credibility of products since consumers are often more sensible than marketers think. Geenwashing can also affect the credibility of environmental protection in general as well as of green marketing messaging - more and more consumers see it as nothing more than a way to mislead the buyer. The final result is a general increase in cynicism regarding all things environmental.
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By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Tue, 2007-12-18 08:30
An annual survey
This past year of 2007 was again an eventful one in the world of energy. There were new trends, evolving markets, and important breakthroughs. The following 11 highlights stood out:
1) 4th IPCC Assessment Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its 4th Assessment Report. One of its most striking conclusions is that we don’t have to wait for miracles or ingenious new solutions. The technologies, policies, and measures needed to mitigate climate change are known and doable. They just need to be applied.
With this 4th report, the IPCC has confirmed that there is a consensus among experts on what we know about climate change, how serious the earth’s situation may be, and what we can do to mitigate the phenomenon. Its efforts were rewarded with this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, shared with the mediagenic Al Gore.
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