Green Options

An interesting article in The Wall Street Journal, Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints, highlights the next trend in green marketing, calculating and promoting the supply chain carbon footprint.

Never mind that the average consumer isn’t actually aware or at least has a pretty fuzzy grasp of what exactly a carbon footprint is, manufacturers are busily calculating away. And, they are finding some fairly interesting facts.

Leather, milk and meat from cows pack a pretty big carbon footprint: The average dairy cow produces, every year, an amount of greenhouse gas equivalent to four tons of carbon dioxide, according to U.S. government figures. Most of that comes not from carbon dioxide, in fact, but from a more-potent greenhouse gas: methane.

The recipe for a low-carbon load of laundry: Use liquid detergent instead of powder.

… a six-pack’s carbon footprint was about seven pounds. The real surprise was where the bulk of that number came from: the refrigeration of the beer at stores.

I actually found some of these things pretty interesting too, but as a marketer, I have different questions. I’m wondering if this will be the next wave in green marketing. I’m wondering if we will really be able to educate consumers that much about the manufacturing process. I’m wondering if they will care.

At this point my gut feel is that this WILL become a trend. Consumers will react to carbon footprint information. Leather will be out. Mothers will switch to soy and rice milk (even more than they currently are). Powder detergent will become passé.

This is not exactly advance notice, but tomorrow evening the Small Business Administration in San Francisco is offering a free workshop called “Running & Operating a ‘Green’ Business”. The reason I even bother noting such a last-minute event is that the SBA often repeats popular workshops, and it offers similar programs in different cities. You might want to check out the SBA schedule in your area.
The description of the event [...]