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The better and greener choice is not always clear. Thankfully, we have the social web.
PARDON US FOR YELLING, BUT THERE’S JUST TOO MUCH GREEN NOISE! COME INSIDE! LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!
According to recent studies by the National Marketing Institute (NMI) and marketing firm BBMG, together with articles published in The New York Times and Leading Green blog, consumers are having a tough time making decisions about how and whether to go green. This is attributed to competing and inconsistent information, suspicions of greenwashing, and the overall level of noise in the marketplace. Some fear this frustration is undermining the green movement. In the following, we’ll boil down the data and propose (as should be expected) that social media, in the form of a few new startups, is a possible solution to each of these problems.
The NYT article cites a number of common dilemmas: To wash dishes by hand or use the dishwasher? To buy milk in glass bottles or paper cartons? To use CFLs despite the mercury? To buy reusable plastic Nalgene bottles despite the BPA? To support biodiesel or not? To buy a new hybrid car or a used non-hybrid one? These are all good questions with no clear-cut answers. This understandably can lead to frustration, especially for someone who just wants to make a better choice.
“We worry about it,” said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. “We all understand that today’s media environment is an extremely crowded one, and message overload is the order of the day.”
A study by the Shelton Group, an advertising agency and market research company based in Knoxville, Tenn., that focuses on environmental products, showed that consumers surveyed in 2007 were between 22 and 55 percent less likely to buy a wide range of green products than in 2006. The slipping economy had an effect, but message overload appeared to be a major factor as well, said Suzanne C. Shelton, the company’s president.
“What we’ve been seeing in focus groups is a real green backlash,” Ms. Shelton said. Over the last six months, she added, when the agency screened environmentally themed advertisements, “we see over half the room roll their eyes: ‘Not another green message.’ ”
Nevertheless, Leading Green’s “Conflicted Consumer” post, from Green to Gold co-author Andrew Winston, demonstrates that a substantial segment of the market is eager for more ethical and sustainable products.
Last year, one item in Harvard Business Review’s annual list of breakthrough ideas focused on research about these conflicted consumers, people who have social and ethical concerns about what they buy. Karen Fraser, whose consulting firm publishes the Ethical Reputation Index in the U.K., estimated that around 25% of consumers fit this description. The conflicted are distinct from the small group of diehards who will buy green or not at all. I believe that the true believers who will pay more for green are a small group that may not grow much. But the conflicted group, those looking for products that are environmentally or socially preferable at the same price and quality, is growing fast. And these people will jump ship as soon as there is a better option. Many companies will see their customers disappear and not know what happened.
More recently, some good data from the marketing agency BBMG gave us some more guidance on what this conflict is really about. In their survey of U.S. consumers, they discovered something really interesting about what attributes of products are “very important” to people when they shop. Ranking the attributes, quality and price were #1 and #2. No surprise there. But convenience and other sure-thing attributes had dropped from 3, 4, and 5, to be replaced by three aspects: Where was the product made? How energy efficient is it? What are the health benefits?
This is certainly encouraging, as long as consumers believe and can rely on the information that supports these claims. The NMI findings show how perceptions of greenwashing are undermining this shift toward more healthy and sustainable products.
“While numerous companies are attempting to gain credibility as good corporate citizens, consumers are overwhelmed by the myriad of communications and are, at times, unable to distinguish the legitimacy,” said NMI’s managing partner Steve French. “Some companies who are doing relatively little with respect to CSR are perceived as just as responsible as those spending millions of dollars incorporating sustainability into their businesses.”
Many consumers remain skeptical of the sincerity of corporate action, and are looking for credible, third-party proof of the claims companies make, NMI said. This lack of credibility will continue to cause confusion and blurring in consumers’ minds, and if it goes unchecked, could undermine the LOHAS revolution currently underway, it noted. Simultaneously, CSR messaging must be more meaningful, memorable, and relevant to consumers to have an impact.
Did someone say “credible, third-party proof”? How about third-, fourth-, fifth-, and Nth-party proof? As Clay Shirky might say, “Why don’t we ask everybody?” It’s surprising that none of these articles or studies (as far as we could tell) pointed to the social web as a possible solution. So in addition to the many companies we featured in Conscious Consuming Meets Social Shopping, there are several others that utilize the principles of crowdsourcing and the tools of Web 2.0 to address these exact problems. Here are four worth checking out.
“Do The Right Thing (DTRT) is a place online where you can get unfiltered information about the impacts of companies on people and the world and make it worth their while to ‘do the right thing.’ Consumers can learn about which companies will spend their hard-earned dollars in ways that make the world better. Investors can learn about which companies focus on doing the right thing today so that they’ll be, or continue to be leaders in their markets tomorrow. Employees can learn about which companies share their passion for wanting to create more than just financial returns, and truly care about their well-being. On dotherightthing, the community rules. You determine which companies get the focus, what is relevant, [and] which companies are recognized for doing the right thing.”
The format is similar to a social news site like Digg, where users submit stories and vote them up or down, but there is a specific focus and purpose to this. When you post a story, it is first linked to a company that’s either in DTRT’s database or else you can add it. You “summarize what the company is (or isn’t) doing right, referring to the detailed guidelines. Users are encouraged to take a side, be objective, be respectful, and include links, photos, and videos.
The stories appear in a column with positive or negative “impact ratings”. Companies are then ranked based on these scores. Seventh Generation is the leader with Intel, IKEA, Virgin, Home Depot, and Whole Foods among the top 10. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the site it getting much traffic or action lately. The latest story appears to have been submitted four months ago, and the latest monthly traffic looks like just about 2,000 unique visitors. If one of the DTRT team reads this, please feel free to leave an update in the comments.
Vanno is a similar model to DTRT, but here a company’s “reputation” is the common currency. This is consistent with the fact that we’re in a new-and-improved reputation economy. Vanno measures company reputations by capturing and quantifying the insights that its users have into the reputations of the many companies that influence and inhabit our lives.
According to the Vanno, “Our users share their knowledge of, and insights into, company reputations with us by submitting articles. An article is based on an online source (like a website or blog), and explains why particular aspects of a company’s reputation – like how they treat their customers, employees, the environment or society in general – are either strengthened or damaged by what’s said in the online source. Users then vote and comment on articles, expressing their agreement or disagreement with the claims articles make about company reputations. Vanno uses articles, votes and comments to calculate Reputation Scores for every company in the database.”
Users can sort articles and compare scores across five key areas: community involvement, environment, patriotism, social responsibility, and workforce diversity. Vanno appears much more active than DTRT. A story from GreenBiz.com about Panasonic’s “Eco Ideas Factory” was submitted just five hours ago, and it’s reputation score is a positive six. Others from CSRWire.com, Wall Street Journal, and MediaBistro can also be found.
Hooze is a nonprofit wiki community that “cultivates and broadcasts free, convenient information about companies [so consumers can] make informed, ethical shopping easier. Pioneering Hoozers have focused on the electronics industry because of its tremendous social and environmental impacts. And, frankly, because lots of us are geeks who are interested in these things.”
In our interview with the founders of OsoEco, they indicated they’d soon be integrating a Hooze widget to “take the search out of research” and provide quick access to a company’s background or reputation. Currently, Hooze is in a private beta that is invite only.
Rate It Green focuses on the green building space. It is a user-driven directory, ratings site, and community portal for the green building industry. Rate It Green seeks to build industry confidence and openness, while offering an interactive community environment for discussing products, services, and best practices.
The site features an open marketplace, where users can shop for and buy green products; a green building product and service directory, and a user-driven Green Ratings system. The Green Forum enables members to share their thoughts and ask questions about green products, services, and related topics. The company hopes that Rate It Green will help newcomers and experts alike discover new products and learn the pros and cons about existing materials and services from those who have actually worked with and used them.
Users and companies alike can submit products or services to the directories. Under the category of flooring, for example, one can find 262 entries with sub-categories like reclaimed and FSC-certified wood flooring. The product directory is pretty light on the ratings so far, but the company directory is fairly deep. You can also learn the basics of green building and download relevant articles such as Building Materials: What Makes a Product Green?
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3 responses so far ↓
1 Nick DiGiacomo // Jun 15, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Thanks for including Vanno.
One point of clarification – the numbers next to Articles on the home page (and elsewhere on the site) are user votes for that particular Article – like diggs on Digg.com – not the company Reputation Scores.
The Reputation Scores are found by clicking on the name of a company anywhere it appears on the site. We calculate them by aggregating all the user Articles and votes for each particular company.
For example, if you searched for Matsushita Electric (the parent of Panasonic) from the home page, or clicked on Matsushita Electric anywhere it appears on the site, you’ d find that they were in the 69th percentile (69 out of 100) among electronics, computer and software companies when it comes to sustainability, recycling, use of clean energy, conservation and preservation – all the things that make up their environmental reputation. 69% isn’t bad, but it’s still below leaders such as Canon, LG, Samsung, Siemens and Sony (whose Reputation Scores are all 80/100 or better).
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