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EditorsApr 22, 2009
Don't mix your greens
My father was a naturalist for the National Park Service, intimately involved in the birth and growth of the primacy of the discipline of ecology in our nation's approach to its natural resources and heritage that began in the 1950s....
My father was a naturalist for the National Park Service, intimately involved in the birth and growth of the primacy of the discipline of ecology in our nation's approach to its natural resources and heritage that began in the 1950s.
My parents instilled an ethic in all of their children early by such things as being among the first wave of recyclers back in the 1960s. Though I've not had my father's professional ties to nature and the environment, I certainly was raised with a consciousness of nature, have a significant connection to and my own love and respect for it.
And there are many others like me out there, a demographic group I would describe as having a true concern and understanding of issues affecting our earth. Moreover, people in this group tend to be skeptical of the current hyping of "green" issues.
Basically, we're very receptive to developments that can have a true positive impact on the earth and our environment. But we're also very quick to smell out the BS and those whose only interest is to leech on and suck whatever they can out of the trend for their personal benefit.
Ok, some strong language. But it needs to be emphasized that this group does tend to be highly politicized and passionate. The bottom line is, marketers who are purely self-motivated and whose "green" programs and activities are empty of real value to the environment are quickly discerned and, rather than benefitting from their efforts, will actually suffer the opposite.
An interesting subject line in an e-mail I received from Dick's Sporting Goods this morning was a good example: "Save some green this Earth Day." What a marketing mistake. The pun connecting money to the environment is not only in poor taste but trivializes the significance of the Earth Day concept.
The point is, the business of business is business. Nobody has a fault with that. But jumping on the green bandwagon, if there's not real value involved, is a bad idea, seen as hypocritical and self-serving. Don't do it
if you don't mean it.
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