How Relevant Are Contemporary Attempts to Encourage Green Consumerism - Essay Example

? How relevant are contemporary attempts to encourage 'green consumerism'? How relevant are contemporary attempts to encourage 'green consumerism'? Abstract What is “green consumerism”? The opinions vary. Some consider that this is highly democratic strategy aimed at saving our planet. Others think that this is just a cunning marketing technology aimed at “milking” naive customers. Being a strategy to save the Earth green consumerism opposes itself to a mass of greedy consumers from industrialized world and gives them the choice “It is up to you.” Consumer demand has taken all of us into a trap and now it must take us out of it. Contemporary educated consumers must be aware of the burning environmental problems as well as informed by the product labeling and according to this knowledge to purchase only the goods which are environment friendly. Such “new” consumers also should lead a way of life that matches their new “green” tastes. In the work we are going to examine the roots of “green consumerism”, its main manifestations and define the impact of this trend on the “green movement” as a whole. How relevant are contemporary attempts to encourage green consumerism? The idea of “green consumerism” trend is when the environmental benign awareness enters the life and mind of most people the purchasing force of markets will make all manufacturers to turn their products and production into green. Otherwise these manufacturers will be rejected from the markets by the green customers. According to this strategy, only the manufacturers, which meet the demands of greening will preserve their positions on the market. This approach also allows people to participate in decision-making process voting by their credit cards. However, there is another view of green consumerism, according to which the whole mass of consumers is considered to be exploited by misleading advertising appealing to badly-informed environmental consciousness of people. According to the first point of view ecological crisis is the result of low-quality consumption, while according to the second one, this crisis is “caused not only by the quality but by the volume of consumption” (Goldberg et al, 1997). There are even skeptics who think that the green consumption may increase the environmental problems as it encourages the manufacturers to produce new products under the misconception that they are environmental friendly. Some people respond to green appeals that “there is no such thing as a green lunch” (cited in Goldberg et al, 1997). Environmental sustainability is one of the three key elements of corporate sustainability – other two are economic and social. Although these three elements are interrelated, e environmental one is often stay behind economic and social elements. A cost benefit analysis of environmental management systems found that average pay-back period makes 2 years. According to other studies better management of environmental risks (for example, environmental marketing strategies) are linked to lower cost of competitive advantage. Generally speaking, marketing managers are often concerned about the appropriate shade of green they should apply in their companies. The question is whether a “deep green” approach can be used in ecological sustainable organization, whether this approach an be considered proactive, long-term oriented, beneficial and preserving the environment. This problem involves a two-fold challenge. First of all marketers should understand which consumer attitudes should be taken into consideration while making green performance assessment. The better marketers understand what makes consumers evaluate “green strategy” of the organization, the better they will be able to create strategies answering consumer demand. Unfortunately up to date the sufficient investigations of green consumer behavior have not been conducted. The second task for marketing managers is to access how well they are doing within the green conception of their organization. There exists specific researches which evaluate green marketing strategy, business efficiency, use of green innovations, and the overall green image of the company. Unfortunately still there are no researches which would measure a company’s green efficiency from consumer’s point of view. The Reasons for Green Movement Perhaps the green buyers existed at all times but not very long ago they represented just an insignificant minority. The beginning of green movement is considered to be the release of Brundtland Report, which heightened the awareness of environmental crisis. In 1987 a British firm The Body Shop won the UK "Company of the Year" Business Enterprise Awards (Sandy, 1989). At that time this company found itself on the top of green consumerism wave as a manufacturer of "cruelty-free, minimally packaged, natural ingredient soaps" (Goldberg et al, 1997). The enormous success of this company and of a few similar firms inspired several authors to immediately create the guides for green economics and consumerism. At that time even Margaret Thatcher declared herself green. Very soon green choice of consumers became a part of global business plan on how to save the Earth. Green Shopping Year With the very beginning of green consumerism in 1989 all mass media hurried up to inform people that since now they were responsible for buying only environmental benign products. A lot of articles appeared depicting ecology/consumer experts with “trolleys full of purchased goods offering advice on exactly what form green consumerism should take” (Goldberg et al, 1997). The lists of “green” and “non-green” products were made and represented. For example, Kate Short from the Total Environment Centre represented her own list titled "The shopping list that saves the world." It contained the following recommendations: 1. Cleaning agents, with refills 2. Metal kitchen utensils: tongs, ice cream scoop 3. Glass containers for storage 4. Mild detergent 5. Waxed foodwrap -- instead of plastic 6. Metal garbage bin, bucket, dustpan 7. Straw broom -- not plastic 8. Natural fibre doormat 9. Pure washing powder, pure antiseptic 10. Tile cleaning; use steel wool with bicarb 11. Pump action carpet cleaners 12. Plain toilet paper, tissues -- not dyed 13. Roll-on deodorants -- instead of aerosol 14. Wooden coat-hangers -- better than plastic 15. Simply packaged stationary 16. Metal razor 17. Shave stick -- not aerosol shave cream 18. Toothpaste in tube -- instead of pump pack (Goldberg et al, 1997) Green consumerism got so popular and wide-spread that even the Bulletin, a magazine aimed at business people, became so enthusiastic that it published an article which announced "Shopping with a conscience. At last, a guide to who's behind the products Australians buy. Do you really want to give your money to companies that pollute, that make excessive profits that experiment on animals that mistreat their employees? Now you have the power ..." So was that a real customer revolution? Hamburger packaging manufacturer Ozone Packaging gave the following advertisement in the newspaper "The Hamburger That Saved The World. You don't have to change the way you live to do the right thing by the environment. Keep on eating hamburgers. But make sure they come in Ozone take-away packaging." This green race was caught by McDonalds with its advertising "Our Packaging Has Changed. It's A Wrap. .... McDonald's will continue to pursue the most environmentally sound operating practices and procedures possible to protect the global environment on which we all depend." In 1989 it seemed that all businessmen and businesswomen were dressed in green. Or perhaps it was just a camouflage? Green skeptics However, very soon the green skeptics gave a significant respond to this mass green enthusiasm by their own articles. Some of them focused their attention on the ecological problems the depth of which depends on the consumption itself, whether it is green, red or blue. Their question was: can the humanity maintain the present consumption level expecting to postpone the global environment crisis? As the consumption is a driving force for manufacturing which poisons our planet. In addition to this "nice try but it won't work" type of skepticism there was another critical trend of “Beware the green con”. It was the reply given in a form of articles opposed to those appealing to “green consumerism” in 1989. These counter-argument articles gave to the consumers the lists of products falsely promoted as green. One of such articles listed a few traps for the consumers who tried to purchase greenly. The first trap is Bit-Less-Trap which can be demonstrated by the CFC-free aerosol proclaimed to be environment benign. The problem was that it contained a lot of other gases except CFC, damaging the ozone layer. This aerosol was a bit less harmful than its predecessors. Another example was unleaded petrol: of course it was “a bit less harmful” for the atmosphere but at the same time the cars filled with it emitted benzene, known as carcinogen. The second trap is Green Image Game and it warns the consumers: "By making products sound as if they are good for the environment, manufacturers can attract extra sales from around a third of the population". The third trap is Niche-marketing and it depicts the situation when one and the same manufacturer makes the green products aimed at environment-aware customers and manufactures old environmentally-unfriendly products aimed at the rest of the consumers. The fourth trap is Cradle-to-Grave Trap which is focused on “the whole history of the product: the resources used to make it, the pollution caused while making, the energy spent, both in producing and operation, and the product's life-span and disposal problems” (Goldberg et al, 1997). This trap demonstrates that it is impossible for a customer to find out all this information before buying a product. Who should be asked about this? The shop keeper? The fact that consumers are pressed to buy environment correct product not actually having the necessary information about it led Greenpeace to the following conclusion: “Navigating the misleading claims of opportunistic advertisers is just one of the difficulties facing the consumer intent on "ecologically correct" shopping. So complicated is the terrain, in fact, that what is becoming known as "green consuming" may prove to be nothing more than a costly diversion from the campaign to save the earth” (cited in Goldberg et al, 1997). Usual business By 1991 the green consumerism revolution seemed to come to its end. The following words can be found in the Good Weekend: "In just one year the great green ground swell has gone out with the tide. The shops still hold `green' products but many are only superficial, as is customer support. Whither now...." According to the political polling conducted a year before the environment was the fourth most pressing problems for respondents. A year later it moved to the tenth place. Now it was time for the advertisers to use their power to ruthlessly exploit residual consumer concerns about environmental problems. The concerns about the environment moved into the car manufacturing sector. Many car manufacturers tried to identify their trade marks with ecological problems. The aim is make customers buy new environment-friendly cars appealing to their sense of environment accountability. A SAAB ad has an image of an exhaust pipe with the caption, "A BREATH OF FRESH AIR". The advertising informed the customers: "Our cars actually clean the air". At the same time advertising was silent about the other toxic, carcinogenic and greenhouse emissions. However, despite of this how can the ordinary yuppie resist? The key aim of this advertising as well as of other similar ones is to make a customer “feel guilty for not buying than for buying” (Goldberg et al, 1997). Buying the older products the buyer actually demonstrates the environment irresponsibility. To protect consumers from blatant exploitation the new guidelines were issued. The key aim of these brochures is to instruct the market dealers on how to exploit green customer not breaking the law. Conclusion It is obvious that “the peak of mass enthusiasm for green consumerism has passed” (Goldberg et al, 1997). The whole mass of consumers seems to be divided into a majority opposing the green marketing and minority supporting it. In this case we can make a conclusion that green consumerism failed as a method to try to solve the environmental crisis. Actually for now we can draw a few conclusions. First of all, the skeptics appeared to be right. The green enthusiasm at the market finally made the manufacturers simply exploit naive green conscience of consumers. In its turn this caused consumer skepticism and customer confrontation. If the green consumerism approach has failed why then they are still involved into the consumer market? Possibly one of the most vivid aspects of green marketing is evidences showing that “some of the supposed green alternative goods might be more harmful than the ones they replaced” (Goldberg et al, 1997). It seems that the apotheosis of green consumerism advertising became the recent advertisement for Master Card. In the picture one can see the continents of the Earth covered with different popular consumer goods. The headline reads "MasterCard introduces MasterValues. A whole world of savings." But it seems that the message says “Junk the planet, we've got some serious shopping to do.” References Sandy Irvine. (1989). “Consuming Fashions? The Limits Of Green Consumerism”, The Ecologist, Vol. 19, No.3; Goldberg, M., Fishbein, M., Middlestadt, S. (1997). “Social Marketing: Teoretical and Practical Perspectives”, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Australian Conservation Foundation, A Catalogue of Green Gifts, 1992. Debra Lynn Dadd and Andre Carothers, `A Bill of Goods? Green Consuming in Perspective,' Greenpeace, Vol 15, No. 3, May/June 1990, p. 10. Deborah Smith, `Fuelling the pollution debate', Sydney Morning Herald, March 25, 1994. MasterCard advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, March 14, 1994. Read More

 

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