The Enlightened Way to Marketing

 The Enlightened way to ethical and profitable marketing

Sustainable development and Greenwashing are all the rage today. Learn how to distinguish between the two and do your part to become a good steward of the environment. 

Environmentally-friendly enterprise is no longer just a nice-to-have or a by-line regarding Corporate Social Responsibility  

World Water Facts

•  Over 10 million people lack access to water in developed countries
• 783 million people lack access to water worldwide
• 3.4 million people each year fall to water-related disease
• The United States uses about 346,000 million gallons of fresh water every day
• The United States uses nearly 80 percent of its water for irrigation and thermo-electric power
• The average person in the United States uses anywhere from 80-100 gallons of water per day. Flushing the toilet actually takes up the largest amount of this water.
•  Approximately 85 percent of U.S. residents receive their water from public water facilities. The remaining 15 percent supply their own water from private wells or other sources.
•  Municipal water treatment facilities cannot always control for the outbreak of dangerous bacterial contaminants in tap water
• In California, total capacity of desalination plants is 83,000 acre feet per year, equal to about 11 percent of the water used in Los Angeles. An additional 475,000 acre feet per year in new capacity are in various stages of planning. [1]

Natural Marketing Harmony

"The definition of “sustainability” is the study of how natural systems function, remain diverse and produce everything it needs for the ecology to remain in balance. It also acknowledges that human civilisation takes resources to sustain our modern way of life (1). There are countless examples throughout human history where a civilisation has damaged its own environment and seriously affected its own survival chances (some of which Jared Diamond explores in his book Collapse: How Complex Societies Choose to Fail or Survive (10)). Sustainability takes into account how we might live in harmony with the natural world around us, protecting it from damage and destruction." [4]

Economics development, Social Development, and Environmental protection have been described as the 3 pillars of Sustainability. This is because the financial and resource needs of a burgeoning population mean that each person must be provided for, or empowered to provide for themselves through small business or other productive endeavors. Social developments entails educating the populace and engendering cultural change that will encourage sustainable behavior that will facilitate a reasonable standard of living for every human being. Finally, environmental protection is the sine qua non of sustainability. [4] Without being good stewards of the environment, the resources of today will simply be exhausted tomorrow. Capitalist or socialist, it is in all our interest to see to it that we can make a living for ourselves and still leave something for the next generation. 

Natural Marketing means not only pushing for environmentally friendly practices, but also reorienting product lines to enhance the fashionability of sustainability. In that vein, environmentally-friendly fashion is another aspect driven by marketing that can transition us from polyester and rayon dependence to fabrics and couture more in line with ecological balance. [7]

Climate change is a concern not just for ecologists and treehuggers, but also for the corporate world. Sustainability for housing covers not only materials and LEEDS standards, but even hurricane proofing one's home. States and regions previously untouched by such catastrophes are now facing them with greater frequency and intensity. Natural marketing also means understanding how to survive and thrive amid such changing natural exigencies. [8]

Distinguishing between greenwashing and green marketing is another pivotal consideration. Increasingly, both sellers and buyers are concerned about the actual greenness of so-called green solutions. Getting AND keeping business means providing products and services that actual work as advertized. Natural marketing, therefore, means not only talking the talk, but walking the walk. [10]

“Solar is the future!”, “No, it’s wind!”, you’re kidding yourselves, “Tidal is the only way forward!”. In a world of mixed messages and negative externalities, we are quickly finding out that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Path dependence on a particular technology might draw sympathy for leveraged investors, but wise change-agents will seek diversified staff and diversified portfolios as well as diversified solutions to offer customers. Finding out that your cadmium-based electric car battery might actually be worse for the environment than that hideous pink hummer gas guzzler from the mid-2000s, means really knowing your brief and studying all aspects of a technology before investing. If you really want to be the change you wish to see, you’ll have to set aside the ‘save the world’ get rich quick schemes for something more serious and sustainable.

Sources:

1. http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/
2. http://www.allaboutwater.org/water-facts.html
3. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/03/12/us-water-technology-factbox-sb-idUSTRE52B07J20090312
4. https://www.environmentalscience.org/sustainability
5. https://sustainability.com/sustainability/
6. https://www.treehugger.com/
7. http://www.earthtimes.org/green-blogs/green-living/create-energy-efficient-garden-15-Aug-12/
8. https://www.greenbuildingsolutions.org/blog/
9. https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/07/best-green-lifestyle-bloggers-2017
10. https://www.bloomberg.com/green