Green Marketing
Reducing the Impact on the
Environment while Increasing the
Impact on your Audience
Presented by Ben Grossman
Tufts University
February 28, 2012 0

Agenda
•Introduction and Company Overview
•Green Movement
•Green Marketing: Logo Usage
•Recommendations
•Frequently Asked Questions
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About Grossman Marketing Group
•Founded in 1910
•4th-generation family business
•Grossman Marketing Group (GMG) is a fully-integrated
marketing communications firm. Principal business lines include:
– Graphic Design
– Envelopes and Direct Mail Materials
– Commercial Print
– Promotional Products
– Technology and E-Commerce Solutions
•Founded in Massachusetts, GMG has a significant presence
throughout New England, New York, Washington DC, as well as
in Chicago and Atlanta
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The Green Movement
The message is everywhere
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The Green Movement
And part of the message is “sustainability”
sus·tain'a·bil'i·ty n., Assuring the long-term survival of
our planet by conserving and caring
for its resources.
Why it matters: sustainability and profitability go hand-in-hand
•Good corporate citizenship improves relationships with key
constituencies
•Helps recruit, motivate and retain employees
•Increasingly connected to improving bottom lines and
shareholder value
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The Green Movement
Recent research shows consumers want to support
responsible firms, but transparency is a problem
•A recent BBMG Conscious Consumers Report found that
Americans want socially responsible products, ½ willing to pay
more for them:
– Approximately 70% of Americans agree that “even in tough economic times, it
is important to purchase products with social and environmental benefits”
– Half of Americans say they are “willing to pay more” for them
•Cone’s 2010 Cause Evolution Study and 2010 Shared
Responsibility Study found that transparency is a problem
– Whereas 92% of consumers want companies to tell them what they are doing
to improve their products, services and operations, 87% believe that
companies only share positive data and withhold negative information
– 61% of consumers don’t think companies are giving them enough information
about their social and environmental programs
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Green Marketing: Logo usage and environmental benefits
It is critical to clearly communicate green claims
Logo Use
• Use recycled logo and indicate PCW content
• Indicate whether the piece was produced with renewable energy
• Use FSC logo according to guidelines
• Note soy ink use
Translate the savings in an easy-to-
understand manner
Please consult Environmental Defense, a
non-profit organization dedicated to
protecting the environment. Their paper
calculator provides an independent method
of measuring the impact of paper choices.
Please visit:
http://www.edf.org/papercalculator/
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Green Marketing: Logo usage and environmental benefits
Best practice in transparent communication: Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee (Al Gore mailing)
The back of the
envelope from this
2009 campaign
featured statistics
on the following
savings: trees,
pounds of solid
waste, pounds of
greenhouse gases,
gallons of
wastewater and
BTUs of energy.
Third-party
reference provided
- Environmental
Defense.
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Green Marketing: Logo usage and environmental benefits
Greenwashing example: Greenlist by SC Johnson
•Many of SC Johnson’s products
include a Greenlist logo
•Greenlist logo is trademarked, which
gives it an offical appearance
•SC Johnson created the Greenlist logo
– it is not issued by an outside
organization to verify green claims
•A class action lawsuit filed against SC
Johnson was settled in 2011 – company
had to promise not to use logo moving
forward. Lawsuit alleged greenwashing
(making false or misleading claims
about purportedly environmentally
friendly products, services or practices)
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.

Green Marketing: Logo usage and environmental benefits
Missed green marketing opportunity: Poland Spring’s
Eco-Sense bottle
•Poland Spring changed their 5-gallon
bottles in 2010
•Bottles included new Eco-Sense logo
•There was no explanation on the bottle
of what the logo meant
•The bottle does use less plastic, but
Poland Spring did not explain this on
the bottle, which was a missed
opportunity to communicate positive
information to its customers
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Green Marketing: Product Lifecycle Analysis
The lifecycle of a product, and how it will be managed
after use, is becoming more important
•Staples was the first major retailer to offer
a PC “take back” program
•This allows consumers to “securely recycle
your end-of-life technology”
•These programs prevent a large number of
devices from being thrown away, reducing
the presence of hazardous materials in the
waste stream
•Staples was an industry leader that caused
change – Best Buy, Office Depot and Office
Max all followed suit
•Their internal studies showed that this
increased consumer loyalty to Staples
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Green Marketing: Product Supply Chain Analysis
Reducing the resources needed to produce products can
have a significant impact on a company’s brand
+ =
•Walmart worked with its suppliers, like Tide, to sell only
concentrated liquid laundry detergent in all its U.S. and
Canadian stores
•According to Walmart, in the first three years of the program,
Walmart expected to sell more than 800 million bottles of
concentrated detergent, saving 400 million gallons of water, 95
million pounds of plastic resin and 125 million pounds of
cardboard.
•To put the water savings into perspective, that’s the equivalent
of 100 million showers.
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Thank you!
Contact information
•Ben Grossman
•Co-President; Founder, Green Marketing &
Sustainability Practice
•Email: bgrossman@grossmanmarketing.com
•Blog: http://www.sustainableink.org
•Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bigrossman
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