Waste Management: June 2008 Archives
The Conference Board has published a paper in its Executive Action series, Company Approaches to Green Products and Services: What's Working and What's Not.
Unfortunately, the document is available only to Conference Board
members, but they've been nice enough to share a copy with me, so I'll
provide some highlights.
The report written by Bill Blackburn, a
Conference Board Senior Research Fellow, is a primer on
green products, from basic definitions to explanations of life cycles
to the basics of green marketing.
Blackburn knows from where he speaks:
The former head of environment at Baxter International, he is author of
The Sustainability Handbook,
an authoritative reference for environmental managers. Blackburn's
insights are complemented by the findings of a research panel, whose
members include Aveda, Coca-Cola, J.C. Penney, Xerox, and others.
According to Joel Makower in Two Steps Forward, the "best practices" Blackburn suggests include:
- Train and periodically update the company's design and marketing workforce, including their management, on the social and environmental issues and trends that are relevant to the company and the type of products and services it offers.
- Consider the issues and trends relevant to suppliers, wholesale customers and end consumer.
- Support two-way communications to ensure marketing reconnaissance and feedback from other key stakeholders and information sources are shared.
- Stay up to date on green product and service successes and failures of other companies, especially peers.
- Inventory current products and services to see which ones may be considered green.
- Identify potential areas where developing new green products or services might be productive; involve outside experts and/or new personnel to help stimulate the discussion.
- Periodically evaluate your progress in greening and promoting your products and services, and how well they stack up against the competition.
