Green Marketing, Part 3: Do, then promote

In your haste to market your company’s green-ness, make sure you don’t get ahead of yourself.

Make sure you have an established set of policies and procedures regarding your environmental action.  Once you have your program in place and it’s followed by all your employees, then you can promote it.

If you start marketing your company as green or sustainable before you’ve really achieved it, you could cause more harm than good.

And be honest about it.

Some companies are models of sustainability.  Others might just have a simple recycling program.

It’s important to be honest about the steps you’re taking to reduce your environmental impact.  More importantly, it’s important to be honest about what you’re not doing.

People understand that there are shades of green, and they will give you credit for doing what you can, even if every single decision isn’t governed by environmental impact.  On the other hand, if you make broad, sweeping statements that aren’t backed up by facts, your credibility will become extinct in a hurry.