Green media - what is your company doing to prove its green credentials?

Media Week has just released its special report into green media, looking at how agencies and owners are working to make sure their own houses are in order as well how the industry is developing green communications for its clients.

What is your company doing to make sure it doesn't get accused of 'greenwash'? And given the sheer number of magazines, newspapers, inserts and posters we print, the energy burnt producing and airing TV campaigns and the growing environmental cost of the data centres that are powering the digital revolution, is the very idea of green media a contradiction in terms?

Whenever you're ready chaps. No hurry.. take your time.

Mind you, I do wonder if 'not getting accused of..' is quite the same as '...not engaging in...' in the whole process vs. result, perception vs. reality, spin vs. substance scheme of things, and hence which might cost more and/or take longer to prepare for public consumption.  

'Ladies and gents, please start your PR budgets...' 

Or maybe, and here's a thought: do what you can practically. Be sincere. And don't ram some twisted vision of 'greenness' down ever more savvy consumers' throats in some half-cocked notion of enviro/CSR box-tick marketing. 

Greenwash is something everyone is guilty of.  I mean even the government is hoodwinking us into believing we are the ones responsible for the destruction of the  planet.  Yet, who is responsible for raping and pillaging the world? our clients.  BP rips oil from the ground, burns off enough gas to cover us in Carbon, posts $65billion dollar profits yet charges us £100 to fill our car up - don't figure.  Why don't supermarkets sell the fouit and veg loose like it used to be?  People need to open their eyes and demand choices that don't cost us money rather it costs them some of the billions they have made out of us over the years.  The whole thing stinks, carbon is arbitrarily assigned as destruction of the plant, global warming is yet to be proven and we are held to ransome over a few posters or TV ads.  We are all at the mercy of the marketing propaganda (sorry PR) of our nearest, dearest and dubiously greenest - clients. 

Sorry but just being green is so last year. Now it's about the bigger picture of ethics.

Explain?

I don't think green is "last year" by any means.  However, just slapping a recycle logo on your product won't work any more.  Consumers are more savvy so the green message needs to get more sophisticated.  A declaration of carbon footprint and how much it has reduced year on year would definitely put someone ahead of the game at the moment, as long as it is an honest carbon footprint and not a standard EU regs one.  And purveyors of printed products may be surprised at how well they stand up to digital.

Matthew Parker

www.printandprocurement.com 

ME.... I'm doing absolutely nothing, it's one HUGE rip off!

The Becohanger is an environmentally sound outdoor/ambient advertising platform controlled by the media owner Wannabeco.

The Becohanger is a clothes hanger. Printed on in eco friendly ink it is made from recycled paper and card material, it can be recycled further and is biodegradable. It is an alternative to the wire coat hanger given by dry cleaners and laundry firms to their customers (100 million wire hangers are put into landfill each year).

Placed into the hands of the ABC1 consumer, Wannabeco can distribute 2 million Becohangers UK wide within a month through its networks of dry cleaners signed up to the 'Becohanger Scheme'. We can also offer very geographically targeted campaigns i.e. focussing on one town, or an area within a town i.e Canary Wharf, London - 50,000/month, but also target a male or female specific audience.

Ultimately it is an opportunity for advertising clients to market themselves effectively, but also highlight some green credentials.

The purchasing of carbon offsets. We can't help but use power - but what we can do is seek ways to reduce what we produce and purchase offsets for what we need to consume to help balance our effect on the world around us.

For more information on this:  Terra Pass