Are you really green or just paying lip service? Robert Craven takes issue with the ‘greenwash’ brigade

This month I will play the devil’s advocate (so please, no hate mail!). It’s time to spill the beans about what many MDs of growing businesses really think about the whole green thing.

So, hands up those of you who care about global warming! Well, most of you are liars – it’s as simple as that. Admit it, you still drive and fly – you love your car and you love your foreign holidays. Where are your solar panels, your environmentally friendly cleaning products? You’d be the first to complain if your favourite restaurant or hotel gave you anything other than crisp white linen. All that you (and your liberal-minded colleagues) really do is just talk about global warming.

PLAYING THE GAME

The managing director of a cleaning service to some of London’s top hotels and restaurants recently admitted to me that he’d just spent some £50,000 on a green audit to measure his carbon footprint. And next year he will have to be seen to do the same and yet he felt that there is little he can do to reduce his footprint without killing the £10m business. But he has to be seen to be playing the game.

Behind closed doors, most MDs that I talk to admit that they simply pay lip service to the whole green thing – but who would stand up and shout it from the rooftops? Very few have the bottle, or rather the business sense, to say they don’t think all things green are a good thing.

CONFUSION

To understand what’s going on I’ll paraphrase an article in last July’s Brandweek: Consumers are increasingly confused over what it means to be ‘green’ – is it about the environment, organic food or ‘good-for-you’ living? It could be about all or any of these things as it’s easy to say your business is environmentally friendly. But consumers are becoming sceptical.

Everywhere we look we see our suppliers and customers screaming their green credentials at us. Everyone wants to jump on this latest bandwagon – green is more than the new black, it is more like a fundamentalist religion – you dare not be seen to challenge the ideology. Well, maybe I am exaggerating to make a point but do you remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes…?

What is not in doubt is that all of a sudden it is noisy in the whole green arena, and it is hard to break through. Focusing on running a greener business will make you stand out and give you bottom-line benefits: happier, more motivated staff and customers, improved brand image, overheads, and tax savings. How can you not want these?

SOME QUESTIONS YOU SHOULD BE ASKING YOURSELF (with my answers in brackets)

■ Do you know what being green really means for a business like yours? [Not really]. Does anyone else? [Not really]

■ Will having ‘green’ credentials improve your business? [Almost certainly but it depends on how you are defining ‘your business’]

■ Is the ‘green’ thing just a cynical marketing ploy to get customers on your side? Isn't it all just ‘greenwashing’? [Often]

■ How can you square multinationals like Nestlé, BP and Shell claiming to be green when clearly many of their activities appear to run in the face of the ethos of the ‘green’ movement? [I can’t]

■ Can you afford not to be green? [No]