Sustainability Reporting on a Global Scale
Posted: August 29, 2011 Filed under: Copywriting & Creative | Tags: Buckman, business writing, green marketing, GRI, sustainability Leave a comment »
Here is Buckman’s new sustainability report which adheres to the strict guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative. Just one of many sustainability projects I have written over the past few years. When companies use the same global standards of reporting, it is much easier to see just how good they are at being corporate citizens. Here are a few pages. For the entire 48-page report (bless your heart), just click on the cover shot above.
Naming your shade of green
Posted: April 8, 2010 Filed under: Copywriting & Creative, writing | Tags: Advertising, advertising strategy, business writing, Copywriting & Creative, creative, green marketing, marketing, sustainability, writing Leave a comment »
When a person is born, the first thing we do is give her a name. A name formalizes the baby’s existence, gives us an easy way to make reference to her and provides a gateway to understanding and communication. Proper names are often given to inanimate objects, as well. It’s a way of humanizing them and making them seem more “knowable.” Give your third-quarter sales initiative a name, and people know you mean business. Suddenly, everyone has a name to rally around, a cause to champion, an identity to share.
The name of the game lately has been sustainability. Companies have been establishing their green initiatives and then formalizing them with a name or at least a theme.
That means some good, yet challenging, work for writers like me. Here are three such projects for high-profile companies.
1.
The first one is is for FedExCup and their effort to bring more sustainability to the game of golf, which by its very nature (or lack of it) isn’t particularly eco-friendly. Basically a golf course is a vast monoculture of grass and a lot of fertilizer. However, through this program, FedEx is working with an organization called The First Tee whose mission is to “impact the lives of young people by providing learning facilities and educational programs that promote character development and life-enhancing values through the game of golf.” It’s a noble goal. Even if a golf course can’t necessarily create a full-fledged sustainable ecosystem, it can help sustain something at least as valuable. Successful children. So how do you combine golf and the future in a name? Like this.
FedExCup Fore!Ever
2.
This next one is for the chemistry company Buckman. It is, no doubt, a challenge for a chemical company to go green. But Buckman is doing a lot to reduce its own environmental footprint and to help their clients do the same, reducing energy usage, water usage and waste in a variety of industries through advanced technologies. Buckman’s corporate color has always been green, so the name and theme for their sustainability initiative was a natural. Here’s the cover line and first page of copy from their just-published Sustainability Report.
3.
This last one is for International Paper. They just released a whole website based on this idea to showcase their sustainability efforts. Three of the sections there were written by yours truly: Carbon Footprint, Paper Sourcing and Recycled Paper.
There’s nothing unique or proprietary about “Down to Earth”. But it fits the general objective well, which is to provide straight talk on environmental issues and set straight some commonly held myths about pulp and paper. As I have said before, finding a unique name for your green campaign gets increasingly hard as more and more companies stake their claims. Better hurry.
Going crazy over going verdant
Posted: December 2, 2009 Filed under: Copywriting & Creative, Ethics, Vocabulary | Tags: Advertising, Copywriting & Creative, environmental writing, green marketing, sustainability 2 Comments »If you ever listen to NPR, no doubt you hear how the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is “committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.” That word “verdant” always makes me smile. Why? Because every company on the planet is talking about sustainability and going green. Believe me, I know. I’m writing environmental statements, composing sustainability reports, and naming green initiatives on a regular basis. Everyone is talking about it, and yet we are all looking for ways to communicate our sustainability in some original fashion. It seems everyone is looking for their own shade of green.
Unfortunately, that isn’t sustainable. I mean, we’ve already run out of words, haven’t we? Take your pick: sustainability, green, eco-this or environmental-that. Oh, and verdant. It’s like somebody at the MacArthur Foundation said, “whatever you do, don’t use the word GREEN!”
Recently I wrote a sustainability brochure for a major corporation. We wanted to talk about sustainability in three contexts: environmental stewardship, financial accountability and social responsibility. So I came up with this snappy idea: People, Prosperity, Planet. Nice, huh? My client thought so. In fact, she wanted to turn it into the name of their program. Just one problem. Well, perhaps a half-dozen problems. My client Googled it and found those three words strung together all over the internet, sometimes in that exact order. In fact, one company had the nerve to trademark it.
So, my advice is this. Spend less time avoiding the word “green” and more time finding the real truth in your sustainability messaging. You are probably not “saving the planet.” So it isn’t wise to exaggerate. Don’t greenwash. Make sure your sustainability message is believable (because what you are saying is true) and substantial enough to be notable. Whether you think global warming is a hoax or a threat, it’s best to err on the side of environmental responsibility from a marketing standpoint, so don’t be afraid to address the needs of our environment in constructive ways. You may not be Al Gore green, but you can at least muster up a good chartreuse. And remember, it’s not so much what you are doing to ensure a sustainable future that’s important. It’s what you can help your clients do that resonates most.
