Green Building Products Marketing Roadmap Building and construction markets are ripe with innovative, cost-saving Green products. But many companies still haven't branded these products Green or identified them as part of a broader corporate identity strategy. Why?
Short-term thinking is partly to blame. Of the total expenditures an owner will make over the span of a building's lifetime, first costs account for just 5 to 10 percent.12 Yet decision-makers rarely use life-cycle cost analysis to account for reduced operating expenses or enhanced labor productivity and well-being. This bias even extends into the federal sector, where life-cycle costing is required. Adding to the problem are image and perception characteristics of Green products; environmentally preferable technologies sometimes look or perform differently and are perceived as less effective than their more traditional counterparts.
Despite all this, market demand for Green buildings grows stronger each day. In 1999, no common definition existed for a "high-performance Green building," and only a handful of buildings nationally exhibited such features. As of 2003, more than 600 private and public buildings, comprising 86 million square feet, have registered for LEED certification. In a nine-month period alone, membership in the U.S. Green Building Council has jumped from 1,500 to more than 2,600 companies and organizations. Clearly, rapid changes are underway.
Marketers now face the challenge of positioning their products, people and corporate identities to capitalize on Green in ways that best fit their specific needs. What to do? Where to start? Consider some strategies and tactics below as guideposts along this journey.
1. Understand Market Expectations About Green. Do your homework. Speak with professionals who specify products. Talk to your customers. Understand the full range of environmental, economic, political and social issues that affect them. Learn from those who matter most to you what matters most to them and to what extent Green factors into their decision-making process.
2. Identify Areas of Green In Your Company. Take stock of your business - your products, processes, services and culture. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What is your product category, and what Green or sustainable benefits are appropriate for it? For example, biodegradability may be an attractive feature for one product, but not another.
- Where are your products being used? What is considered highly Green in one part of the country may not be in another. For example, reusable products may be more preferable in areas where landfill space is at a premium, while biodegradable products are a better choice in areas that allow composting.
- How will your product be used? Some products require more energy during their manufacture than they save in an end-use application. Understand the nuances, and act accordingly.
- Do alternative technologies undermine any Green claims you may make regarding your company's products? While recycled stationary and envelopes offer many Green benefits, for example, they are generally less Green-friendly than e-mail.13
- To what extent do you and your company want to embrace Green? Companies can realize many benefits of Green at different levels, from promoting one product to positioning Green products and programs as part of a corporate policy of environmental excellence. Determine management's overall support and commitment and understand what, if any, sustainability goals currently exist.
3. Devise a Strategy and Establish Tactics to Achieve Your Specific Goals. Question your own assumptions, understand your customers and their key drivers, and align your approach with their values. Make Green products and positioning relevant to your customers as described in "Understanding Why Green Products Are Specified."
4. Get Certified, Get Specified. Success often rides on the quality of the standards to which products adhere. LEED Certification applies only to building projects, not materials, products or services. However, certifiers of Green product claims include Scientific Certification Systems, Greenguard Environmental Institute and Green Seal.
Additionally, there are catalogs of Green products that simplify the process for users. "Green Spec" may be the most respected among them. BuildingGreen Inc., which publishes the catalog, relies on several well-established Green criteria.
Also available is a free software program from the federal government, Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) that measures the environmental performance of building products by using the life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach specified in the International Organization for Standardization's ISO-14000 standards. Economic performance also is measured to develop an overall performance measure.
See "Appendix" for additional resources.
5. Communicate Your Product's Point of Difference. Conventional marketing articulates the benefits of products that were developed to meet basic consumer needs. Green marketing is more complex. To be effective, it must succeed in balancing claims of quality, performance, affordable pricing and convenience with environmental compatibility. It should also project a consistent image that relates both to the product and its parent company's environmental commitment.
Green marketing works best when sustainable product attributes are obvious, legitimate, and meaningful to diverse audiences and can be clearly and simply communicated.
As a product marketer, you should establish channels with architects, engineers, contractors, building owners and even end-use consumers to help them understand the environmental and financial benefits of your technology, materials and designs.
6. Establish and Maintain Credibility For Your Marketing Efforts. Never overstate a product's Green attributes or generalize its significance. Also, consider the environmental impact of your marketing methods. For example, sending a national direct mailing promoting the Green benefits of your product is fine, but doing so on non-recyclable paper puts the credibility of your claim at risk. Consider channels that utilize recycled paper, soybean inks, or better yet, send your message electronically. Some companies rely solely on "virtual" press releases and environmental reports. Misrepresenting a Green product will always do more harm than good to your organization. People who specify and consume Green products expect and demand accurate representations.
7. Allow Green to Permeate Communication Channels. Promote your message - use Green to your advantage in any medium you choose, so long as your claims are legitimate and verifiable. Communicate your corporate commitment and project your values where and when you feel it's appropriate.
8. Enable Sustainability Over Time. Don't quit. Continuously strive for "zero" environmental impact of your products and processes; learn from your mistakes. Green is a moving target; attitudes and regulations change constantly. Addressing environmental issues on a continuous basis will enable you to anticipate consumer shifts, better control your marketing resources, and leap-frog the competition when market opportunities appear.
Conclusion
Some companies will embrace Green out of sheer good will. Most, however, will heed growing consumer demand for Green products and recognize the bottom-line savings they offer at the outset of a project - and especially over time. Acting through pure altruism is admirable. But there is no moral ground to be lost in leveraging Green to boost sales and revenues. Simply put, Green benefits everyone. Some companies can retool their products and processes to cut energy costs, improve manufacturing during production and enable end users to reduce operating expenses long after those products are installed. Others companies may champion facility-wide conservation tactics that stem the need for additional landfill space and position them as good corporate stewards. While Green progress can be measured on many levels, one thing is certain: Those that strategically promote Green stand a good chance of capturing fertile market share at the dawn of a new Green age.