Green Marketing, no green washing, align your business!

Yesterday I saw and add on telly for Mout Cider. The add simply highlighted three things: A fully recyclable glass bottle, a cider that is vegan, and that the company are allied to the World Wildlife Fund that protects endangered species.  I was sitting on the couch and I instantly thought “Well that is a nice cider”, the add did not speak about it’s taste, or how refreshing it might be, or what fruit is made with, but the three things they highlighted, are three things I felt aligned too instantly.

Align your business values to your customer values

In a world where society is changing and demanding for companies to change their own mind-sets, a huge opportunity lies for those that are whiling to make that change, to highlight what is seen now as a positive effort towards climate change and protection of the planet.

The add resonated so much with me that this morning I had to get up and find this cider’s website. Unfortunately, the same message does not carry to their website, but I did read the story of how the company was born and they do have a good story, so kudos to them.

The danger with promotions like this, is to be accused of Green Washing, a term that has been used more and more over the past few years. It refers to those that “pretend” to be Green purely for marketing and PR reasons.

For you hospitality owners, yes it is worth it to align yourself to what your customers think and feel, it is important that your business moves with the way society is moving, and being Green is not just a trend, I suspect it is here to stay. Look at the next generation of customers, the children of today, that are protesting against Climate Change every Friday. I met a hotel manager last week and he told me his daughters gets furious if she sees plastic in their house. Another follower sent me a message about the #SaucyChallenge saying her son now refuses to use individually wrapped sauces when eating out. How do you think those children will react to your business when they become your paying customers in a few years from now?

Doing nothing is not an option anymore.

We all need to re look at the way our business use resources like energy, water and production of waste, and we all need to start taking the first steps towards a greener industry.

The curve always seems too steep to climb when you are looking at it from the starting point, the bottom of the mountain. But everything seems easier if you only concentrate on the next 10 metres, breaking the journey into small, do-able steps. Having a long term goal and an action plan to get there is the first step. Define how you want your business to be positioned in the next 3 years, what are you going to tackle first? Your waste production? Abolishing single use plastics? Energy reduction? The choice is yours. Pick one thing and do that very well, then  move on to the next one. That is how you will successfully green your business, and when you have achieved 2 or 3 milestones, shout it from the rooftops! Tell your customers, tell the press, tell the world. Don’t be afraid to say you are only at the start of the journey “Here is what I have done, and here is what we are aiming to do”. There is no shame on admitting we are not perfect, that your business is not perfect. What it means is that you are aware of it, and you have a plan to improve.

Hospitality Managers

So there is one thing I would like to leave you with: Look at your business, do you have control of your utilities? And if not, can you take control? Pick one thing, whatever that might be: food waste, landfill, water use, plastics…And make it better, start your Green Journey today, as my Grandpa used to say “don’t leave for tomorrow those things you can do today”.

Download the 10 principles to Food Waste Reduction HERE

Or if you want to start greening your business, check out my Online Training courses HERE

Until next week

Raquel