Gone are the days when a corporation could sum up its entire environmental message with the words, "We recycle." These days investors and consumers demand substantive
environmental communications. At the same time, the tools of 'green' PR have changed, with corporations relying more than ever on the Web to disseminate their increasingly rich
and complex environmental information.
Take for instance the Eastman Kodak Company. Corporate Media Relations Manager James Blamphin says that with today's level of consumer savvy on environmental issues, there is
no tolerance for whitewash. "We don't issue a news release every time we reduce an emission or achieve a better-than-required result. We don't pat ourselves on the back for doing
what the public expects us to do," he says. Rather, Blamphin focuses on producing substantive information about the company's long-term commitment to preserving the
environment.
"When we are out of compliance [on environmental issues] we get fined, and we publish all those fines," he says. "When we have problems with our operations, we raise the issue
first. We break the news in our newsletter first, before people read it in the newspaper. We do not want our neighbors to be surprised. So we call the neighborhood association
presidents day and night when the need arises, just to make sure that they are on board."
That kind of total disclosure is vital in green PR today, according to Jacquelyn Ottman, author of the book Green Marketing.
"The operative word now is 'transparency.' You have to just let the information be known," she says. "That means putting out environmental annual reports. It means subscribing
to the Global Reporting Initiatives, through which major companies like Kodak and IBM have developed standards for reporting these things. You need transparency for credibility.
You need to be seen as being completely forthcoming about giving out this information."
Winning Credibility
Transparency alone is not enough to ensure that one's environmental message will be well-received, however. If a firm is transparently doing nothing in regard to the
environment, it's headed for trouble.
"You have to be able to tie [the message] to real action," says Mack Bradley, VP of The Vandiver Group, a St. Louis, Mo.-based PR firm. "Maybe 20 years ago it was enough to
say, 'We are committed to the environment,' because not everybody was saying that. Today everybody says that. Now they want to know: What are you actually doing to protect the
environment? And so you need to be able to talk with some degree of specificity about what you are really doing."
When it comes to green issues, interested consumers and investors are not likely to take corporate America at its word. Third-party credibility is vital.
"You want to build a constituency before you go out to the general public, so you have some individuals who will support you - and I don't mean chamber-of-commerce types," says
Honey Rand, president of the Tampa, Fla. enviro-centric PR firm, Communications Solutions.
"Typically communities have activists who have a high profile and who also have a reputation for being more mainstream and less confrontational. These might be local chapters
of the Audubon Society or the Sierra Club. You want to have them in your camp," she says.
Rand handled a case in which a client's project met with local resistance. Because the project had the support of the Sierra Club, Rand was able to persuade local reporters to
label opponents "an activist group," rather than calling them "an environmental group."
To the Web
In order to supply the depth and breadth of environmental information demanded by stakeholders, many corporations have begun putting out an "environmental annual report." In
recent years, though, such reports have by and large molted their printed skins and emerged anew in the virtual world.
At 3M Corp., for instance, "We would print a lot of copies [of the environmental annual report], and we would send it out, not knowing whether we were reaching the people who
wanted to see it," explains Rick Renner, manager of environmental communications. "The Web allows us to put out this information so that the people who want to see it can see
it."
Those interested in environmental issues "are relying less on new stories and demanding more direct information," Renner continues. "They want to get in and look at the hard
numbers. So we now have a Web site that includes extensive environmental health and safety information - and in fact this year we are upgrading it to become a 'sustainability'
site that would include social information as well."
Toward 'Sustainability'
In his effort to create a 'sustainability' Web site, Renner stands at the vanguard of what many believe will be the next evolution of environmental communications.
Increasingly, the environmental message is being wrapped up within the context of a broader message that embraces community service, social philosophies and other aspects that may
be seen to represent a company's perceptions of itself as a corporate citizen.
As the messages become broader, so must the media used to deliver them. "You have to put it in your routine communications: your speaker's bureau, your annual reports," says
Rand. "Then, any time you do something new, you put out a press release about that thing and you also talk about earlier things you have done, so there is that sense of an ongoing
context. You also communicate these things continually to your employees."
As firms move toward such sustainability messaging, "the concepts are much more difficult to sum up," says Renner. "Reducing emissions is a lot easier to talk about than are
the larger issues of sustainability, where we have to talk about issues of long-term direction, rather than just day-to-day environmental matters. Instead of just talking about
the way we make our products, we also have to talk about the way our products are used and disposed of."
(Contacts: Jacquelyn Ottman, 212/255-3800, [email protected]; Rick Renner, 651/733-1135, [email protected]; Mack A. Bradley, 314/991-4641, [email protected]; Honey Rand,
813/908-5444, [email protected]; James E. Blamphin, 716/724-5036, [email protected])
Why Go Green?
Consumer and investor interest in a company's environmental record remains high, according to Jacquelyn Ottman, author of the book "Green Marketing."
- Today, one out of every eight investment dollars is screened for social or environmental factors, she notes.
- On the consumer side, behaviors are changing from avoidance to advocacy. In 1990, some 17 percent of consumers said they avoided firms that were not environmentally
responsible. By 2000 that figure had dropped to 11 percent. At the same time, the percentage of consumers who say they actively seek out firms with good environmental track
records has grown from 6 percent in 1990 to 11 percent a decade later.
The good news for corporate PR professionals, says Ottman, is that perception is very much within their control. "Consumers can't tell if a product is really 'green' or not, so
they defer to the corporate image, and then incorporate their perception of the company's greenness into their product decisions," she says. "They are deferring to the corporate
track record in place of knowing the specific details of a product, and they are rewarding these companies when they hear that they are doing good things."