Business

Wednesday May 27, 2009

Seeing green – a bold step forward


Comment by Sharmila Sethu

GREEN consumerism is all about creating a balance between consumers’ expectations and the businesses’ profit motives, all within the ambit of environmental protection and renewal.

It is important to look at the entire life cycle of a consumer’s purchases because a consumer does not just buy “a” product but also everything that went into its production and everything that will happen in the future as a result of that product. All products have an environmental impact, however minimal.

The environmentalist will argue that the environment is being endangered by the actions of corporations and their profit motives. Let’s take plastic bags as a case in point.

Plastic bags have now invaded most parts of Earth. But the plastic bag has its benefits as Malaysians are well aware.

It is sturdy, durable and lightweight, water resistant and don’t forget the cost qualities that we find so endearing. But it causes a pollution problem. The biggest problem is that it is not bio-degradable. It takes time to degrade from hundreds to one million years.

This is in comparison to organic waste which takes one to two weeks, paper from 10-30 days; cotton from two to five months, wood from 10-15 years and metal up to 500 years.

That is scary and society is now more aware of the clogging gutters and sewerage and drains.

This was the problem in Dhaka, where a bad flood was traced back to clogged gutters and this led to a ban on the plastic bought there.

Green consumerism as a business concept started as early as 1987 when The Body Shop won the Company of the Year – Business Enterprise award.

The then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared herself green. This was the time green consumerism was beginning to generate global awareness. However, green has not caught on among mainstream Malaysians yet. Why has this not happened?

Do we think of Mother Earth every time we shop?

Look at the example of the plastic bags – understanding how they clog gutters and the environmental impact of something as simple as paper versus plastic shopping bags requires an amount of research in science which may also sometimes prove inconclusive and contradictory.

Of course the safest is the use of a reusable organic cotton bag and this idea is rarely considered at the end of a checkout line.

Most people lack a sense of dimension. They do not have any understanding of the environmental impact on what they do every day.

For instance, would you as a green consumer get into your car, drive through the infamous bumper to bumper traffic to purchase recyclable paper towels or the right laundry detergent?

Consumers are not willing to make a drastic change when it comes to their purchase choices.

Let’s say two products are identical, but one is environmentally friendly; consumers will make a choice of the “greener” product.

So if you pose a green versus ungreen product it may be obvious that consumers will prefer a greener choice.

The biggest task at hand as a nation is a move from a wasteful, polluting economy to a sustainable one. Consider the following: since 1995 we have produced more greenhouse gases than in the entire course of human history.

The year 2005 was recorded as the warmest and CO2 has risen 30% since the Industrial Revolution.

So what do consumers look out for? Where do we learn our lessons from? The Prius was named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year in 2004.

Initially, the buzz over the Prius got a boost at the 2003 Academy Awards when celebrities such as Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams abandoned stretch limousines and oversized sport utility vehicles, arriving in Priuses to symbolise support for the environment.

For the average Malaysian it is disputable whether or not additional cost for the hybrid technology is worth the money saved in gas expenditure.

The car costs much more than the average Toyota Sedan to begin with. Then there is an additional expenditure when the battery wears out. The battery’s warranty comes to an end after one hundred thousand miles.

Somehow the green message may not come across to the average consumer here.

In the early 1960s, a Harvard Professor, Theodore Levitt, coined the term “marketing myopia”.

It meant firm’s approach which being inward looking and short sighted; the focus was on products and not consumer needs, the result of which was a lot of products with amazing features nobody bought.

In 1994, there was an effort made by Philips to launch a super-efficient compact fluorescent designed to be environmentally more preferable then the normal bulb.

But the design had a clumsy shape and it was incompatible with most conventional bulbs and the result of a consumer survey showed that it was not popular.

Philips then re-introduced the bulb with a new design which looked at the versatility and the promise of energy savings.

This immediately increased sales growth by 12% for a mature product market. Now this is a valuable lesson for the green marketer.

  • Sharmila Sethu is an associate professor and academic leader for the Business School at the University College of Technology and Innovation.

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