Is London Calling a carbon neutral company? No, well not yet, and this is why.
My latest article for the Journal of Arts Marketing talks about the thorny issue of carbon-offsetting and its potential for the (unwitting or otherwise) greenwashing of your company’s marketing mix.
I’d dearly love for London Calling to be a genuinely carbon neutral company, but the simple fact for us is that offsetting our carbon emissions is being viewed as the last resort rather than first or only step on the road to becoming a truly sustainable company. Our prime aim right now is to work to actively reduce the levels of our actual carbon emissions, especially out on the road, and you can find out more about our progress on this and other sustainable initiatives here.
Meanwhile here’s the full article from July’s issue of JAM.
Ready – Steady – Greenwash
So, I originally had a whole series of these articles planned out, but fortunately for me, and my impending copy-deadline, I’ve just lucked out and found the ultimate easy option for greening up your image in an instant.
It basically works like this: Hop online, run some easy numbers through one of the many handy carbon calculator websites you’ll find there, then simply hold aloft your magic credit card, loudly exclaim By The Power of Greenwash then just sit back and wait.
Sooner or later the same nice website will award you a badge or something. Just pop this on to your website, brochure, headed paper etc etc and you’re off. Hey presto, instant official Carbon Neutrality. Well done you.
In a nutshell this and various similar tactics are what people mean when they talk about Greenwashing.
I need to be clear here and say I’ve got nothing against the majority of carbon calculator websites, just the companies who look to them for a cheap and easy out. We recently stumbled across one website that suggested we could offset a whole year of our carbon output for around a thousand pounds. Cheap sure, but on this occasion perhaps reassuringly expensive really is worth more.
On the plus side these sites are a great awareness resource and I’ve frequently used them myself to contribute some kind of meaningful charitable compensation for all the glamorous business travel I seem to do these days – and since it’s my own cash I tend to select my own favoured charities as well, which is why I’m now the proud adopter of some snow leopards and a great white shark amongst other things. Lucky me.
My real problem is with the illusion of sustainability this type of activity can create, both inside a company and for your customers or audiences.
A company doesn’t necessarily have to be actively unscrupulous to fall into this trap, but it can be all too easy to punch in your pin number and simply offset the issue into that mental territory known as someone else’s problem.
To quote from John Grant’s excellent book The Green Marketing Manifesto, “The biggest misconception about green marketing is that it is about making companies look green (my italics).”
In other words, it’s broadly okay to offset your carbon output. It’s even okay to wear the badge and tell people about it. The real trick is in acknowledging that isn’t the end of the journey and you also need to go that extra mile to reduce your actual carbon emissions. Only when you’ve ticked all those boxes of what’s meaningfully achievable should you go looking to offset the shortfall.
My advice is don’t focus on this almost inevitable shortfall as an embarrassing company problem you’d rather wash and spin away, but rather use this as a spur to think about all the creative ways you might start bridging the gap.
Full disclosure: This article was written as a paid for advertorial as part of our ongoing sponsorship of JAM. As sponsor London Calling is responsible for the print production of the journal, and ensures that it is printed to the highest possible standards of sustainability by our print partners Greenhouse Print. This mutually beneficial arrangement allows us the opportunity to regularly raise and discuss green issues within the wider arts marketing community and to highlight examples of best practise that can benefit everyone.
