Green or not? Marks and Sparks

  If you’ve been to M&S Simply Food lately, you might have noticed that M&S are trying to be greener – the fruit and veg trays are made of recyclable materials, and there are dozens of ‘do you need a plastic bag’ shelf wobblers. 

However when I bought my lunch today, I noticed that the bananas were wrapped in a plastic bag and the Store Manager gave me a carrier bag at the till even though I only had one item. Surely they should try to challenge us a little more? In France, it is practically impossible to find a carrier bag these days… 

Saying green but not quite doing green me thinks!

Green or not? I am not a plastic bag

Eco-friendly used to be a byword for dull and worthy, but now it‘s officially fashionable, darling.

The product spearheading the trend is a bag made from unbleached cotton, which cost £5 at selected Sainsbury‘s stores and sold out within an hour of going on sale on Wednesday morning.

It might not sound A-list, but the bag emblazoned with “I am not a plastic bag” has been designed by the “queen of bagland” Anya Hindmarch. The aim is simple, to encourage people not to use plastic carrier bags. But how ethical is this bag?

I saw a well-dressed, fashionable woman walking in South Kensington the other day carrying a Anya Hindmarch ‘I am not a plastic bag’, you know, that same bag that got thousand of Sainsbury’s customers queuing from 3am at the beginning of May. That same woman was also carrying a couple of plastic bags whilst the Hindmarch bag was almost empty.

Observing this behaviour makes me worry that in becoming so mainstream ‘green’ becomes just another temporary and rather meaningless fashion statement with people saying but not really behaving ‘green’.

The launch of the bag appeared to have been successful in terms of media (except perhaps with the question production in China) and yet, if Hindmarch and Sainbury’s had wanted to challenge our behaviour, shouldn’t the bag have been produced for all of Sainsbury’s millions of customers?

One more thing… if consumers are so preoccupied with the environment, why are they selling their bags on ebay?

How green is your marketing?

 More and more so called ‘green’ products seem to have swamped the market lately, so I decided to start a series of posts about green marketing, looking at companies’ green strategies.

Green marketing is the marketing of products that are presumed to be environmentally safe, thus green marketing incorporates a broad range of activities, including product modification, changes to the production process, packaging changes, as well as modifying advertising.

Climate change is relevant for marketers because it can spearhead brand innovation and generate differentiation. It is relevant because consumers think it should be. Even if you don‘t want to worry about how climate change is relevant to your brand, most brands now have to. Brands are recognising that proactively investigating and investing in this issue can create opportunities in brand reputation, differentiation and new product development.

The question is, how green is their marketing?

Walkers go green

Crisps giant Walkers has become the first major food brand to display a carbon footprint and reduction logo on its packaging. Each bag of the crisps creates 75 grams of carbon dioxide, according to Walkers and the carbon trust.

• 44% of the emissions come from the farming phase of the process
• Making the crisps at the factory releases another 30% of the emissions
• Packaging is responsible of 15% of the emissions
• Transportation to shops creates 9%
• Disposal generates the final 2%

Better late than never… My advice is to keep packaging simple:

• Less packaging is more
• Primary colours are easier to print and therefore create less carbon emissions
• Try to use recyclable materials
• Use less plastic