Green brands are the ones which the customer’s associate with being environmental friendly. This analogy is fast becoming a trend as today’s customers are committed towards Mother Nature and approve only those brands which care for the same. Hence, it’s no harm to say that the demands for environmental friendly
products have forced the brands to develop greener safer products.
This green trend is global, no doubts about that. The database of Mintel reveals that in 2002, only 5 green band products were launched. This rose sharply to reach 328 products in 2007 and the numbers are expected to be sky high next time. Clearly the brands have to adapt to green product strategy to stay competitive. This implies for” Big Brands” as well, and many such brands have revealed their green projects.
- PepsiCo global scenario and strategy 2030 project – Recently PepsiCo identified the ways to ensure its successful operations in decades to come. The main agenda was to go green. One of the main outcomes was to focus on sustainable agriculture. This will ensure less climatic risks and minimize water crisis situations. Hence the basic principle was to minimize the climate risks caused by supply chain and to go green. PepsiCo is also buying renewable energy certificates to offset its carbon footprint.
- IBM project big green – this is a $1 billion initiative to increase energy efficiency. This project is about reducing energy consumption by introducing new energy efficient IT products. The project includes planning, building or upgrading energy efficient data centers, to exploit liquid cooling solutions, to enhance thermal analytics to give better energy estimations; in short the project is to deliver better performance per watt.
- Wal-mart – Wal-mart is trying their bit to go green by adding solar power to more than 20 stores. They also sold energy efficient lights which were tipped as their main reason for big success last year acquiring no.1 spot in fortune 500.
- H J Heinz- the company recently announced light weight, recyclable PET bottles for their Heinz tomato ketchup. Due to this move there has been observed a great rise in demand for PET bottles.
In short a green brand can add a unique selling point and hence can boost the corporate image. Hence one can say that it’s a symbiotic relationship, the go green formula works towards a better environment and the idea works towards the better sale of the brand.
