Tag: Green

Green Banana Marketing Virtually Hangout: Marketing Sustainability

Posted on July 5, 2013 by - Blog, Comms, Fairer Companies

Giles Robertson, Managing Director of Green Banana Marketing and associate Sustainability Practitioner, Kim Bailey, took part in a Google Hangout Session on whether consumers have turned-off from green and how marketing can switch them back on.

Check out the video on our You Tube Channel:

Here are the top 10 tips for marketing sustainability that came out of that conversation:

  1. Create your own unique sustainability journey
  2. Gain leadership from the top for an effective team effort
  3. Drop the jargon, avoid ‘greenwash’, go for absolute clarity
  4. Link-up with those in the know to lessen your environmental impacts.  This can be with NGOs such as the Marine Conservation Society to work on marine projects or sustainability experts to gain the right standards and certifications
  5. Develop credible targets and deliver tangible outcomes
  6. Breakdown your vision into bite-size pieces
  7. Use real people and real projects to tell your success stories
  8. Be bold in your ambitions and actions and let people know about them
  9. Social media is your best friend in creating conversations and motivating your customers, explain on a day-to-day basis how you are doing things and don’t ever tell porkie pies
  10. Celebrate success & reward your customers.  Place the emphasis on personal benefit and show how the greater good has benefited too.

Although the good old marketing strategies of knowing your customer and meeting them where they are in their environmental knowledge still holds good; sustainability marketing requires tangible proof for any claims.  Promises need to be delivered.

Green Banana Marketing Ltd’s associate sustainability practitioner, Kim Bailey, works with companies and charities to ensure that they are as green, smart and fair as they claim to be.

Follow us on Twitter @gogreenbanana.

 

 

 

School’s Green Week & Science week

Posted on April 23, 2013 by - Blog, Education, Greener Marine

I am a big fan of schools that take their Science Week or Green Week seriously. As a Trustee of the Marine Conservation Society, I’ve just been into the excellent Lee Common Church School and spoken to them about the marine environment.


I talked to the whole school (well it is only wee with 48 children from reception to year two) about the challenges facing our seas. We also spoke to a slightly bigger group at The Beacon of 450 boys. I am pleased to say that £800 was donated and Lee Common adopted a turtle through MCS.

They asked great questions and were amazed by the scale of things like the Basking Shark (which grows to an amazing 11 metres in length and yet only eats the smallest of things in the sea). We looked at the effects of pollution – and how one lucky seal had a happy ending, which isn’t always the case. Five out of the seven global turtle species come to the UK shores (including the Leatherback, Green, Loggerhead, Hawksbill and Kemp’s Ridley) and often confuse their favourite tea of jellyfish with plastic carrier bags. We saw how similar plastic bags look to jellyfish and the other problems caused by the massive rise in sea litter.

We looked at the abundant sealife with so many surprises including the Cuckoo Wrasse, which changes from a female to a male, causing quite a stir. And the biggest ever

Leatherback washed up in Wales, at ten times the weight of an adult.

We looked at some of the common things we see on our beaches and how it’s good to know a few of these including the seaweed which looks like Lettuce, as we are never further than 70 miles from the sea.

We also considered what inspires us about nature. And how a passionate interest can turn into a lifelong obsession (or even a career, in many cases).

We discussed the importance of well-managed fisheries. With over 85% of fish stocks at their limits, we looked at the fish which should be avoided. And finally we discussed the role of government in protecting our seas – of which only 0.006% are currently protected. And the Marine Conservation Society, who are pushing government to recognise 127 Marine Protected Zones (which would make up 27% of our seas). But this mean old government is only considering 40 of the zones.

I hope our school Science Week and Green Week children go on to be more inspired future leaders and do a better job of protecting our seas.