I Feel Environmentalism is an Opportunity

“Is environmentalism more of an opportunity or threat for marketers?” I thought having to pick one side or another, at first, was going to be difficult. I could see pro’s and con’s with both sides of the argument but wasn’t a 100% sure on what I felt. So I toyed around with the idea for a little while before I came to my final conclusion: it is an opportunity for marketers.

I feel that it can pose both as threat and as an opportunity, but I feel the pro’s of environmentalism outweigh the con’s. I see it as an opportunity because if you can come out with something environmentally-friendly then that forces the rest of the competition to catch up. Look at Toyota, Ford and Honda for example, they came out with eco-friendly vehicles/hybrids and that immediately forced other car companies to come up with a similar model. Lexus and Range Rover, high end car companies, even decided it would be in their best interest to make an eco-friendly vehicle to target that specific market. Sport Utility Vehicle (SUVs) sales started to drop right away; even though Ford makes Expeditions, they also make a Hybrid version of the Escape-I guess they saw the light. By developing these kinds of vehicles, they created an advantage-even though it was relatively brief-over the market. These cars were taken seriously when gas prices went through the roof; we all remember paying over $4 for a gallon of gas AND I’m sure a good amount of us at that time wished we had a hybrid instead of a gas guzzler. Those were HUGE opportunities to seize, and as far as I’m concerned, those examples definitely outweighed the negative aspects.

The pro’s of having an environmentally friendly vehicle does not stop at decreasing the amount you pay for gas; they also cut down on greenhouse gases put back into the atmosphere. Almost everyone has heard some sort of report on the harmful effects of greenhouse gases and the pollutants in the air we breathe. Car companies took into account this information while designing these vehicles to be eco-friendly. Who wants to breathe in pollutants? Realizing this, car companies saw an opportunity and seized it-at least I’m assuming. Although these are just a few examples, I see all of this information as relevant; I took into account all of this in making my decision.

Other examples are organic foods to cut down on processing, paper companies who are using recycled materials instead of cutting down more trees, special plants for recycling batteries and etc., etc… Dell and Hewlett Packard have social and environmental responsibilities built in their mission statements to help do their part in maintaining the environment. They use more recycled materials in making their laptops, they recycle old computers for free, and they use more recycled materials in packaging and shipping to cut down on processing. All of these things are basic examples of companies doing their part in helping out the environment. They all saw some sort of opportunity and decided to run with it. So after that long winded explanation ( I know it feels more like a paper than a blog post, but c’mon now it’s my process ), how do you feel? How do you see environmentalism? Are there more con’s than pro’s?