Trillions and trillions of environment

Okey senores y senoras!

First of all, put this song on when you read the rest. The guy is one of my idols (Morgan Spurlock is another)...

There was a sneak-peek at some of the numbers from an upcoming study on the ”hidden” environmental costs of some major international companies. The number that made the Guardian among others, was that the estimated environmental costs of the 3000 biggest firms in the world was USD 2.2 trillion! A number that sounds huge but really means nothing to most of us, so they put it in perspective: It corresponds to 6-7% of their combined turn-over and one third of their profits. It is also a figure bigger than the national economies of all but seven countries in the world this year (which also says A LOT about how companies are overtaking nations economies…).

The study was ordered by the UN environmental programme and carried out by London-based Trucost. Naturally, this is a way to get politicians to go – Huh! If that’s correct then maybe we better enforce these costs on those very companies eh? Otherwise they are just getting away with robbery in a way … Yep, at least that’s the way I see it…

The New Scientist made additional use of the study by comparing the environmental score of some of these companies with a study made by US-based Earthsense, on how green these companies where perceived to be by the actual consumers (yes that’s you and meJ).

So, do you think the green performers where also those percieved to be green by the consumers? No such luck, green corporates… it rather looks on the graph like some companies took an environmental performance enhancement drug and pumped up their percieved ”greeness” right before the study was made.

Unfair…? Well, it’s called marketing and I think it can be unfair if companies are allowed to state things that are a bit hazy and in many cases just plain wrong (and in green marketing that is often the case I would say). In any case it is very real and also a call to put policy in place that incorporate the environment better into pricing – since even if (and that’s a big if) purchasing behavior was enacted according to consumers environmental perception of companies it would still not be right!

AND it shows the power of communication, since it is not what you do, it is what people notice that you do that tends to matter… so marketing-skilled people need to get involved in the environmental work of the company in a very pro-active way, but I guess that’s not exactly news…