Kermit was right. It’s not easy being green. 
And, it’s not always easy to justify or translate a lot of what we do to the success of our clients/company.
It’s like trying to prove that CSR can be profitable, or at least worth the effort.
Businesses are in business to make a profit. Not to save the environment or help mankind or just receive positive editorial coverage.
I don’t get too many magazines (personally; I get a lot professionally), but do get “FORTUNE”. The Aug. 7 issue has a nice piece on the “green” efforts of Wal-Mart. I took two things away from that article.
One, is that Wal-Mart is listening to its critics and changing some aspects of its business to improve its image (like changing employees’ health care plans and helping local, small businesses).
The main thing, though is that, it’ll be “green” — as long as being green contributes to Wal-Mart’s bottomline:
On its fleet of 7,200 trucks Wal-Mart determined it could save $26 million a year in fuel costs merely by installing auxiliary power units that enable the drivers to keep their cabs warm or cool during mandatory ten-hour breaks from the road. Before that, they’d let the truck engine idle all night, wasting fuel.
Yet another example: Wal-Mart installed machines called sandwich balers in its stores to recycle and sell plastic that it used to throw away. Companywide, the balers have added $28 million to the bottom line.
“Think about it,” Scott said in his big speech to employees last fall. “If we throw it away, we had to buy it first. So we pay twice - once to get it, once to have it taken away. What if we reverse that? What if our suppliers send us less, and everything they send us has value as a recycled product? No waste, and we get paid instead.”
But, business is business:
Steve Reinemund, PepsiCo’s CEO, just sold Wal-Mart on a massive recycling contest involving Aquafina water.
Wait a minute. Recycling’s great. But why consume Aquafina in the first place? Bottled water is bad for the environment, period. But neither PepsiCo nor Wal-Mart will stop selling it as long as consumers want to buy it. This is one place where tensions arise between what’s good for business and what’s good for the planet.
Anything and everything a business does must contribute to its success — either directly in dollars and cents, or indirectly in its image.
Blogging is another example. The time, effort and price of a corporate blog must be demonstrated to be worth it.
That’s nothing new to those of us in public and media relations. Relating how editorial — and/or blog — exposure relates to a clients/company’s success is not easy. There are various ways to show a successful media relations program, for example. But, how do we show how it’s impacted the bottomline? There’s not one easy, quantifiable way to do so that most can agree on.
But, we should keep trying, pounding away, educating clients. Kermit kept at it, and look what he discovered:
– Mike
Technorati tags: Wal-Mart, green, business, marketing, public relations, PR, CSR
