Alice

Going green is mostly about being efficient in what you do, and minimising wastage. It arises from a poignant focus, an understanding of the environment you work in, how your customer base works and thinks, and transforming your business attitude to accommodate this.

Start with creating a sustainable report on your company’s green activities each year. Adapt to use cause-related marketing, and promote your altered impact on the environment to the public. Using social networking to enable interaction with like-minded people, creating communities to discuss and share expertise and information on techniques, subject matters, advice, solutions ? find a wider audience to connect with and learn from.

It’s also the transition from physical to digital products. Save petrol and transport costs, not to mention man hours, on virtual conferencing (such as Skype, teleseminars, webinars), and create e-books and e-newsletters, or create books using print-on-demand techniques on recycled paper. Be consistent and mindful of waste ? economise on trim-size to fit into an efficient envelope, which themselves should be recycled and used again.

Seek alliances to expand your marketing activities ? by sharing mailing lists you will increase your audience at no extra cost, and collaborating with like-minded businesses may benefit you both. Increase the partnership level through blogs, podcasts and other promotional media, by offering an incentive to participate and interact. Use each other for case studies, all contributing to each others’ PR activities.

And don’t forget to publicise your decision to go green as part of your marketing and promotional strategy ? it’s the latest trend so jump on the bandwagon while you can.