Cleaner Greener China

While attending the Ecovane Green Product conference, Chris Tang of Hoffman Agency gave one of the more interesting presentations of the first day.  As the MD of a PR agency in China, and specializing in corporate reputations, she has spent a lot of time with clients who are looking to develop a “green” message.

A message that can go horribly wrong if improperly managed.

For me, someone who typically looks at a product through the treehugger lens, the presentation was quite interesting as it provided a client perspective of the process and those who help to craft that message.   She did a great job of balancing the fact that some products are green but don’t want to be perceived as such for credibility issues, while others are clearly not green but are trying their best to look it.

One slide in particular was on the deadly sins of green washing, where she walked through what amounts to the six things companies should never do when looking to build credibility in the market place:

• Sin of the hidden-trade off
• Sin of vagueness
• Sin of fibbing
• Sin of no proof
• Sin of lesser of two evils
• Sin of irrelevance

One of her examples, Organic tobacco, caught the attention of a few smokers as she said that from the “green” perspective tobacco (organic or not) is not a good item, and that for firms trying to green their product up by claiming themselvees to be organic they were at risk.

An interesting presentation, with a new way to look at things.