Marketing Sustainability —Tom Polischuk

Sustainability could be the topic of the decade, and hopefully, for years to come. There’s no doubt that it is a hot topic in the news today, and there’s a lot riding on the eventual outcome of long-term, worldwide sustainability efforts.

One of the problems with sustainability is that it’s an extremely complex technical issue. As an example, both National Geographic in its October 2007 issue and Time in its April 7, 2008 issue, did thorough reviews of the environmental equations relating to biofuel production and use. It was clear from both of these reviews that the net environmental impact from biofuels does not do much on the sustainability front, despite the good intentions to use a renewable resource. Beyond trying to understand the technical complexities, hot topics always result in a flurry of marketing activity, and sustainability is driving its fair share. The difficulty now becomes separating the hype, or what might be called greenwashing, from the efforts that have real merit relative to sustainability.