We like green

I was reading a piece in WARC News this morning about UK brands reaping measurable, commercial benefits from green marketing.

Kingfisher Group, parent of DIY chains B&Q, Castorama, Brico Dépôt, Screwfix and Koçtaş, believes this segment will be a key growth area in the future and is planning an 'eco-squad' where by green experts will assess homes and suggest energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly enhancements to customers, materials for which can be purchased via group companies.

Marks & Spencer has an M&S Energy arm, which is selling energy services into the £40bn UK energy market and has a head - Mike Barry - of sustainable business.

Unlilever too has been looking at the lifecycle impact of 1,500 products in 14 countries and seeking ways to reduce their harmful effects on the environment through e.g. developing detergents that use less water and energy - according to Gavin Neath, Unilever svp, sustainability.

It's good to see these initiatives becoming core parts of brand marketing with real commercial benefits isn't it? At the IPA we have long-since embraced the benefits of sustainable marketing, We have a partner deal with Envido, whereby IPA members can get commercial discounts on specialist advice on ISO 14001 certification, which enables companies to cut energy bills and reduce their carbon emissions

Our members have also created sustainable marketing campaigns for clients which have been submitted as case studies to our Effectiveness Awards programme. These effectiveness case studies include British Glass, Tesco and, last year, Kenco

We like green, do you?

Google back down to earth.

Silicon.com reported overnight on the launch of the Google Earth Engine

It's a global mapping tool consisting of a database of satellite images of the Earth's surface - 25 years' worth - and specially designed software to spot any envirnmental changes in those images, which are then mapped.

Quite apart from the technological achievement and the benefit that environmental researchers and scientists worldwide will gain from this tool, Google is also donating ten million computer processing hours on its servers each year over the next two years for this analysis. So, it's giving to charity through doing what it's mission set out to do - organising the world's information.

Cynics might say that for Google this is a drop in the ocean - geographically, environmentally, technically and commercially and, yes, there will be many marketing opportunities arising from them showcasing the software capability in this way. But they didn't need to do it.

While others sit on the fence, Google is more akin to Nike: it just does it. Oh, and make sure that fence isn't made of wood or you may be last past the post.