On April 22nd many individuals, groups and businesses will celebrate Earth Day 2010. For businesses specifically, the “green is good” philosophy is prompted by the benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In Guerilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet – published in 2010 – Jay Conrad Levinson and Shel Horowitz describe how sustainability initiatives and profitability are directly complementary:
- Customers prefer to buy from businesses that support their social agenda.
- Investors have shifted 13% of all investment dollars into socially responsible companies.
- Employees like it too.
According to a 2009 TIME magazine poll, “40% of consumers said they bought products or services because they liked the social or political values of the company. Nearly half of Americans in the poll said protecting the environment should be given priority over economic growth, and this comes in the midst of a recession.” The poll also supports the Guerilla Marketing claims about how social responsibility attracts investors, in additional to customer loyalty (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1921444,00.html.)
In a recent post to the Environmental Leader website (http://www.environmentalleader.com/2010/03/11/how-to-measure-the-roi-of-...), Sam Murata, President of SANYO North America, discusses SANYO’s brand image as “a leading company for energy and environment.” He describes how environmental sustainability is a critical part of a company’s overall growth strategy, and offers tips for getting started.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers describes sustainability as a strategic issue and “global best practice,” and recommends related processes on its website (http://globalbestpractices.pwc.com/Home/Document.aspx?Token=Challenge2).
As a result, if you are not already doing so, you should be developing an understanding of the benefits and opportunities being realized by your competitors investing in sustainability initiatives, promoting them to current and prospective customers and investors, and sharing them with their employees. Conversely, if your competitors are not embracing sustainability, it will be productive for you to understand what disadvantages they might experience as a result.
Following are some key intelligence questions that can provide useful insights in this regard:
- Is sustainability more than a philosophy or a story they're telling customers? How entrenched are the initiatives across your competitors’ business(es)? For example, have they achieved any certifications that contribute to their value proposition?
- What are your competitors spending on sustainability initiatives? What are some of their related costs? For example, to what extent are they investing in labor, equipment, technology tools and/or communications?
- Are they/how are they communicating and promoting their sustainability initiatives? What is their related messaging and market positioning?
- What is the return on their investment in sustainability initiatives? How are customers, investors and employees responding?
- What, if anything, are your competitors planning for the future, with regard to sustainability and other CSR initiatives?