Chevron Toxico

Last week in class we discussed greenwashing and how some companies are taking advantage of the green movement for profitability benefits. As noted in other blog posts, the term "green" is easy to be thrown around these days, oil companies such as Chevron have started a "green"campaign aimed called Will You Join Us? It involves average looking people pledging to use less energy, or use their car less etc. All of which are focusing on the amount of energy will be saved by their pledge. Here are two of them for reference.

What peeves me about these ad's is the lack of transparency with the oil industry Chevron. These ad's focus on what they are doing here in the United States, detailing that they are making a conscience effort to be more energy efficient, thus green. What they don't underline is how disgustingly inconsiderate they are where they do the dirty work, where they pump the actual oil they sell to these figures we see in the advertisements.

Ecuador is a large source for oil, South America in general has an abundance of oil in fruitful areas like the Amazon. Chevron takes advantage, economically, of countries like Ecuador who are already in debt to the United States and thrashes their sustainable Amazon jungle for the sale of petroleum. Due to the drilling in these areas much wildlife and indigenous Quechuan people of Ecuador have developed cancer and disease forcing them to the outskirts of the Amazon and the city, not their natural habitat.

Chevron as a company is terrible. They say one thing and do another. Hypocrisy in it's truest form. The lack of transparency is frightening and it is incredible what they have been able to get away with in the Amazonian Jungle. Just recently activists and Ecuadorian citizens have come to realization of the severity of this issue and have started to take action. Happening right NOW is a very lengthy lawsuit against John Watson (CEO Chevron), by the people of Ecuador. Here is a video and website with a ton of information on this topic to get everyone up to speed and start taking action:

Visits ChevronToxico.com for all the latest information on this case.

-JS

Article: WorldChanging.com

CLICK HERE

This article above is from a blog called WorldChanging.com. It is a good bog about sustainability and green thinking, I have also found it to be pretty credible and sound in most of it's articles and posts.

This article is about how people today need to stop investing in companies that produce products that will eventually no longer exist due to the physical state of our planet. It's inevitable that many resources will no longer be available in the future, to continue to inject money into those companies seems meaningless when we could be distributing that money to companies that are creating new wave sustainable products.

After you read the article what industries specifically do you think this article is talking about when telling us to stop investing in them?

Check out www.worldchanging.com

-JS

Strategy for Sustainability (1)

Strategy for Sustainability is a book by Adam Werbach I am required to read for my Green Brand Strategies Class. I am a little over 30 pages into this book and I have found some great ideas and consistency in Werbach's ideology towards brands consciousness of being "sustainable". He introduces 4 components which makes a brand Sustainable. Any brand is able to loophole themselves into marketing themselves as Green, that's as easy as saying you didn't wipe today because you are saving the trees. Being sustainable is different. Werbach dives more into this later in the book. These 4 components really stuck out for me and how he uses them as a platform for which every brand should use in transitioning themselves to be "sustainable".

"Social (acting as if other people matter): Actions and conditions that affect all members of society (e.g., poverty, violence, injustice, education, public health, and labor and human rights)

Economic (operating profitably): Action that affect how people and businesses meet their economic needs---for example, securin food, water, shelter, and comforts for people and for businesses turning a profit so that they'll be able to continue for years to come.

Environmental (potecting and restoring the ecosystem): Actions and conditions that affect the earth's ecology (e.g., climate change, preservation of natural resources, and the prevention of toxic wastes)

Cultural (protecting and valuing cultural diversity): Actions through which communities manifest their identity and cultivate traditions from generation to generation." Pg. 9,10

These 4 components are what a company must focus on in order to maintain a sustainable brand with longevity. A lot of companies these days focus on the short term economic goal. Fast money. Werbach shows many examples of how companies that have failed due to setting short term goals first instead of setting their sights on long term benefits by adopting these four components into the company's actions.

Check out the book and learn more about Adam Werbach HERE

Green

Green can be portrayed in many different ways, sure. It’s a color, it is the way your face makes before you vomit, it’s a way of life for some people, and in the last decade with the ever growing awareness of our environment and the importance of a sustainable environment, green has become a way for people and brand’s alike to advertise themselves as being environmentally friendly, instead of wasteful and selfish.

Green can be a very effective way for brand’s to advertise. When you break it down to what it means for a brand to advertise themselves as green, it is merely persuading the consumer to use their product by letting them feel like they are doing something useful for the earth. People in general care significantly about their reputation and what other people think about them. For them to use a green product they are convincing themselves that by buying and using this product they are doing something environmentally friendly and “green”.

Many other companies are very passionate about being green and passionate about the message they are sending to everyone by being sustainable. This blog will help show what companies are doing in order to title themselves as being green and sustainable.

GREEN BRAND STRATEGIES

Throughout this term I will be posting Ideas, concepts, thoughts, links of how brands advertise themselves as "G R E E N"