Business Finds Its Place on Earth Day

This year marks the 39th Earth Day, a day when people around the world come together to attend festivals, rallies, cleanups, tree plantings and other events focused on the environment.

It's also a day for business, as more companies use Earth Day to highlight green products, roll out eco-friendly initiatives and spread information on green living.

The Earth Day of today is a far cry from the original Earth Day, when the event was a grassroots movement that helped spur the Clean Air Act, other environmental legislation and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. There weren't any hotels opening up eco-luxury suites in those days.

For many businesses, Earth Day is now a marketing opportunity akin to holidays and national celebrations, a chance to join the push for a greener planet through greener purchases. Others use it as a way to instill concern for the environment in their employees and customers. And many are using it as a chance to talk about the work they've been doing for the earth.

"2008 is clearly one of the most active Earth Days from a marketplace perspective, in terms of the various consumer and retailer players that are promoting their offerings," said Nicholas Eisenberger of GreenOrder, a sustainability strategy and marketing firm. "There has always been some commercial activity. That there is the dichotomy between treating the earth kindly and making a commercial exercise out of it."

Eisenberger explained that much of the activity today is due to the heightened concern for the environment that's grown in the last few years and rapidly spread throughout the media, industry, society and the world.

"You're now seeing products that were under development two-three years ago coming to market now," Eisenberger said.

Environmentalism and Consumerism

Earth Day is no longer relegated to just one day a year. Companies are stretching it out and celebrating Earth Week and, in the case of Aveda and Wal-Mart, Earth Month. The retailer is using April to feature greener products in its stores and on its website. It's also introduced items that, while not all new to the marketplace, are new to Wal-Mart stores, including shirts made with transitional cotton, mulch made from recycled tire rubber, and fair trade, organic and Rainforest Alliance certified coffees.

Others are tying good deeds that result from Earth Day to shopping. To receive tickets to the Macy's One Good Turn charity shopping event, customers make a donation to the National Park Foundation. Banana Republic is donating 1 percent of all in-store sales (up to $100,000) from April 22-27 to the Trust for Public Lands, a nonprofit land conservation group. Banana Republic also introduced a line of clothes containing bamboo, organic cotton and other environmentally-preferred materials, and Macy's other promotions include free reusable tote bags and saplings.

Promoting sales in conjunction with Earth Day leaves businesses open to criticism about using an environmental cause to further their own profits. "There are probably some companies out there that are just seeing it as a marketing hook," Eisenberger said. "But I think there is enough attention to the concern around greenwashing that most big brand companies we work with and we see are generally taking these issues seriously."

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Business Finds Its Place on Earth Day

Marketing & Communications

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