How Going Green Can Hurt Your Business
“We know our biggest environmental impacts are related to the energy used in our stores, but many of our customers care more about our paper cups and in-store recycling,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in an e-mail. “In this case, we have made communicating about our cups and our recycling efforts a priority because they are important to our customers, while also continuing to communicate our progress to make all our new company-owned stores LEED-certified. If we don’t do this, the other great work we are doing to address our bigger impacts will not be heard.”
Since 2001, Starbucks has issued a Global Responsibility Annual Report to communicate clearly to customers the company’s environmental performance.
“The report is intended to provide transparency on issues that are important to Starbucks and our stakeholders,” the spokesperson said.
The GRA’s Oshman says that kind of openness is the best strategy to avoid misleading customers.
“Transparency is the opposite of what you see in greenwashing,” he says.
“If you are going to make a public environmental claim, provide public truth to back up that claim,” Case says.
When drafting public environmental claims, double-check that the language you’re using accurately describes the strides the brand took. Use specific terms with precise meanings, and don’t overgeneralize.
Brands without an environmental expert on hand who can proofread statements can seek out the assistance of a third-party organization such as the GRA to take out some of the guesswork.
“That’s great if you happen to have a restaurateur who’s also a scientist,” Oshman says. “Our experience over 20 years of working with restaurateurs is they’re busy. Even if they have an aptitude in that direction, even if you have a restaurateur who gets excited about those details, they generally don’t have the time [to become experts].”
That’s where the GRA comes in.
“Most of the restaurants that bring us into the process from the beginning know they’re going to end up with the right products at the end,” Oshman says. “We’re not the manufacturer, we’re not the distributor … we’re a nonprofit that’s vetted these products.”
Being a certified restaurant can help when dealing with the tricky issue of marketing, too.
“The restaurant’s not saying how great they are,” Oshman says. “We’re saying how great they are.”
But some green restaurant certification programs can be greenwashing in and of themselves.
“You can go online and pay $30 or $40 and get a nice sticker saying how green your business is,” Oshman says. “It’s really important who restaurants partner with.”
When promoting green efforts, Elmore also recommends educating the employees who interact with customers so they don’t provide misleading information.
“Make sure your line people understand what you’ve done,” she says. “Let them be your broadcaster.”
Other promotional options include table tents or signs that explain how exactly the company is working toward greener goals. But Elmore warns it’s essential to use recycled-content paper.
“You’ve got to be careful with printing,” she says. “When you print things and it’s for people to take, that’s not exactly green.”
For restaurants that care about sustainability, it’s yet another roadblock to watch out for. But as difficult as the entire process might be, “Why bother?” is no longer an option.
“I see environmental safety becoming as important as food safety,” Case says. “At some point, consumers are just going to assume that restaurants are engaged in environmental practices. They’re going to assume the napkins contain recycled content, or they’re going to assume you’re doing your best to get rid of excess waste. … It will come as a shock to people to find out you’re not doing that.”
And that shock can be every bit as disappointing to customers as finding out the truth about claims that are just greenwashing.
Robin Van Tan is a contributor to QSR.
