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From a mainstream communications point of view, I think there’s a growing issue with labeling things “Green”, or having a separate category for Green, as is nearly always the case. It’s true, a few individuals, organisations and businesses have started to move beyond using the Green label but most have not yet.

Mainstream backdrop

A little background is in order first. Over the past few decades, since the sixties and even before that, there has been growing concern around the world over rising pollution levels and increasing environmental degradation in general. In addition, world population is now approaching seven billion people, estimated to reach nine billion around 2050.

Further, since the eighties, mounting scientific evidence of human induced climate change (despite ongoing attempts to discredit the science), has become occasional front page news, and pretty much never out of the news completely. That’s most unlikely to change over the coming years.

We had the situation late last year where governments who agree that climate change exists and is a significant problem, met in Copenhagen to attempt to hash out a binding global agreement to curb global emissions. There was unprecedented media attention on the COP15 event and an enormous amount of pressure from different individuals and groups to achieve a sensible outcome. Needless to say, there was an accord reached but expectations were not met at Copenhagen.

However, it’s not over by a long shot. Global warming is still on the agenda and it’s not going away. As I said on Twitter the other day, I’m 100% convinced that climate change will continue to cause catastrophic damage to the careers of quite a few of the world’s politicians. In Australia (where I live), Kevin Rudd’s position as Prime Minister comes to mind. Among other issues, after publicly staking so much on it, he never really recovered from the failure at Copenhagen and his party’s failure to get a proposed emissions trading scheme signed into law. He was ousted from within the party after a significant drop in the polls. The new leader, Julia Gillard, will face the issue again should she be reelected.

The problem with Green

So given the contemporary situation, what’s my issue with the current proliferation of the “Green” label or category? What’s not to like? What we have appearing all over the place recently are things like Green sections on popular news blogs, sites and in newspapers. We have Green products proliferating, and companies advertising the new Greenness of their products and services, in some cases whether they are actually more environmentally friendly or not.

“Greenwashing” is a term I have less of a problem with by the way, as it seems like a fairly descriptive and accurate term for what has gone on in some cases. BP’s Beyond Petroleum makeover springs to mind as an obvious example, but there are many subtler versions out there. But I digress.

Now, after Copenhagen, we have governments such as the Obama Administration talking up a much needed push towards a new, emerging green economy, and the many green collar jobs that will create. We have technology related blogs and sites introducing Greentech sections. We have Green online social networkers wanting to build sizeable communities and become ‘friends’ with as many people as possible in order to help spread the word and get action on various environmental issues.

Don’t get me wrong, this is all well and good. Green has been useful and has worked well to attract and communicate with a certain percentage of people. I don’t think the fact that there’s a growing awareness and a proliferation of information, ideas and action is bad at all. It’s brilliant! The main reason I now have a issue with the label “Green”, is that we have got to the point where it’s going to marginalise what needs to become very mainstream, ubiquitous in fact.

So what next?

There are many people, perhaps the majority, who do not want to identify as Green and probably never will. Green is a turn off to many. Even though the label Green has become a lot more mainstream, to many it still conjures up images of hippies, “greenies”, “treehuggers” and environmental activists climbing chimneys.

But hey, guess what? A lot of these people would still like to help fix the environment even though they don’t identify with the Green label. Many might switch to clean power given half a chance, rather than use coal-fired power, if it comes at the right price that is. Many might buy an electric car one day that runs on clean energy. They might buy it because the technology is more advanced and it’s more efficient. They might buy more environmentally friendly products, but because they are better quality products, not just because they are greener.  They might buy locally grown food, it might be organic, but they might buy it because it tastes better and is healthier, and because Jamie Oliver says it’s better. But green? No not me.

We will have big businesses who come to realise that investing in clean technologies, efficiencies and more sustainable production processes will in the long run make them even more profitable. It will also give them a leading edge when it comes to how their brand is viewed by the public, their customers, suppliers, shareholders and by the media. They won’t have to shout “we’re Green” and try and make it stick. It’ll become obvious they are making real changes when perhaps others aren’t doing so much.

The issues need to be so mainstream that they need to be integrated within many other information categories: news, technology, politics, business and finance, transport, energy, food, lifestyle, you name it. The majority of people in the world are going to need to change the way we live and work in order to move towards a more sustainable situation. Having a Green category that appeals to only a minority (admittedly growing) percentage of people is simply not going to be enough to do the job.

So I think it’s time to move beyond the Green label. It’s been useful but it’s served its purpose. It is happening to a certain extent but it needs to go much further. Most of the time I think Green in used for want of something better. I think sustainability is not a bad term to use within businesses. I think the term Clean is useful when talking about the clean economy, clean energy and cleantech. Eco can be useful but is a bit like Green in that it has often been used as a greenwashing instrument. Perhaps we need some new terms. Perhaps we don’t need a new label at all. After all, the idea of, and push for a more sustainable future needs to become so mainstream that it doesn’t have a name anymore, it’s just normal. We have a long way to go.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree we need to move beyond “Green”?

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