Greenwashing is challenging Danish companies. We take stock with a key recommendation for companies: Slow down and give room for doubt.
The trip to the local supermarket has become an ethical minefield. The threat lurks everywhere. What can you trust?
Is the Medister sausage in the refrigerated display case as climate-friendly as it claims to be? Is it true that reforestation in Africa mitigates the burping of dairy cows in Jutland?
A number of studies show that Danish consumers have lost trust in companies' green communication. Half of those surveyed in a questionnaire survey by the advertising agency Dentsu said that they are skeptical of companies' green initiatives due to pending cases of greenwashing.
In February, Orkla's sustainability barometer showed that 70% of consumers find it difficult to assess the sustainability of products.
Complaints are coming in at an increasing rate at the Consumer Ombudsman. In 2020, 48 consumers complained about examples of greenwashing – a doubling compared to 2019. And in January 2021 alone, the watchdog was able to state that it had received 15 complaints from climate-confused consumers.
Many complaints are about climate compensation. That is, compensating for CO2 emissions from production by buying climate credits elsewhere in the world. A widespread tool for companies that want to strengthen green marketing. The problem is that the arguments are so technical that consumers are left confused at the refrigerated counter.
It is impossible for companies to sort out true and false accusations. Once consumer skepticism has been aroused, a company can shout as loudly as it wants, but that does not ensure that it will penetrate the consumer filter. All companies are under the critical scrutiny of consumers.
Greenwashing gives rise to the lesser-known concept of greenhushing, which in reality simply means that companies end up keeping quiet about their green achievements. Examples of greenhushing are of course harder to find, as they are illustrated precisely by all the stories that are not told.
But what if companies are not trying to market themselves for green points, but are simply also good old-fashioned confused about how to translate green ambitions into marketing?
This leads to the third pitfall – greenrushing. Greenrushing is the consequence of companies' eagerness to embrace the green transition. They want to show customers that they take their responsibility as a producer seriously, and thus they risk talking too much.
The phenomenon is typically seen in companies that have set a strategy to become CO2-neutral in, for example, 2030 or 2050. But who at the same time want to speed up the process with the help of foreign climate compensation, while they wait for the green transformation of production to take effect.
Or in other words: The values are in place. The green course has been set. But the patience is not up to the ambitions, and then the conflict with consumers arises.
The good news is that there is a solution to the problem. And it is data – lots of data – supplemented with transparency, humility about the size and complexity of the challenge and a great deal of patience.
At Viegand Maagøe, we have developed a new model for climate communication. We call the model DIVE, which is an acronym for data, insight, tools and effect. During 2021, we will test DIVE on 50 Danish SMEs together with the Confederation of Danish Industry, the Danish Industry Foundation, Aalborg University and a number of other partners. The project is called Climate-Ready SMEs, and the goal is – as the name suggests – to equip Danish SMEs to conquer new markets with data-based climate goals.
Once companies have established the necessary foundation of knowledge, they can communicate green initiatives with renewed weight and persistence.
But the most important point is that companies must first make a virtue of patience.
Typically, companies will strive to avoid boring customers with intermediate calculations. Don’t bore us – get to the chorus!
This is the biggest difference between climate communication and more traditional communication disciplines. Precisely because the green transition is so complex and full of pitfalls for the striving companies that neither want to oversell nor undersell their efforts, they have to take a different approach.