The trouble with green marketing

Giles Robertson, Founder of Green Banana Marketing Ltd and Chairman of the Marketing Society Charity Group, says it’s not easy being green.

Making green choices can be tough. I am reminded of this by SodaStream’s recent efforts. A brand many of you will remember from the 80s should have been back in your sitting rooms before Christmas, if its ad hadn’t been banned.

It’s hard enough to get people to make those green choices in the first place, and having your airtime pulled doesn’t help. Digging a bit deeper, one can detect the conspiracy. Clearcast is the body that approves ads for air, and it is funded by the big broadcasters in this country. These broadcasters take the lion’s share of their advertising from the soft drinks industry.

Unfortunately, Clearcast has shot the planet in the foot this time by banning the ad for being “denigratory” to the soft drinks industry. Basically, the advert shows bottles disappearing each time the SodaStream is used and the bottle savings that could be made each year.

Where is the denigration?  

The Carbon Trust conducted its own analysis, looking at SodaStream, and verified that it is 75 per cent less greenhouse gas-intensive than the production of generic colas sold in plastic (PET) bottles in the UK.

And they can substantiate these claims. 340,000,000,000 bottles and cans remain un-recycled every year. One bottle takes 450 years to decompose and it needs five times its volume in water to manufacture – and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

We’ve seen the upset that can be caused by a lack of transparency around products, with the ingredients of Tesco’s burgers.

Likewise plastic bottled drinks make up a large proportion of our carbon footprint and are increasingly the main waste found on our beaches in the UK. So why not let the SodaStream advert run? Clearcast, it doesn’t look good for the creative industry, for the environment, or for innovator/challenger brands.

Email [email protected] and Tweet @gogreenbanana.