Investing time, energy and resources into improving your green credentials provides you with a great promotional opportunity. Aside from the environmental and financial benefits, becoming more environmentally friendly could help you gain a competitive edge by appealing to the growing share of consumers seeking greener travel products and services.

What you promote and how you promote it needs careful consideration. Your marketing messages must have integrity. If you aren’t prepared to truly commit to improving your environmental performance, and dedicate resources to doing so, it’s likely that any superficial efforts will soon become apparent to your customers, and the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission).

Delivering on the promise is fundamental

Making misleading claims about your product or service being environmentally friendly, called greenwashing, can mean you run the risk of doing serious damage to your reputation, and you could face legal proceedings under the Trade Practices Act.

If you make green claims, then fail to deliver on those, you will be worse off than if you hadn’t made the claims in the first place.

An example of greenwashing in a tourism business would be a hotel that markets itself as ‘green’ because it allows guests to choose to sleep on the same sheets and reuse towels during their stay, but otherwise does very little to save water and energy where it counts - on its grounds, with its appliances, lighting, in its kitchen, laundry etc.

Don't overstate

When marketing the efforts your business is making to become more sustainable, it’s important to get the balance right, so that you don’t overstate your achievements.

Businesses making environmental claims should ensure that their claims are scientifically sound and appropriately substantiated. The Trade Practices Act 1974 states that businesses must not mislead or deceive consumers in any way, and it carries serious penalties for businesses that fail to meet these requirements. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have published a guide to help educate businesses about their obligations under the act, called 'Green Marketing and the Trade Practices Act'.

Environmental marketing messages

Here are some key points to consider when developing your environmental marketing messages:

• Green claims must be accurate and must not mislead customers in any way.
• Be honest and substantiate what you are saying. Many consumers doubt the ‘greenness’ of green claims – a negative effect of businesses that have not been truthful about their products and services.
• Green claims should be specific, qualified, and avoid generic language.
• Be prepared to show evidence for what you are claiming.
• Green claims should be in plain language – scientific or technical jargon can confuse people and may lead them to misleading conclusions.
• Green claims need to have a genuine benefit or advantage. Don’t talk about things which you have a legal obligation to do – this is an empty claim and won’t do anything for your credibility.
• Green claims should refer to the whole product life cycle; don’t focus on the good things and ignore the bad elements of your product delivery, be upfront about the things you can’t control or influence.

For more information on how to market the steps your business is taking to improve environment performance, download Marketing Your Green Credentials (PDF, 192KB).