The other day I noticed the tagline of a real estate investment firm stenciled on its door: Building a green future from a platform of excellence. The point of the slogan, that the company was claiming to support and invest in environmentally-friendly buildings, was clear, but something wasn’t right.

Valid green marketing or another case of greenwashing?

Having worked on marketing programs for organizations for more than a decade and the green building industry for years, a few thoughts came to mind:

1. The tagline takes too long to understand. Taglines should be short, punchy, and clear, whether on doors in the real world or on page headers in the Web. For SEO-concerened readers, consider this: If that tagline was the page title for a real estate company’s site, its organic search engine rank would be poor. It’s a safe bet that a slogan that doesn’t meet the needs of users of search engines probably won’t pass the real world test of immediate understanding by those strolling by.
2. The pitch feels like greenwashing. The building industry has implemented LEED certifications to provide specific ratings for the environmental friendliness or impact of a building. The absence of any certification language suggests that either the building management doesn’t know about LEED, or the building isn’t as eco-friendly as the tagline suggests. While the slogan might be intended for those without much knowledge on the subject, for those in the know, the lack of specificity sends up a red flag. Sure, a business doesn’t have to show its capabilities, but promoting LEED, ISO 900x, Six Sigma, and other certifications and capabilities certainly makes claims much more powerful.
3. It is a missed opportunity to distance those that are green from those who say they are green. An environment mission statement is nothing more than a promise. If you really want to get attention in a market increasingly jaded by greenwashing marketing activities, you need to provide specifics to back up your claim. For example, this company could highlight the number of Kilowatt hours saved through various activities (lighting retrofits, heating, cooling, energy management systems, etc.).Remember: Your customers are probably smarter than you think, and it only takes a few with knowledge, drive, and the access to online communication tools and social media services to discredit your well-intentioned green marketing efforts.

That said, we applaud the effort to conserve energy in commercial office buildings and believe it should be encouraged and promoted. However, we suggest that if you intend to market yourself as a green building company, you should back up slogans with facts, details, and certifications that prove you are committed, not just another company jumping on the green marketing bandwagon.