Get Green Already!

FROM THESTREET.COM:

According to the American Marketing Association, the term "green marketing" came into prominence in the late '80s and early '90s. Since that time, the concept of becoming sustainable has gone from an afterthought to a top priority for many companies.

"When we started 11 years ago, we were helping some companies and government agencies with their environmental marketing. However, we would never have envisioned the explosion of interest that we've seen over the past 18 months," says Kevin Tuerff, president and co-founder of Enviromedia, a marketing firm in Austin, Texas. While Tuerff has seen a wide range of environmentally sound success stories, he's also seen examples of greenwashing, a way of misleading consumers about a company's environmental benefits or practices.

"We're on a crusade to encourage people to avoid such businesses," Tuerff explains. "A lot of businesses have been scrambling to do something and oftentimes they're a little misguided, trying to find the quickest, easiest solution so they can take advantage of this tidal wave of interest from customers."

Along with corporate leaders, like Wal-Mart(WMT), who have been trendsetting over the past few years with their environmental initiatives, many small and midsize businesses are taking the time and effort to get their houses in order before spreading the word to the media.

For New Belgium Brewing, the concept of a "natural" business was born when Jeff Lebesch and his wife Kim Jordan opened a small brewery in 1991. "They hiked up into Rocky Mountain National Park with a notepad and homebrew and wrote down the core values and beliefs for their company, many of which were surrounding environmental stewardship," explains Greg Owlsley, the vice president of marketing for New Belgium. By 1998 the company had switched from using electricity to wind power. From there the brewery continued with sustainable business and building practices such as daylighting to reuse heat in the brewery.