Green Marketing Pie

So early last year I read John Grant’s seminal “The Green Marketing Manifesto“, which presented a systematic model for good/green business. John had a 3×3 table to portray this model; I drew it up as a pie chart instead to show the realm of influence and depth of ‘greenness’.

The realms of influence represent a hierarchy of where marketing activities are applied. These include:

A) Public: Companies, Markets, Political and Cultural Values

B) Social: Identity, Group Affiliation, Meaning, and Branding

C) Personal: Products and Practical Benefits

Going from the outer to inner circles, we have progressive degrees of green contribution with an associated marketing objective:

A) Green: Set New Standards – Communicate

B) Greener: Share Responsibility – Collaborate

C) Greenest: Support Innovation – Culture Reshaped

The idea is that as we go from light to dark green, we’re moving from having only commercial objectives to an increasing amount of environmental and social objectives. It’s going from basic compliance to proactive action to systemic innovation & transformation.

While any given project will have an influence upon multiple realms of influence, in addition to multiple activities with varying degrees of contribution, this model does help us to think about where and how far marketing objectives can have an impact.

If you pick up the book, John goes through each pie-quadrant and examines two possible approaches for each objective, using case studies. Before I discuss these in future posts, I’d like to know your thoughts on this model so far. Please share!