Avoid Greenwashing as a Sustainable Business Owner or Employee

As a business owner or representative, being more eco-friendly and avoiding greenwashing can be intimidating. You want to promote your positive contributions to the planet without being untruthful or misleading, right?

The same signs that you would use as a consumer avoiding greenwashing can apply to a business from the other perspective.

Above all, transparency is key – be honest with your customers and listen to their feedback. Here are a few things to keep top of mind.

• What language are you using in your marketing efforts?
• Can your claims be supported by an accreditation or third party?
• What positive sustainable aspects of the business should I highlight?
• Are there opportunities to improve?

Steps to Making a Sustainability Change in Your Business

Shifting to more sustainable practices as a business can be a large undertaking, depending on what aspects of your business would be required to change.

Every situation will be different, but here are some general steps to follow. Simply adjust as you see fit for your specific situation.

As you go through these steps, consider how you’d present these changes to avoid greenwashing, while maintaining emphasis on your eco-friendly efforts.

1. Identify the problem
2. Identify the necessary stakeholders
3. Measure the opportunity for improvement
4. Analyze the risk to the business in making the change
5. Outline a solution
6. Back your plan with as much data as you can
7. Create a visually appealing proposal
8. Deliver your proposal to the stakeholders

Steps 1 & 2 are essential for framing up the scope of what you aim to accomplish. Without a clearly identified problem presented to the right group of people, you may not get far in your efforts.

For steps 3 & 4, consider a SWOT-style analysis. Highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for your business. Competitive advantages, (truthful) marketing tactics, social responsibility, and supporting other sustainable businesses through yours are all great highlights.

Striking the right balance of concise and detailed in steps 5 & 6 is crucial. You don’t want to over-explain and lose your audience, but your solution should be clear and supported by as much information as possible. This data could include things such as cost differences for materials, potential supplier contacts, user experience implications, etc.

Finally, for creating and delivering your proposal, it’s important to make things visually appealing and with purpose. There are many slide deck templates you can find online that will give you a great head start.

Making Environmentally Conscious Proposals in Different Roles

Profitability is of course important in any business, so depending on your role in a company, you may have to take a different approach to transforming your practices to be more sustainable.

This may differ if you’re in a contributing role to a large company, compared to if you own a small business yourself or with a partner.

Continue to push the idea of avoiding greenwashing throughout the process, to ensure that all parties are aligned and informed about what greenwashing is and the dangers it can have.

Contributing to a Large Company

In a contributor role, you’ll likely have less influence than as a business owner. However, you can take many of the same steps.

The difference is rather than implementing these changes yourself or at your direction, you’ll have to propose and “sell” these changes to the necessary stakeholders.

For this type of approach, preparation becomes even more important so you can get the right people on board to actually implement changes.

Owning a Small Business

As a business owner, you have more control and authority in the decisions you make around the sustainability of your company.

• Conduct a waste analysis to see where your company has an opportunity to improve. Consider things like manufacturing, shipping, transportation, communication methods, and any supplies as applicable to your business.
• Be transparent with your customers – update your website to show the steps you’re taking to be eco-friendly.
• Be specific and avoid vague language that could be flagged by a consumer as suspicious.
• Pursue accreditations for sustainability to further build trust in your brand.

Have a Success Story to Share?

Promoting great businesses that are truly sustainable is an important piece to fighting greenwashing. So, if you’ve made a positive change to your business, either as an employee or as a business owner, we’d love to hear about it!