August 23, 2007
BP: Green or Green Washing
This is not the first time that BP’s “green” credentials have been called into question. The former British Petroleum, which has billed itself as being beyond petroleum with ads about its environmental stewardship and investment into alternative energy sources such as biofuels, wind, solar, and hydrogen finds itself being criticized for dumping toxic waste into Lake Michigan.
The company requested and received permission from Indiana to dump 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more suspended solids into the lake. In recent years, the company has dealt with negative publicity related to oil spills such as the massive one that resulted in the shutdown of the company’s Prudhoe Bay, Alaska oil field.
 |
| A BP Connect outside of Chicago. |
Critics, including Sudhu Johnston, chief environmental officer for the city of Chicago, have sought to use the company’s environmental boasts against it.
“We’d like to have them live up to their advertising,” Mr. Johnston told AdAge.com.
The difference between what BP says and does may pose potential problems for the business if the company is not careful, according to Randy Herbertson, founder of branding-strategy firm Seesaw.
Mr. Herbertson told AdAge.com, “If you give [consumers] physical proof the opposite is true, you’re sunk.”
At the very least, he said, the apparent contradiction in BP’s message and practice is the “kind of stuff all activists love to use to fan the fire.”
Discussion Questions: Does BP’s daily business walk match its marketing talk? Should the company tone down its pro-environmental messages? What lessons are in this for other companies?
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Just to show you what a lighting rod environmental issues like this are at the moment (and maybe for a long time to come), BP just dropped their request and said they won’t dump what the permit entitles them to dump. (Click here)
They say they will look for a better solution but may be forced to cancel the project.
I live in Chicago and certainly do not support pollution of Lake Michigan. However, the news media seems to only focus on half of the story to ensure that they make BP look like a big bad heartless oil company. BP is doesn’t want to dump extra waste in to Lake Michigan for the heck of it. They plan to expand refinery capacity which will create more waste. A new refinery has not been built in the United States in over 30 years. Capacity is tight, which limits gasoline supplies, which translates to a higher price for the consumer. The US is a petroleum-based economy. People need to be realistic about this fact and allow new domestic oil supplies and refinery capacity to come on line in the short term, while other energy sources are developed to supply our long term energy demands.
The public servants of the City of Chicago and surrounds, including our Senate and House Representatives, are acting as the consummate political animals in this affair. They are getting a completely free pass on shooting at BP because the permit was issued in Indiana. They are not being called to the carpet on either the economical necessity and benefit of this expansion. They are also ignoring the City of Chicago and other entities own contributions to the pollution of our waterways. (Chicago is adroitly sidestepping this issue by focusing on “Lake Michigan.” Our waste goes into the Chicago River.) I don’t know whether BP is totally living up to its advertised image on the green front–but I know that both BP and the consumer are getting a very one-sided story on the Indiana refinery expansion–especially here on the west side of the lake.
In the past couple of years, BP seems to have had more than its share of disasters, so the ammonia dump isn’t an isolated case. If the BP disasters never happened, how many folks would believe “feel good” institutional advertising and change their buying behavior? Tobacco and oil companies are legendary for supporting public TV. Texaco sponsored the New York Metropolitan Opera for decades. How many people will drive one block out of their way to go to (or avoid) a given brand’s gas station? Don’t other oil companies have disasters, too? The much larger question: how much advertising of any type truly changes buyer behavior, anyway? For how long? If BP stopped all advertising permanently, would its sales trends change at all? It’s in a commodity business, so why advertise?
BP gets the booooooby prize for Green Washing. It is insulting that a brand can think they can hijack the term ‘green’ and apply it across their brand when the shoe clearly doesn’t fit. While it’s nice that they are exploring green technologies…they have no right and deserve a lot of criticism for pretending they are a green company. See http://www.greenbiz.com for true green companies.
To thine own self be true is the lesson to be learned from the ever growing debacle over BP’s proposition. The merging of the economic and moral is transforming the meaning and context of trust. Trust is an essential ingredient of all brands and their reputations and is a mixture of emotional and rational expectations.
So far, our notion of trust in the commercial world has been chiefly centered on the transaction itself, but not any more. The notion of trust has moved on from trust in the organization’s product to trust in its people, the people behind the product. Now it’s less about “can I trust them to deliver?” but “are they the sort of people who would…?” And an infinite variety of words can fill in the missing space. Are they the sort of people who would mis-sell me a pension; who would use child labor to make their products cheaper; test on animals; and pollute the environment in the search of a big buck?
There is a market for trust and the market for trust is a market. Most organizations talk of share of market regarding market share and new business. At the same time, however, they are competing with other organizations for share of trust. So in a complex world, full of claim and counter claim, evidence and counter evidence, when push comes to shove, do I trust BP or Greenpeace? Which of these two are the sort of people who would tell the earnest truth in this matter?
So there is a battle for share of trust and this is a single and very large market. So BP beware.
This is clearly a green washing marketing and PR campaign. Yes, BP does alternate fuels, however their key focus and main products all involve a limited resource that is not clean burning, and has a tremendous carbon footprint on the ecosystem. We all recognize that petroleum is a necessary evil, but the question remains, how necessary? For BP, this might also translate into how green?
Please. Did anyone believe that environment BS from BP in the first place? Where energy is involved, there is no such thing as green.
Doesn’t the question tend to support the answer? BP, create greener fuel sources for us. In the meanwhile, BP might tone down the pro-environment messages and their implied promises. The proof is in the pudding, not the promotional promises.
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Just to show you what a lighting rod environmental issues like this are at the moment (and maybe for a long time to come), BP just dropped their request and said they won’t dump what the permit entitles them to dump. (Click here)
They say they will look for a better solution but may be forced to cancel the project.
I live in Chicago and certainly do not support pollution of Lake Michigan. However, the news media seems to only focus on half of the story to ensure that they make BP look like a big bad heartless oil company. BP is doesn’t want to dump extra waste in to Lake Michigan for the heck of it. They plan to expand refinery capacity which will create more waste. A new refinery has not been built in the United States in over 30 years. Capacity is tight, which limits gasoline supplies, which translates to a higher price for the consumer. The US is a petroleum-based economy. People need to be realistic about this fact and allow new domestic oil supplies and refinery capacity to come on line in the short term, while other energy sources are developed to supply our long term energy demands.
The public servants of the City of Chicago and surrounds, including our Senate and House Representatives, are acting as the consummate political animals in this affair. They are getting a completely free pass on shooting at BP because the permit was issued in Indiana. They are not being called to the carpet on either the economical necessity and benefit of this expansion. They are also ignoring the City of Chicago and other entities own contributions to the pollution of our waterways. (Chicago is adroitly sidestepping this issue by focusing on “Lake Michigan.” Our waste goes into the Chicago River.) I don’t know whether BP is totally living up to its advertised image on the green front–but I know that both BP and the consumer are getting a very one-sided story on the Indiana refinery expansion–especially here on the west side of the lake.
In the past couple of years, BP seems to have had more than its share of disasters, so the ammonia dump isn’t an isolated case. If the BP disasters never happened, how many folks would believe “feel good” institutional advertising and change their buying behavior? Tobacco and oil companies are legendary for supporting public TV. Texaco sponsored the New York Metropolitan Opera for decades. How many people will drive one block out of their way to go to (or avoid) a given brand’s gas station? Don’t other oil companies have disasters, too? The much larger question: how much advertising of any type truly changes buyer behavior, anyway? For how long? If BP stopped all advertising permanently, would its sales trends change at all? It’s in a commodity business, so why advertise?
BP gets the booooooby prize for Green Washing. It is insulting that a brand can think they can hijack the term ‘green’ and apply it across their brand when the shoe clearly doesn’t fit. While it’s nice that they are exploring green technologies…they have no right and deserve a lot of criticism for pretending they are a green company. See http://www.greenbiz.com for true green companies.
To thine own self be true is the lesson to be learned from the ever growing debacle over BP’s proposition. The merging of the economic and moral is transforming the meaning and context of trust. Trust is an essential ingredient of all brands and their reputations and is a mixture of emotional and rational expectations.
So far, our notion of trust in the commercial world has been chiefly centered on the transaction itself, but not any more. The notion of trust has moved on from trust in the organization’s product to trust in its people, the people behind the product. Now it’s less about “can I trust them to deliver?” but “are they the sort of people who would…?” And an infinite variety of words can fill in the missing space. Are they the sort of people who would mis-sell me a pension; who would use child labor to make their products cheaper; test on animals; and pollute the environment in the search of a big buck?
There is a market for trust and the market for trust is a market. Most organizations talk of share of market regarding market share and new business. At the same time, however, they are competing with other organizations for share of trust. So in a complex world, full of claim and counter claim, evidence and counter evidence, when push comes to shove, do I trust BP or Greenpeace? Which of these two are the sort of people who would tell the earnest truth in this matter?
So there is a battle for share of trust and this is a single and very large market. So BP beware.
This is clearly a green washing marketing and PR campaign. Yes, BP does alternate fuels, however their key focus and main products all involve a limited resource that is not clean burning, and has a tremendous carbon footprint on the ecosystem. We all recognize that petroleum is a necessary evil, but the question remains, how necessary? For BP, this might also translate into how green?
Please. Did anyone believe that environment BS from BP in the first place? Where energy is involved, there is no such thing as green.
Doesn’t the question tend to support the answer? BP, create greener fuel sources for us. In the meanwhile, BP might tone down the pro-environment messages and their implied promises. The proof is in the pudding, not the promotional promises.