Being green can make more green
Challenges aside, being green can have a significant, tangible and immediate impact on your bottom line. This is about more than just positioning and market share; it's about leveraging an authentically green marketing play -- externally and inside your company -- for increased sales, greater customer loyalty and also significant cost reductions for your company's operations.
With the right strategies, this impact can begin immediately and can be a win for several departments across the organization.
Take power management, for example. Did you know that among your office's IT devices, your PC is the single-largest contributor to carbon emissions? The PCs and monitors running across your company account for 40 percent of your company's IT carbon emissions – almost twice that of the next-largest contributor (data centers).
What's worse, nearly two-thirds of the energy our PCs use every day is wasted. Our PCs are working at full speed and full energy when we're not using them, literally most of the time, costing significant wasted dollars and contributing enormously to our carbon footprint. (The average PC, for example, is responsible for 1,000 pounds of CO2 emissions every year.)
Now, let's imagine that your company takes advantage of PC power management software available on the market today -- tools that can reduce your PC energy needs by up to 60 percent, while cutting the associated carbon footprint by as much as 40 percent. That's a solid, measurable and meaningful green strategy.
First of all, that's real money that goes right back to the bottom line. Your CFO is going to be a very happy person.
You can also leverage this green initiative directly in your marketing. It's an easy way to claim an immediate, measurable win on the sustainability front. And if you're a software or computer services company, it's a great way to share the specifics of your PC power management strategy with your customers and prospects, encouraging them to join your lead in cutting energy and carbon footprint impact.
But that's not all.
- Your PR team will be able to discuss ongoing updates of the impact of your power management strategy, measuring the cumulative and ongoing impact on saved energy and carbon footprint reduction. They can even translate energy savings into trees saved, barrels of oil not used, cars off the road, etc.
- Your HR team will be able to use this news in two ways -- both to improve employee retention and morale, and to help with recruiting. Employees want to know their company is doing something real to positively impact the environment, and potential employees increasingly are caring about corporate sustainability practices in determining where they want to work
- Your IT team will appreciate a way to very directly and tangibly participate in the company's overall sustainability efforts, especially with something that could significantly decrease their own operating budget.
- Your corporate sustainability team will also love PC power management, as it's a fast, easy and immediate strategy that gives them a quick win among myriad opportunities and projects in front of them
These department-specific benefits represent a solid mix of internal and external marketing benefits, but together they demonstrate just how broadly the right green initiatives can be leveraged to positively impact your brand.