'....a bid to save the Earth' has got to be the most overused phrase in business propaganda. The high occurrence of words and phrases claiming to care for the planet, the ecology and Mother Nature are simply hard to ignore.
I do not doubt the intentions or importance of this pressing issue. What baffles me, are business enterprises using Planet Earth as a clever marketing tool. High on my 'baffles me list' are fashion shows, designer clothes and models sashaying down the ramp, all in the name of saving the planet for a better tomorrow. Sure, the colors and fabrics used connote Earth and Nature. They do bring fashion down to earth after all but how exactly do they help us retard the destruction mounted on our planet?
I would believe that such Eco friendly tag lines help to build a collective consciousness amongst the cognoscenti and nothing more. The buck stops there for most businesses. They are happy to take refuge behind the ‘caring and giving’ picture their logos and tag lines paint. Then they sit back, shift focus to their P & L statements, perhaps hoping that their tag line would serve as a call for action amongst the general public.
I recently visited a boutique store that claimed that spring-Summer theme was all about making the World a better place to live. ‘Show you care – We deserve a better world’ was the catch phrase, all across the store. All visitors to the store were served a welcome drink (in attractively painted plastic cups), as a way of locking in the visitors’ attention, while the sales person ranted off in a carefully rehearsed speech about how their collection for the season was designed keeping the environment in mind.
Needless to say the non recyclable garbage pile created by the plastic cups was a real stink! It’s about time such businesses were accredited from an environment point of view, damage audited and the positive impact they make on the environment measured and rewarded (or penalized in case they make it worse).
