When Cheryl Roth co-founded Organic Works Marketing in New York six years ago, she never suspected that one of the most dramatic consumer shifts in recent memory would place her company squarely on the cutting edge. “We were working with smaller organic and eco-friendly companies that had great products but little idea on how to build buzz or get the word out to the mass market,” she recalls.

Today, a large part of Roth’s business is counseling traditional marketing agencies on ways they can help their clients be seen in the marketplace as environmentally conscious. “We’ve always been known as bringing green to the mainstream,” she says. “Now we’re bringing the mainstream to green.”

Whether it was the release last year of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the shock of skyrocketing oil prices or the cumulative effect of decades of dire warnings from scientists and environmentalists, the American public is thinking green in a big way, leaving businesses large and small scrambling to catch up. Wal-Mart, for example, is now the world’s largest buyer of organic cotton, fair-trade coffee and energy-efficient light bulbs, while GE has built an entire marketing campaign to alert the public to its environmental strategies.

Although some companies may dismiss eco-consciousness as one of the leading consumer marketing trends, there are telling signs that the greening of America will have staying power. For one, it’s not simply the young, crunchy-granola crowd that’s driving environmental awareness — it’s consumers of all ages.

“I believe that eco is going to be a permanent part of our world,” says John Hardy, a renowned luxury jewelry maker in Bali. He recently became one of the first major advertisers to announce plans to make all his print advertising carbon neutral. “Even some billionaires I was recently chatting with noted that you can leave your children money, but if they can’t breathe the air what good would it do them?” he adds.

It Pays to Be Green
Theresa Palermo, senior global brand manager for Stratham, N.H.–based Timberland, believes the green trend is part of a larger current of social responsibility coursing through the country. “When we talk to our consumers, they tell us that they are engaged in some way within their community, whether it’s the environment or social justice,” she says. “So we strive to be a brand that encourages, equips, and fosters that engagement.”

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the surge in environmental consciousness among major brands is that it makes for good business, enabling companies to attract better and more loyal employees and enhance their customer relationship marketing efforts. Stonehaus, a development company in Charlottesville, Va., is seeing green in being green. It has found that consumers, especially affluent ones, are showing an increasing willingness to pay a premium to live in houses that are EarthCraft or Energy Star certified. Recently, Stonehaus began work on a new project in Charlottesville that will feature both green homes and a green business park.

“We took some motivation from corporate leaders like Whole Foods and Toyota that ended up gaining sales because of their environmental policies and new products,” says Chris Schooley, director of land development for Stonehaus. “For the development in Charlottesville, we’ll focus between a third to as much as half our marketing on green building messages.”

OrganicWorks’ Roth cautions that while green messaging does resonate with today’s consumers, companies trying to “greenwash” their image by touting environmentally friendly messaging without changing their practices or policies are playing with fire. “Your green messages don’t have to take over an entire campaign, but they do need to be authentic,” says Roth, who has helped Citizen Watch Co. promote the benefits of its solar-powered pieces. “You definitely have to be walking the walk, because people will investigate and see through any greenwashing.”

Engage the Consumer
For Timberland, an outdoor performance clothing and footwear maker, the green wave is all about getting mainstream consumers to catch up to the ideals of the company. Timberland changed its packaging last year to appeal to the environmentally conscious and added a “nutritional label” with information on where the product was made, how it was produced and its impact on the environment. “Whether it is the nutritional label on our packaging or the Green Index on select outdoor products, we continue to look for ways to engage our consumers in a dialogue regarding our commitment to the environment and our community,” Palermo points out.

But for many brands and companies, making a commitment to be environmentally friendly means significant changes to virtually every aspect of the business. Increasingly, that includes how and where you’re marketing your brand. Don Carli, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Communications, in New York, is currently working with advertisers to help them better gauge the impact their print campaigns are having on greenhouse gas emissions. If he had his way, every ad page would be carbon neutral.

“It’s imperative that we make printing, publishing and related industries sustainable,” says Carli, who participates in tree plantings to help offset the greenhouse gas generated in the printing process. “I don’t see the ad agencies driving this, so it’s got to be the advertisers taking the lead.”

Noting that even New York has announced a program to become the greenest city in the world by 2030, Carli asks, “If New York is going to be the Green Apple, can Fashion Avenue and Madison Avenue afford not to be green as well?”

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