These are exciting times for companies like ours that offer Earth-friendly solutions for environmentally conscious consumers. Within the past few years, we’ve seen a huge uptick in business. StalkMarket products have become commonplace in specialty green grocery stores and health food stores and we are making significant headway with mainstream retailers across the country.

The growing interest in everything green provides an excellent incentive for social entrepreneurs to stay focused on finding innovative solutions to some pretty daunting environmental problems. Unfortunately, the commotion has also attracted the interest of overzealous marketers who are now all too willing to slap a green label on pretty much anything in the hopes that it will increase sales. Sorry guys, just because your bank offers online banking doesn’t make you green.

It’s great that the environment is becoming a topic of importance to the masses. The problem is that if marketing departments continue to push in this direction, the word “green” will lose some of its punch. Worse yet, the general public will begin to suffer “green fatigue.” In fact, some people argue that this is already the case.

For many, reducing their impact on the environment is not a fad; it’s a way of life.  We need to do what we can to support and encourage more people to take environmental stewardship seriously. By painting everything with the same green brush, the marketing community is running the risk of hurting the very movement on which it is trying to capitalize. This is simply something we must not allow to happen. 

Buzz Chandler