If Green is engagement

Today, the Marketing Green blog reports that the political winds are shifting in the US:

Marketers should consider taking action soon rather than later to green their brands in order to avoid playing catch-up afterwards. Once Congress takes action, companies will lose the opportunity to build green credentials and shape their brand ahead of the pack. Those that wait may struggle to catch up as consumers may question the integrity of their motivations.

As more and more companies engage in green tactical practices, like water capture and reuse projects, or buying eco friendly office products, or creating recycled products, what Green vector of differentiation is left?

Green is about relationship to the environment. Which no-one has a monopoly on.

And it is not confined to things.

As I see it, the social media landscape is where companies will continue to be judged. Push marketing is about doing things to. Social marketing is about entering non-biased relationship.

Doc Searls:

"To me the most powerful line in Cluetrain came from Chris Locke who wrote,

We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.

"Deal with it" doesn't mean "Make better advertising" or "Target your advertising more effectively" or "Turn your users into marketers" (which is Facebook's latest idea). All that is just more grasp. What we need is better reach by customers. Better advertising doesn't do that. We need something else entirely. Something that lives on the customer side. Something that makes customers and users more powerful, more independent, more valuable than just "consumers" (which Jerry Michalski calls "gullets with wallets and eyeballs")."

Successful green marketing involves real commitment to relationship. In concrete terms, it means offering successful social objects.