Frogfile Green Business Expo ’08

Looking for environmentally-friendly products and services for your office? Seeking advice on financing or marketing your green business? If you attended the Frogfile Green Business Expo on September 10th at Vancity Theatre, you would have found numerous ways to “go green”.
Frogfile, a Canadian office supplies provider specializing in environmentally sustainable products, featured peer-to-peer discussions and films and showcased an array of green suppliers for businesses to green their workplace.
I managed to catch a couple of the casual yet informative discussions:
The first discussion, Financing Challenges and Opportunities for Green Businesses, was hosted by Rebecca Pearson from Vancity Capital. Pearson identified two main barriers faced by green companies in securing financing: green products and infrastructure currently cost more, given the infancy of the industry, and service-based green businesses hold only intellectual property as their main asset. An additional snag is that the successful measure of impact on a community or the environment – a growing, positive trend — is a non-financial result. Conventional financing is, generally speaking, attuned to collateral assets, low risk, high and/or rapid rate of return, and bottom line financial results.
To address some of these hurdles, Vancity Capital offers “innovative financing packages” through growth financing and micro-loans for social enterprises and environmental businesses. Growth capital, as defined by Vancity Capital, is a hybrid of equity and conventional debt whereby financing is based on the established cash flow of the enterprise, not collateral assets. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Vancity Credit Union specializes in growth financing for profitable small- to medium-sized BC firms.
In the Green Marketing discussion, Peter ter Weeme, principal and client lead for Junxion Strategy, outlined the current challenges of green marketing:

• Green Washing – Spin doctors are eroding consumer trust with empty buzzwords.

• Identifying Source of Problem or Evading Responsibility? – Some businesses believe the environmental issue is the consumer’s problem. Some consumers believe business created the mess and should be held accountable.

• Is it Real or Is It Memorex? – An increasing number of organizations have incorporated environmental and social responsibility in their policies, but many do not put those policies into practice.

• Market Confusion – With all the (relatively) new terminology, green spin, and misleading messages, it’s no wonder people at home or in business are perplexed.

Definite “no no’s” run from promoting self-sacrifice in going green to using large leafy and/or earthy images and the colour green throughout the business website and promotional materials. It’s overkill, particularly when everyone and his/her dog is doing it. Possibly the worst offender: Suddenly claim to be environmentally responsible today when you were not yesterday.
ter Weeme’s advice on green marketing was sobering in that many of his recommendations could – and should – be generally practiced by business, no matter the industry, product, or service:

• Dispel the myths about environmentalism, what is truly sustainable and what is not.
• Define specific attributes of your green products, then frame and weave these attributes into your green message.
• Demonstrate authenticity by establishing environmental and social policies and putting those policies into practice, legitimately and with transparency.
• State achievements with humility, not hollow commitments with hubris.
• Engage employees in environmental and socially responsible processes and practices.
• “Green to make progress, not perfection” (a quote from David van Seters, founder of Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD)).
• Produce an innovative green product that is interesting in its application, is of great use, and will have an impact over the long term in solving our environmental problems.
• Turn customers into advocates… by following the above, and then some.

We’ll likely see more offerings from Frogfile and its suppliers.