StarSportsBlog

Claudia Deutsch, in today’s New York Times , reports on the Steelcase decision to name a 10-megawatt wind farm after Peter Wege, son of Steelcase’s founder and “a prominent Michigan environmentalist”. With various mar/com folks weighing in, the article is really a consideration of why Steelcase didn’t go the distance.

“So many people care about the environment now that you really can get a lot more juice from naming a wind farm than from naming a stadium.” — Hank Stewart, vice president for strategic messaging, Green Team

“This is a new business model, and it could attract any brand that wants to be linked with sustainability. Imagine the G.M. wind farm, the Apple wind farm — it’s not unthinkable at all.” — dealmaker Ted Rose, president of business development, Renewable Choice Energy

“Changing the Climate on Campus“

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has noticed that American companies and citizens spent $54M on carbon offset credits last year. According to the New York Times, the commission said it was “growing increasingly concerned that some green marketing assertions were not substantiated.”

Unlike tangible goods like cars or breakfast cereals, carbon offsets and renewable energy credits don’t offer consumers an easy way to verify they’ve received the products sold to them. With this much uncertainty, there’s a heightened potential for deception. —  FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras.

In timely fashion, Seventh Generation has a recent blog post that provides consumers with questions they can ask to determine the quality and “additionality” of their purchases.