The next few days will be fun as the Silicon Valley VC and private company investment community comes together at two Cleantech events. Full disclosure: We're doing PR for one of the events and have six clients speaking at the other.
Then, tomorrow afternoon, VentureBeat kicks off its GreenBeat 2009 event, The Conference on the Smart Grid. The event has an elite roster of speakers including John Doerr, Al Gore, Don Wood and Vinod Khosla. It also brings together innovative Smart Grid companies large and small, from Siemens, IBM and Cisco, to Tendril and EcoFactor. Schwartz is a Silver Sponsor of the event and we hope to see you there!
The DOE issued a release today about the $3.4 billion in grants issued as part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA, aka the Stimulus Package). The release is here and there are links for downloading details on who will receive the funds as well as a map of where the funds will be invested.
It is a happy day for Smart Grid technology and service providers.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of having Camille Ricketts, the lead Green writer for VentureBeat, into our San Francisco office. For the twenty PR clients we work with in solar, smart grid, biofuels, water desalination, carbon management and Green IT, Camille is a top contact--especially for those looking to reach a green investment audience. Camille considers herself to still be a bit new to the Green space, although at more than six months she is a grizzled veteran in the high-turnover world of media.
She ran through a good background of VentureBeat and her specific focus, all of which was useful. But perhaps the most helpful information for a Green PR person is tips and tricks for working with a journalist more effectively. So onto Camille's preferences:
-Follow Up: She is very conscientious about email pitches and will follow up on nearly everything if given the time. Therefore, she prefers second contact to come in the form of an email and requests a bit of patience because she will try to respond.
-Social Media: Camille doesn't mind direct messages on Twitter as long as you have something that can be of use to her. She'll read them and Tweet you back if she is interested.
-Sources: While Camille likes speaking with venture capitalists, she doesn't want a VC source that is simply going to cheerlead for a company. She wants details on why a deal came together and why the VC chose your company over a competitor.
-Embargoes & Exclusives: Both Camille and VentureBeat as an outlet, appreciate the use of embargoes and exclusives by PR people. They will honor embargoes as long as a PR firm is good to its word and VentureBeat does not get scooped after agreeing to one. VentureBeat writers pride themselves on integrity and will not agree to something they won't honor. Like almost all media outlets, they like an exclusive because it allows them to do a longer piece without fear of being scooped. The good news is that I think they're likely to get more exclusives moving forward thanks to a strong syndication relationship with the New York Times web site.
-Future Focus: Camille expects to be writing a lot about Smart Grid and Green IT in the coming weeks as VentureBeat ramps up for its GreenBeat 2009 event in November. With Al Gore, John Doerr and other high profile presenters, it should be a great event.
Overall, Camille shared some great information about working with a top outlet covering how finance and policy are impacting the cleantech market.
It has been well covered that VCs have poured billions into cleantech and green the last few years with markets like solar, wind, biofuels, smart grid and batteries receiving a good chunk of those investments. In fact, thin-film solar alone received several hundred millions of dollars in 2008, creating the potential for several big winners or losers among cleantech investments. Very respected firms like Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Khosla, Kleiner Perkins and Good Energies led the way, and many VC firms followed.
And while cleantech and green PR firms, the media and venture capitalists all did a great job publicizing the investments, there was an undertone of concern with regards to how the companies would deliver a return to their shareholders (VCs, entpreneurs and employees) and how well served the limited partner (LP) community would be by such investments.
With the credit crunch and struggles of the broader economy, many predicted a cleantech M&A shakeout that would last into 2010 before the market started a recovery. While there has been some M&A, the stimulus package, government adoption, follow-on rounds from existing investors and other measures have helped many cleantech companies weather the storm. So while private companies are not selling themsleves for dimes on the dollar (good news for investors), the market is still not strong enough to support a rash of cleantech IPOs. Or IPOs in Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
So what is the best exit for some private cleantech company shareholders? Enter SharesPost and the hassle-free secondary market exit. The company brings together buyers (private equity firms, VC firms, high net-worth investors and the companies themselves) and sellers (angel investors, VC firms, entrepreneurs and employees) of shares in private companies to provide a third exit for private company sharesholders. SharesPost already has had one Tesla Motors transaction go to contract and escrow, and just released a third-party report on SolarCity which may help facilitate more trades. Multiple buy and sell posts exist for both companies.
Private company data has been a major missing component in facilitating secondary market trades in the past and SharesPost is looking to solve that. This will be a good thing for the market, as it will help keep executive talent working at emerging growth companies, versus seeing everyone head to larger cleantech companies like First Solar, GE and Applied Materials.
Expect to see more Cleantech companies on SharesPost in the near future as some of the market darlings realize they are in it for the long haul and founders, employees and early-stage investors decide they need liquidity.
Schwartz Communications attended Schneider Electric’s Editor’s Day on June 5, 2009 to learn more about the new "One Schneider" brand and its technology approach, EcoStruXture, to drive energy efficiency, security and improved business results. We caught up with Chris Curtis, president and CEO of TAC, Schneider Electric's buildings business, to get a first hand view into these topics.
In this podcast episode, which you can listen to by using the widget below, Chris talks about what makes TAC a leader in the energy efficiency market, performance guarantees, intelligent buildings, and how integration brings it all together.
A new study covered by Kate Galbraith at the NY Times says that Green Collar Jobs grew twice as quickly as jobs in the rest of the economy from 1998-2007. Given that this study doesn't cover the hyper investment in solar, wind, smart grid, green IT, biofuels, geothermal, batteries, green autos, etc. during 2008, and the hiring that resulted, my guess is that the next study will show even faster growth over the past 10 years. Factor in green stimulus measures during 2009 and you likely have something approaching a Green New Deal.
It would be interesting to see what they specifically classify as a green job. Take Schwartz PR. We have more than a dozen cleantech clients and more than 40 people working with those companies. We couldn't say that in 1998, so technically they have been created by the movement to green products, services and technologies. My guess is that this study dramtically underestimates the number of people who have part or all of their employment driven by the growth in the cleantech market, especially people working in green pr, public affairs, marketing, legal services, media and investing.
It is really a no brainer since the technologies in development, from solar and wind, to biofuels and deslination, solve a large number of global economic, geopolitical and environmental problems. Beyond just energy generation and creating potable drinking water, there will be billions in investments in smart grid, energy monitoring and management, and batteries.
We're big believers that the current economic environment has simply delayed the inevitable and that cleantech will be a New Deal-type growth engine for the US in the decades to come. We'll be reporting back from Wind Power in Chicago later this month where it will be interesting to see what the mood is of some of the companies involved in the event. If you're planning to attend, drop us a line.
I think everyone would agree with me that regardless of whether you support the stimulus package or are against it, any sort of resolution is welcome so we can stop hearing about the different machinations of the bill.
In any event, lots of stimulus-related talk today:
The NY Times says Tech will get a big boost, including high-speed connectivity ($7 billion), digitizing of health records ($20 billion for EMRs) and smart grid support ($20 billion). This definitely creates a large public affairs opportunity for relevant companies.
It will be interesting from a Public Affairs standpoint to see how the funds are allocated. A chunk will definitely go to the states, while agencies will have budget for "shovel-ready" projects.
Even if signed next week, expect the stimulus to be a major focus of upcoming cleantech events, including the upcoming AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference in Boston.
All eyes in Washington are on one piece of legislation, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Given President Obama's priorities, there's little doubt the Act will include monies that are ultimately invested in renewable energy initaitives. But while our elected officials discuss the specifics of the legislation inside the beltway, those not in Washington have plenty of tools to follow along at home.
During his weekly address to the country, which was broadcast via YouTube, President Obama announced recovery.gov, a website that will track where the money within the Act goes once the legislation is passed.
Even before the legislation is approved, we learn about various decisions that affect the cleantech industry. The New York Times is watching day-to-day developments, which of late have included:
Yesterday, the Times reported that Congressman Edward Markety (D-MA) will be authoring the cap-and-trade legislation that is inteded to curb the production of Greenhouse gases.
Today, the paper noted that the House version of the bill, which will be voted on this afternoon, includes significant sums for public schools around the country. Some of the money is intended for "school renovation and modernization." It follows that schools can invest this money in projects that will conserve energy.
Of course the bigger question is how the money will be alloted and spent. It's a question no one really has the answer to. And we're watching closely.
I held off on posting immediately following the election results to avoid letting any excitement or disappointment seep into any analysis of how it impacts green and cleantech public relations and government relations. However, I think it is safe to say that the results mean big things for cleantech companies and the green movement as a whole.
Green bloggers everywhere started immediately discussing what an Obama presidency means to the green industry with some examples here, here and here. Martin LaMonica's post on CNET (the first link) is particularly comprehensive.
So here is my bottom line thought and I have written this in the past: The government is going to become a huge financer of renewable energy projects both in terms of greening government buildings and providing incentives and appropriations for individual companies. If you are an emerging growth cleantech company looking for funding, GR may be a good supplement to a venture round. Both direct GR contact and local PR campaigns are great ways to target government grants and funding.
Quick Note: We'll be hosting a webinar on the intersection of public relations and government relations for green and cleantech companies on Wednesday, November 12, 2008. You can register here.
Some random thoughts on which I may expand later after digesting the week at GoingGreen:
-There is a debate between two camps in solar and other incentive-boosted renewables. One camp says there needs to be a focus on markets with resources (abundant sunlight) and less emphasis on public policy. The other camp thinks that policy is the major issue short and long term. I think they are both right in that eventually the technology will be so efficient and cost-effective that it will end the ROI debate, but incentives will still help the market and can't be ignored (hello, Germany).
-Most experts agree that the country cannot afford to ignore nuclear in the short term. That said, many believe that new nuclear wouldn't have an impact for a decade or more (kind of like new oil fields) and so the emphasis should not be on nuclear as the primary solution. Most support keeping it at 20% of our energy source. Elise Zoli of Goodwin Proctor had some of the best points on the subject on the GoingGreen fossil-fuels panel. One point on nuclear by Vinod Khosla that was interesting: The innovation cycle for nuclear is 15 years whereas solar thermal and other technologies will have gone through 15 innovation cycles in that same time period.
-Green and cleantech are the fastest-growing venture asset classes, attracting between 10-14 percent of all venture dollars. It is now the "third leg on the VC stool" with technology and life sciences. -Ira Ehrenpreis, General Partner, Technology Partners
-The most depressing panel of the event was the clean-coal panel. Not depressing in the sense that they made bad points or failed to make a case, but it just seem like the participants anticipated objections and weren't passionate about the subject. One interesting point was made by Oorla Protonics about using natural gas to turn materials into oil. The CEO said that natural gas is the champagne of fossil fuels with oil being the wine and coal the beer. Using champagne to turn materials into low-grade wine or beer is ludicrous.
-Not surprisingly Khosla was the hit of Tuesday and Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) the draw on Wednesday. Khosla talked about how it is "main tech" not "cleantech" that matters and that the market should embrace solutions that can capture 80 percent of the market. He said that using one sheet of toilet paper as suggested by Sheryl Crow is not a solution and that the Prius is a nice status symbol but so are Gucci bags. This is probably the area where I disagree with Khosla most. I know he is looking at it more through an investment lens, but from a practical standpoint EVERY little bit helps. So if what I can afford to do today is buy a Prius and use less goods that leave a footprint, then I should do it. It is analagous to weight loss. If someone focuses on the sixty pounds they need to lose, instead of making small changes to their habits (less sugar, don't eat at night) that result in gradual weight loss, then they will never succeed. I am not saying that we should settle, but there has to be bridges to that 80 percent market solution.
-The most daunting thing from a green and cleantech PR perspective was this: There is SO much noise in the market and we still haven't really seen anything yet. Imagine for a moment that the current financial crisis dies down in Q4, the federal climate becomes green friendly and boosts incentives, the states and municipalities continue their charge. What will that do? Increase funding in cleantech to astronomical levels, likely open the public markets to green IPOs and pour millions upon millions into the marketing and government relations coffers of cleantech and green companies. Most are operating on marketing budgets under $1 million annually today, investing primarily in manufacturing, R&D and go-to-market. Any money they are spending now (and it is not much) is on public relations, search-engine marketing and some local government relations. The second half of 2009? We may see double the number of public companies and marketing budgets in the millions. Advertising will get better and more frequent, and the PR and lobbying noise will get louder. There may be a HUGE government cookie that begins to open in six months.
GoingGreen was a fantastic event held at a great venue. It was yet another cleantech event that was oversubscribed showing the health of the industry. It has made me even more excited for Solar Power International in San Diego. Feel free to get in touch with me if you will be there the week of October 13. jmorris@schwartz-pr.com
PG&E spoke at yesterday's GoingGreen event and talked a bit about their work in renewables. The speaker didn't take any questions from the audience at the end of the presentation and really just read a laundry list of investments they have made in plants.
Now everyone knows that they are mandated to get a certain percentage of energy from renewables, so the traction they have made is not surprising. The big question is would they be doing it if not mandated? At least their efforts are real, regardless of motivation. As Vinod Khosla said later in the say, he suspects more than half of all green claims are green washing.
The most interesting part of the presentation was when the spokesman cited a statistic that solar costs drop 19 percent for each doubling in manufacturing capacity.
Posting from the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference and kicking off with the 8am solar panel. As you can imagine, the first question was related to how the ITCs and other policy-driven subsidies around the world dictate the focus of solar companies.
David Holland, managing director of Australia-based Solar Systems, Ltd. sounded the call for government to support emerging technologies and reinforced how critical subsidies are to the market early on. He did raise the point that the industry and those technologies then have a responsibility to deliver on their promise.
The most interesting point came from John Woolard, CEO of Bright Source who basically said that "eventually the market will shift its focus to markets with a high level of resources," with subsidies taking on less importance. This is actually an interesting way of looking at things and the type of long-term view I think companies should take.
A lot of people are predicting that a change in administrations in Washington, along with a larger anticipated Democratic majority will give the solar industry and other cleantech companies the boost they need in 2009. But given the overall policy uncertainty, companies need to proceed as if they are not banking on the ITCs or take proactive steps to drive government action on subsidies. This includes green public awareness and PR campaigns, and industry collaboration to combat cleantech FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).
Like many industries, the cleantech PR world is watching anxiously as to what is going to happen with the ITCs. Expiring green rebates and credits, will undoubtedly have some impact on venture funding, the IPO market and company valuations, all of which could shrink PR budgets.
I think what we'll find though is that a lot of companies will view the political climate as turning favorable over the next 12 months and will continue to invest so they can come stronger out of any green recession. We'll know more next week after the AlwaysOn GoingGreen event at Cavallo Point where we are the representing PR agency and a sponsor. Many of the industry's most influential cleantech VCs and investors will present on trends they see in the market. We'll also get a look at some exciting companies and the CEOs of those companies.
It should be fun and educational. We'll be reporting back all of next week from the event.
One of the more notable things we noticed at PVSEC last week is that investment is obviously flowing into solar and is now beyond just funding R&D and manufacturing capacity. Companies are investing a great deal more money in green and cleantech marketing, PR and government relations.
The difference between the booths at this year's show and the booths at Solar Power 2007 are very striking. It used to be that 70-80 percent of the booths looked like this one (no disrespect to the owner as budgetary constraints and stratregic value of an event obviously dictate size and scope):
Today, the silicon valley influence of cash, marketing and PR are obvious, as well as the entrance of some companies that make their name in consumer electronics. The result a much more sophisticated event and booths that rival some of the best at a global technology event. Some of the ones that stood out:
It had an interesting closed off area and food bar that made you want to go in. Not closed in terms of "don't cross this line" but in terms of making you want to see what was behind the curtain. Given the only alternative to eating free food and drink at the booths was to wait in long lines for pretty rancid cafe solo and bocadillos, I thought it was pretty smart.
This booth had ample chairs and meeting space, both on the floor and in closed off spaces. You need to spend to get this much room, but given most attendees just want to sit at some point, it is a good way to get an extra 5-10 minutes of a prospect's attention.
A booth that captured attention for its size and prominant display of panels. Nothing explains what you do better than visuals. And finally.....
This booth was very open and inviting, displaying the company name and logo several times. Nothing is worse than a big booth where you have to search for the company name or that has a clear boundary that screams "pizza counter."
So what does this all mean? Again, it is clear that some solar companies have become very successful either through organic growth, venture capital or thanks to their critical mass in other areas. It means that the marketing landscape is more competitive than ever and that the noise will only increase. If you can't afford the large booth areas, the best way to get attention at cleantech and green events is through free giveaways (including food and drink) or through aggressive PR to get in the show issues of industry trade publications.
I have a feeling Solar Power International in October will reinforce this point.
Great post from Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech today about how the selection of Biden would impact the future of cleantech. This is especially important at the time when many are concerned about the expiration of the ITCs and the impact it will have on adoption.
Regarding the ITCs, I have spoken to many people in the cleantech industry in the past months and will speak with many more at PVSEC, AlwaysOn GoingGreen and Solar Power International. Everyone with whom I have spoken expects the change in political climate come January to compensate for any lag in incentive coverage at the beginning of 2009.
What does this mean from a marketing budget standpoint? It varies by company, but many are pushing ahead with cleantech PR, government relations and advertising spend in Q4, looking to be well positioned when the new administration and Congress push a renewable-friendly agenda in 2009. Others are sure that even if action by the federal government is delayed, enough large (population) states will increase incentives (California, Texas, New England, New York and New Jersey) to make the investment worth it.
I know many think that green has reach a bubble stage and this is the natural cycle of the bubble bursting, but I don't think we have even scratched the surface of green adoption and investing.
Some other thoughts since my last post:
-WSJ post on a recent survey saying that Americans want their energy clean and cheap. Well, duh? My guess is that most would accept clean and comparably expensive for the short term, in order to reach clean and cheap. They just have to see a clear path to getting there and it will be tough since regional solutions make the most sense.
-Interesting post from Michael Kanellos of Greentech Media on "Five Inconvenient Truths" for the cleantech revolution. The most interesting was #5, which predicts that Haliburton, Chevron and others will eventually benefit. Do people think that the cleantech revolution will result in the collapse of these companies? I think history shows that whenever there are disruptive technologies in a market, the established forces try to slow adoption but then ultimately work to become part of the revolution through R&D or acquisition. Think of the Internet (Microsoft), open source (IBM) or software-as-a-service (Oracle) as examples. The bigger issue won't be the adoption and driving of geothermal by large energy interests but the manner in which they go about exerting their influence. Provided the PR around their entrance into cleantech is done correctly (honest, transparent and sincere), they can counteract some (but never all) of the skepticism.
-CNET does a great round up of clean car technology. It will be interesting to see how it plays out long term. Will it be plug-in electrics and hybrids, which will require a non-coal based electricity grid to have the most impact or hydrogen fuel cells which require a complete overhaul of the fueling infrastructure? Out of all of the markets, including solar, wind, hydro and others, this is the one that will have the biggest impact on everyday life.
-Ping me if you'll be in Valencia, San Diego or at Cavallo Point in the coming weeks. The next two months should be fast and furious in the cleantech world.
After a long hiatus in which I took a couple of trips and battled a sinus infection, it's great to be back in the saddle on Renewablog. Not to mention I returned with exciting news.
Schwartz has partnered with AlwaysOn to sponsor and represent the GoingGreen event. GoingGreen has become the premiere cleantech industry event focused on green financing, venture capital and emerging growth companies in solar, wind, green IT, sustainability, biofuels, etc.
GoingGreen kicks off what will be an action-packed Fall for the renewables market, as PVSEC Europe, GoingGreen, greenXchange Xpo and Solar Power International (the artist formerly known as Solar Power 2008), all take place between Labor and Columbus Day week. If the other conferences have a line-up like GoingGreen (Raj Atluru and Steve Jurvetson, Vinod Khosla, Ajit Nazre, Ray Lane, etc.), we are in for one great stretch of conferences. One topic that is sure to be top of mind? The expiring renewable tax credits and the impact that a change in Washington will have on industries like solar, biofuels, wind and hydro.
If you attend the events, let us know what you think. I've been waiting for this stretch all year long.
When posting on a blog it is sometimes easy to overthink your topic and gloss over some of the really simple topics that are incredibly critical. This dawned on me when reading a post by John Gartner at MarketingShift.
This is a critically important point for a couple of reasons:
1) We have reach the second stage in green hype. The first stage was the embracing of Green by hype watchers as the next big thing in business and lifestyle. The second is an age of backlash and skepticism driven by fear that it willbe adopted, along with generalpushback by media and others who will say that adoption is not nearly matching the Stage-One hype. A lot of the media out there right now is focused on the inefficiency of solar, the negative impact of biofuels and freak windfarm fires. This makes it a prime period of time for green washers to get destroyed by media and the general public. Hence, why John's "genuine" statement is important.
2) People sometimes overlook that communications and marketing can come across as condescening. Look at the presidential campaign. You have the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barrack Obama trying to spin every little piece of information or data their way, to the point that it sometimes gets insulting to the viewer. An Editorial in the NY Times this week accused them of thinking the American people are a bunch of "rubes."
This is how I feel sometimes about green marketing--that is so superficial and transparent, it does more harm than good. So the simple message is: Be genuine and don't condescend. If you have to fool someone or oversell your greenness, it won't appear green to your audience, it will be transparent.
We're often asked by clients if the biggest trade show of the year in their respective space is a good location to announce news. We usually answer their question with a question: "What is the goal of the announcement?"
We explain that if the goal is stand-alone media coverage, they might be better off using the event to pre-brief media and announce a couple of weeks later when the market has exhausted its news. If the goal is to drive business development activities, announcing what they are doing at the show to give sales and bizdev a press release to shop to customers and prospects might be the way to go.
The green/clean tech world is relatively immature when it comes to events. There are several that are vying to become the RSA, NRF, Mobile World Congress or JavaOne of their respective markets---such as Solar Power and GreenXChange Expo--but for the most part there is not yet that one event that makes green marketers exhaust their news arsenal.
But unlike security, open source, application development, retail technology and wireless, green does have a landmark "event" that brings every marketer out of the woodwork with a news announcement: Earth Day. I performed a highly scientific research project (40-second searching of Google News by source) and found about 500 commercial press releases from the past 24 hours that mention Earth Day.
My favorite? Purex announced that Jaime Pressly has become its spokesperson for the company's green campaign. I can just see Joy, Randy, Earl and Crabman doing what they can to stop global warming on My Name is Earl.
But the point is that Earth Day may have officially become the noisiest day in the Green world. The question for marketers then becomes: "Should you announce signidicant news on Earth Day?"
I think the answer would be a resounding "No." Earth Day is much too noisy, especially when you also factor in this year's Presidential campaign, earnings season and just about every other news event that could drown out a momentum announcement, new corporate green initiative or donations to a green charity.
My advice? Avoid Earth Day like the plague and don't contribute to the noise being created by marketers in every sector from detergents to light bulbs. Better yet, follow the advice of my eight-year old daughter who said, "Let's shut everything off today that uses electricity, including the Wii, Webkinz, the TV and the toaster."
Generation Green speaks. Shut off your computer, take the day off and celebrate Earth Day away from the noise.
According to a recent survey from IDC, we have seen an inflection point with regards to the adoption of Green IT. According to the firm, more than half of all IT buyers now consider "greenness" as part of the buying criteria. The number one driver in green purchasing decisions is economic revolving around operational costs. As energy prices continue to go higher, there is little chance that this trend will stop anytime soon.
What does this mean? It means even more hardware marketers will tout the greenness of their products through PR and advertising. It means that companies that reduce storage and other infrastructure requirements (SaaS) will continue to point to the indirect costs those products save customers. Bottom line? Green IT is here to stay.
-Also on E2T, PG&E said that their latest geothermal contract will allow them to meet the 20 percent threshhold set by the state for electricity from renewables. This is important because one of the stock objections from utilities has been that cleantech hasn't advanced to the point where it is economically possible to generate large percentages from renewable sources. Green marketers now have an example to give when that objection is made by legislators and other key audiences.
-And finally, as I posted about earlier last week, the House is finally pushing a bill that would extend the renewable tax credits and rebates that are so critical to consumer and business adoption. This would help sustain the market has seen over the past several years.
The practice of Greenwashing has made lots of news lately, as some companies overstate their commitment to green practices and the FTC threatens to investigate. I'd like to think it's a case of marketers not being fed accurate information versus marketing and PR intentionally trying to mislead the public, but until some internal memos make their way public, we'll likely never know.
I've been seeing a lot of General Motors ads recently pushing that company's commitment to green technologies, from greater fuel economy to hybrids, from biofuels to electric. Most will say that history should dictate a great deal of skepticism with regards to how committed GM actually is to greening their product line, pointing to the short-lived infatuation with compact cars among U.S. automakers in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
That said, the economic, ecological, geopolitical and social benefits of going green have never been better publicized, and I think the growth of Toyota and Honda have slapped U.S. automakers with a dose of harsh reality.
I am cautiously optimistic that what GM's CEO says in this CNET interview is true and that American auto manufacturers are committed to creating products that deliver the aforementioned benefits. Let's hope this is not a case of the largest U.S. auto company greenwashing the public in hopes that the market will again eventually favor the gas-guzzling behemoths that dominated the market over the past decade. Unfortunately, some suspect this is the case and will likely not believe Detroit can be green until they drive the proof.
Greenwashing is a foolish practice if done intentionally. It is analogous to a company claiming to have great data security only to find out later that the company was lax and suffered a breach. The PR damage of being accused and/or found of greenwashing is much worse than the likely benefits of making false claims about practices. It betrays the number one rule of marketing and PR: tell the truth.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of companies out there likely partaking in greenwashing, meaning we will likely see more of it in 2008 than ever before.
I saw a great profile on CBS News regarding some engineers who took a traditional hybrid car and equipped it with additional battery power and a plug-in power source. It turns out that when you drive the car fully charged, it doesn't have to have to use the gasoline engine for the first 40 miles--highway or city! This means that the majority of Americans (81 percent according to the report) likely wouldn't have to use gas at all, provided there was a way to charge the car at work or at a transit station. This includes me, as I commute a grand total of seven miles everyday to BART and back.
This raises a few different points (some marketing-related and some not):
- Sooner or later, the laggards in the auto industry will not be able to discount the advances being made in clean-car technology. They will be committing marketing and sales suicide if they don't start embracing the move toward ecologically friendly options. As I stated in a previous post, the green halo is only going to get brighter with all of the environmental education happening at primary and secondary school levels.
- Will the adoption of electric cars and vehicles that do little harm to the environment damage the move to mass transit systems? If people aren't doing damage to the environment and their fuel costs are next to nothing, what will make them (other than a long commute) want to carpool or take public transportation? Marketers of mass transit will eventually have to start doing more to differentiate their service if the economic and environmental reasons aren't compelling. Food and beverage service, satellite TV and radio at your seat? I'd be sold.
Battery technology has to improve dramatically (not an epiphany, well publicized).
The electricity charging the car has to come from renewable sources. This could include a solar array at a home, business or parking structure, or the embracing of renewable sources by utilities, such as that produced by solar or wind farms. Charging a car with juice from coal-based energy is not a very clean option.
The horsepower generated in an electric car has to increase or those V-6 and eight-cylinder-loving Americans won't give the electric option a single sniff. Many have joked about the American dependency on heavy, high-powered automobiles. The only thing that has become more obese than our populace are the cars we drive.
Two guys in a garage became a euphemism for the technology entrepreneurs of the dot-com bubble. It seems that those two guys have gone back to inventing what the garage was meant to house--new, greener breeds of cars.
