Green marketing: Better Google rankings and competitive advantages

Whether we call it green marketing, ecomarketing or sustainable marketing – all three terms pursue the same goal: ecologically orientated planning and implementation of marketing activities. In this article, we take a deep dive into the world of green marketing and look at its benefits and challenges.

To begin with, it is important to realise that green marketing is not limited to sustainable products or companies. There is more room for manoeuvre here. However, it is essential that the environmental friendliness of products and, above all, the sustainability of the production chain itself should be promoted.

Green marketing – more than self and customer reassurance?

The topic of environmental protection has never been more relevant than it is today. This is proven by the following figures from the EY Future Consumer Index 2021:

• 53 per cent of the German population see climate change as a fundamental problem (15 per cent more than in the USA and 8 per cent more than worldwide)
• 68 per cent pay attention to the environmental impact of a product at least once in a while when buying it
• 30 per cent of German consumers name the responsible production and consumption of products and services as one of the most important sustainability aspects (7 per cent more than in a global comparison)

Sustainability and environmentally friendly products are playing an increasingly important role for German consumers. In order to remain competitive in this area, companies need to open up to green marketing. And not just in the future, but preferably now.

Economic success should therefore be combined with economic and social added value. Authenticity and honesty are at the centre of this. But be careful: there is a fine line between pure promises, known as green washing, and actually putting sustainability ideas into practice.

But how do companies gain a price advantage through sustainability? Here is a brief explanation: Customers…

• … trust a brand more when sustainability is a top priority
• … expect higher costs due to environmental aspects
• … show a greater willingness to pay more

Sharing online resources

The term “sharing economy” refers to an “economy of sharing”. Sharing online resources is primarily about sharing information, services and software. Here is a list of existing sharing offers by category and type:

Category	Type	Examples
Goods	Rent, lend or give as a gift	Mobile goods (automobiles, garden and sports equipment, tools and clothing)
		Real estate (houses, flats, garages, gardens or car parks)
services	Mediation	Driving, repair and cleaning services
Information on	Share	Online encyclopaedia
Software & Applications	Share	Online office applications (texts, tables, presentations, calendars, forms and drawings, chat function)

The advantages of shared use are

• Capacities and licences are used more efficiently
• Resource consumption is reduced
• Social contacts and social cohesion are strengthened
• Access to a wider range of services, goods and information
• More favourable than conventional procurement channels
• Providers take an inexpensive share of a trend and gain reach by expanding their sharing offering

The disadvantages:

• Services with low remuneration are offset by relatively high brokerage fees
• Sharing service providers are usually self-employed, bear the costs and risks themselves and are often worse off than employees
• Regular jobs are being jeopardised

Is environmentally conscious search engine optimisation more successful?

Firstly, let’s revisit Google’s mission:

“Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

At Google, the users of the search engine and their needs take centre stage. The best user experience is offered when the user can solve their problem or answer their question from the very first search result. This means that only relevant and easily consumable content makes it to the top of the search results.

• Important: Don’t just keep posting new content, but also regularly thin out, update and build up content in a targeted manner.
• Why? Every website receives a limited crawl budget from Google (time that a bot spends indexing new or changed content on the website).
• Optimising the crawl budget results in a win-win situation

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Using the figures from the Google Search Console, we can illustrate the effect of environmentally conscious search engine optimisation. After we have improved the loading time of the website and optimised the content, among other things, the number of crawled pages increases by 35 to 40 percent for the same budget (point A). This means that new content is not only included in the Google index more quickly, but is also ranked higher.

Implementing sustainability correctly as a competitive advantage

Using green marketing purely as an advertising tool is ineffective from a business perspective. Instead, those who integrate sustainability into the value creation process and the product itself will benefit. There is also an opportunity to set yourself apart from larger, established competitors.

How? By switching from a linear to a circular process definition. This means that the products are fed into a further utilisation cycle after their first useful life. The aim is to maintain the value of products as long as qualitatively and economically possible.

Here is a comparison of the three circular building blocks for different business models:

Circular building blocks	Product as a Service	Sharing Economy
Product design	Devices made from recyclable materials and replaceable wear components (e.g. rechargeable batteries)	Hire of high-quality equipment with durable materials (e.g. construction machinery, kitchen appliances or furniture)
Key technology e.g. analysis of mass data	Object recognition in images (e.g. machine for taking back used smartphones)	Online services for sharing a methodology (e.g. search engine optimisation)
Reverse logistics	Take-back containers (e.g. for defective small electrical appliances)	Partnerships for raw material extraction and recycling (e.g. utilising used or waste materials to be disposed of as raw materials)

A conscious and honest environmental approach is not only in tune with the times, but also increases sales opportunities. Ecological USPs can prove to be an effective differentiating feature compared to established companies, especially for start-ups or small companies.

However, this also requires effective marketing measures that appeal to consumers’ desire for companies that assume social and ecological responsibility.

Sustainable corporate governance – mandatory or optional?

Sustainable corporate management is a comprehensive approach that includes the economic, ecological and social dimensions.

1. The first step is to understand the impact of business activities. This includes, for example, the life cycle assessment, product evaluations, holistic risk management and risk assessment.
2. Human rights and environmental due diligence must also be enforced. Based on the catalogue of the same name from the Federal Environment Agency (for Germany), companies should, for example, take sustainability criteria into account when selecting suppliers and business partners.
3. Suitable processes for implementation must also be introduced and established. It is advisable to formulate your goals, use available signposts to define and implement measures and, if necessary, use standardised system solutions.

For small and medium-sized companies in particular, it is advisable to pool resources and seek joint solutions. In the guide from the Öko-Institut (PDF, German) you can find further approaches and tips. Examples of ecological measures include

Ecological measure	Example
Reduce energy consumption	Switching to energy-saving technologies (e.g. lighting, IT), Purchase or generation of renewable electricity or renewable heat
Use alternative materials	Use of recycled materials (e.g. envelopes or paper), Increasing material efficiency (e.g. double-sided printing for printers)
Sustainable procurement	Selection of suppliers with regard to ecological criteria, Purchasing ecological and/or regional products and services
Stimulate biodiversity	Information and sensitisation in the business network
Rethinking product utilisation	Longer service life, multiple life cycles thanks to improved repairability and recyclability
Showing commitment to the environment	Cooperation with environmental initiatives, donations in kind and money
Saving resources on the Internet	Email responses without history and with small file attachments, File sharing only via links to the original file, Minimise the memory requirements of websites (better loading time), local backups instead of online backups

In the EU, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Directive has applied to capital market-oriented companies, banks and insurance companies with 500 or more employees since December 2014. This stipulates “non-financial” reporting and proof of socially responsible and sustainable behaviour.

“Non-financial” refers to activities in the areas of environment & health, or value creation processes, material and information flows, among others. In addition to being an obligation, sustainability is also an extremely useful optional extra – and not just for start-ups. As an entrepreneur, the brand benefits from sustainable positioning on the labour market.

According to a global sustainability study conducted by strategy and marketing consultants Simon, Kucher & Partners in 2021, 58 per cent of Germans surveyed consider sustainability to be a relatively or very important purchasing criterion.

My conclusion

As the topic of environmental impact has a strong emotional impact on customers, green marketing serves as an effective tool for differentiation. Emotions and experiences can be excellently packaged in advertising messages, but the most important thing is convincing realisation: The advertising message should not refer directly to the product, but should be embedded in a true and authentic story. Don’t take the obvious route, but the credible one!