How Green is Your Global Brand?
Did May seem a little hotter than usual? If so, it's because our planet's ever-warming land surface temperature hit an all-time high, reaching 1.21°C above average. Governments seem powerless to take action, if the recent United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is any indication. Friends of the Earth International's recent report, Ending Corporate Capture of the United Nations, spells out the extent to which corporate interests are increasingly successful at blocking attempts to initiate responsible environmental change within even the United Nations itself.
It would seem as if multinational corporations have been given pretty much free rein to do as they see fit. So it's almost surprising that they even bother pretending to take sustainability seriously. But bother they do. To track this, Interbrand, the world's largest brand consultancy, recently launched Best Global Green Brands 2012, which in conjunction with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited has ranked 50 global brands on the basis both of how well, or badly, their environmentally-focused initiatives have performed, as well as how the public perceives them.
Designers have long been committed to sustainable practices and increasingly find themselves working for clients for whom sustainable and environmental policies and activities are embedded in their brands. Interbrand's listing, and the related brief analysis of each brand, is thus worth a look, although it's hard to share the firm's rosy perspective that, "These strong, highly innovative brands are paving the way to a new era of stability, prosperity and confidence--and they embody our greatest hopes for the future." Maybe things are even worse than I thought.
Chris Dickman
Editor, Graphics.com
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