The Perception of Green Business?

Published: 25th Jul 2008 in Ethical Business

An issue which has come onto my radar today (articles I’ve read and conversations I’ve had) is people’s perception of green business. Whether this is positive or negative, I’ve been wondering on the whole what do you think?

In our experience of running Make Hay we’ve worked hard to demonstrate that we are genuine in our goal to provide a service which has a positive impact for people and the environment and that we’re good at what we do.

We know we’re not 100% green but we’re transparent about the practices we employ every day to be a responsible business. Similarly we talk a lot about good quality, standards compliant website design.

However, today I became aware that the perception of small ‘green’ businesses may be that they are unnecessarily expensive and may not be as ‘good’ as non-green businesses when it comes to providing a service. I wondered why this may be…

Here are a few questions that came to mind:

• Do people assume that if a business emphasises green working then their primary concern isn’t being at the top the industry that they work in?
• Do people feel that they don’t know enough about how or why a business is green and because of this assume its a gimmick which allows them to add a premium to their price?
• Have people had experiences where apparently green businesses have not ‘walked their talk’?

I have to say that in my experience dealing with small, genuine, ethical businesses has been positive. Colleagues and suppliers of ours are receptive to our needs because they’re like minded. Additionally, because they’re a small business they do not need to charge more to cover lots of overheads and they’re passionate about their industry because they know they can use it to make positive changes. I think they feel this way about us too.

What do you think? How do you view green or ethical businesses in the market place? How would you answer the questions above?

I would be grateful of any feedback you can give. Either leave a comment below or contact me. Your views will really help us to provide a better service. Thank you.