Will people tire of "green" issues?

Will people soon tire of all the talk about green issues. This article at "Project Green Industry" would seem to indicate that they might. I think what people will tire of is false claims of being green.

Ikea, the Swedish retail , in a attempt to keep plastic out of landfills has started changing 5 cents for a plastic bag. This was splashed all over media when they did this. Ikea "cares". Recently we went there to get some furniture and after spending over $500 I was refused a plastic bag for the small stuff unless we paid for it. O.K., Ikea "cares".

You have to assemble Ikea products. They are packaged in cardboard and plastic and by the time you are done assembling the products the mound of plastic and cardboard is actually surprising. It's almost like they go out of their way to use extra plastic and cardboard.

The furniture is well protected from shipping damage, which is good. What's irritating is the claim that Ikea is going "green" because they charge for plastic bags. Gee, they are helping keep plastic out of the landfill, yet after assembling the furniture the amount of plastic and cardboard is hundreds of times greater than the small plastic bag.

So is Ikea "green"? Everyones opinion of what "green" means is different but Ikea does not seem very green to me. It seems to me that Ikea is using the green issue and the anti-plastic bag movement to score points. If they we're truly concerned about the environment they wouldn't be penalizing the customer 5cents for a bag and instead would be working on cutting down on the amount of plastics and cardboard their products use.

Just before we left we went to get a cup of coffee at the Ikea coffee shop. The coffee maker was low after we filled the cups half way so the crew nicely made a new pot for us but threw away the half filled cup's and used new cups! Cups hot so could we have a cup holder? No problem, they put that cups inside other cups. They meant well.

It's obvious the the company culture is not "green", despite their attempt to appear green. This is what's going to tire the public. Claims that are not backed up by action. If Ikea was really attempting to reduce the waste in landfills they wouldn't be fussing over the obvious target these days, the plastic bag. To me the whole 5 cent per bag issue smacks of phoniness.

This is why I don't go out of the way to advertise that we are a "green" business. Our actions speak louder than words. Sure it's o.k. to promote organics, organic gardening, and being green, but if you don't walk the walk it's going to seem like a obvious play to garner favorable press. This is what people are going to get tired of. The blatant phoniness of trying to weave "organic", "natural", or any other catch phrase into their ad campaigns just for good press.

The new eco-learning centers.

Open register , the blog of Garden Center Magazine asks about the current state of the "Fall is for Planting Campaign". Here in northern California fall is the best time to plant most shrubs, trees, and perennials yet the turnout by the consumer is less than satisfactory.

Of course we in the garden center business have no one to blame but ourselves. Somehow we are not getting the message through to the consumer. The folks at Garden Rant talked about this at length a while ago.

I don't know what the solution is but we are working on educating the customers that wants to be educated, our mailing list. People who receive our e-news and snail mail newsletter have already given us permission to inform them. We will continue to promote this planting season to them as a sort of "secret to success" that only they know about. Let's face it, the vast majority of consumers don't care that fall is for planting. There is a small percentage of the public that will accept the message. We'll focus on those people.

Garden centers need to be the voice of the "outside world". Many people are divorced from the realities of life outside. We think garden centers have a unique opportunity to become sort of "eco-learning centers". As more people feel the need to connect to nature they will want a place to learn, and share in the discovery of gardening and it's relationship to our well being. Garden centers are positioned perfectly to be that place.

We can't rely on horticultural industry marketing for "Fall is for Planting", which has to this point been ineffective. We'll have to go directly to the consumer. We will do this with e-mail newsletters, snail mail newsletters, our web page, my blog, workshops, and speaking engagements. We believe these methods are for us more effective than mass media.