Monthly Archives: March 2014

Hot on the heels of our latest group presentation on Communication, Forbes has published an article that discusses the FTC’s latest efforts to protect American consumers, by cracking-down on bogus “green” claims.

The article claims that 90% of Americans consider environmental impact when making purchase decisions (I find that number incredibly high – perhaps that’s a bogus claim!). This makes lying about sustainability immensely profitable for shameless companies. The article lists several examples of companies that have recently been busted – and heavily fined – for lying about their “green” products.

Example one: Lights of America, which claimed their LED bulb would last 30,000+ hours. FTC testing found they only lasted a few thousand hours. They were fined $21m as a result.

Example two: gDiapers, which claimed their diaper liners were 100% biodegradable, and could simply be flushed down the toilet after use. The FTC found this was untrue – the diapers did not decompose within one year of hitting the landfill. Even worse, the company claimed that consumers could compost the diapers in their own gardens – but failed to disclose that this was totally not okay once the diapers were soiled with solid human waste. This company intentionally lied to moms! Their fine? $450,000.

The unfortunate thing about both of the above examples is that these companies are preying on customers who are trying to do the right thing for the environment. For some of these customers, it may have been their first attempt at shopping sustainably, and now their trust has been broken. We know that trust is so important in all consumer goods marketing, but even more important in sustainability marketing – where some customers are seriously skeptical about the products. Considering that the green industry already suffers from a lack of credibility, the ramifications of such deceit extend far beyond these companies – to the industry as a whole. This means that yet again, its up to consumers to do their research before buying green. Not so bad if you have time and resources, but for many consumers, this search cost raises the total customer cost to the point where it’s not worth it to buy green.

Well done, jerks.

In what is sure to be a contentious article, Kenneth Amaeshi of the University of Scotland states that in his opinion, business school curriculum has an overly narrow focus on economic performance, through finance and strategic management, with little emphasis on society and social issues such as sustainability. While I don’t agree with everything Amaeshi says, I do agree that there needs to be more emphasis on sustainability, in business school curriculum.

A quote at the beginning of the article took me back to the first day of 486F: “the real test will be whether [business schools] continue to see sustainability as an elective, an option, or as the keystone to business education for the 21st century.” I remember Tamar suggesting that in the (ideal) future, there will be no specialized sustainability courses – sustainability will simply be integrated into all business classes. While I agree that this would be ideal, I don’t see indications that this is going to happen in the near future.

We know that at Sauder, sustainability classes are electives. And, based on the size of our sustainability marketing class, they seem to be relatively under-subscribed electives. While I certainly don’t know the reason for this, I suspect that in part it is due to the fact that in lower-level business classes, there is little emphasis on sustainability. So, business students are not being taught that sustainability is becoming an increasingly important part of business strategy. I think this lack of awareness results in upper-level business students being hesitant to take sustainability classes, and yet, sustainability has been on the agenda of some of the largest and most profitable companies for a very long time.

If we know that sustainability is becoming increasingly important in the business world, should we let business students graduate without working knowledge of the sustainability landscape? I think this seems unfair to the students. And, I think by leaving sustainability off the agenda we’re missing out on an opportunity to make Sauder grads, from all specializations, even more competitive. For this reason, sustainability should be more than an elective or option – it should be fully incorporated into business school curriculum.