| GREEN SCORE | NEW ZEALAND ECO PR |
| Effort | B |
| Results | A |
I’m the Lorax and I speak for the trees…Nothing is going to be get better unless someone like you cares a whole lot.
Four decades later I still get a lump in my throat. Dr Suess’s Lorax lead me on a career path through forestry to organic foods to eco-tourism.
The 1970s Eco Dawn probably had its roots in the 1960s anti-war movement. When the Vietnam War ended people who had come to enjoy protesting against the establishment needed a new cause. Normal people therefore expected the eco-fad also would soon fade.
Environmentalists themselves were struggling with the intellectual analysis in such a new and turbulent area. Many assumed that the only solution to environmentally destructive consumerism was anti-consumerism. This roused suspicion amoungst the business community. The core debate became pitched between those for “progress” and those for “preservation”.
The intellectual and academic community of that time was slow to provide help in the argument. I was genuinely frustrated in Economics 101 not being able to get an answer to the big question. How can you base all theory about successful economies on continual and indefinite growth, when the planet only has finite resources? It’s apparently not a long-term sustainable proposition. What do you do for growth when you run out of resources?
The answer to this apparent paradox, obvious now but not then, is green technology, products and services. Growth doesn’t need to be just in volume as may have been the primary driver through the industrial and post-industrial revolutions. Growth is really about value. Producing technologies and systems that reduce resource use is adding value, and generating growth in a sustainable way. It’s a shame that it took the world a whole generation to figure this out. We could have avoided a lot of planet-destruction had we worked it out earlier. Now that this is clear, businesses are no longer afraid of green and in fact are falling over each other to get some of the market action. Hence the recent interest even by Commerce Commissions in green claims.
Media played a big role in the Eco Dawn. Suess’s The Lorax, Carlson’s Silent Spring, and numerous other books and films blew the whistle on what had been assumed since the industrial revolution was a good thing – more industry. Releases tied in with major environmental issues of the time.
Fast forward to the 21st century, “And here we are” as David Attenborough would have proudly declared on arrival. The gloves are off now and directors no longer have to act like secret agents sneaking subliminal pro-environmental messages into their programmes. Now the original environmentalists’ and progressionists’ children and grandchildren sit side by side on the living room floor soaking up programming like Discovery Channel’s Planet Green.
These new media get straight to the point of how to green humankind’s activities. For today’s generation green is totally mainstream. Modern youth must be frustrated that their elders failed to understand the obvious need to work hard to look after the planet. Maybe in the same way that we 60s and 70s kids struggled to understand how our recent ancestors could have driven to extinction so many wonderful species through habit destruction and other means.
But here-in lies our challenge. Discovery Channel’s Planet Green, BBC’s Ethical Man, and other media like them are forging future green consciousness. Values being expressed quietly into young minds will determine future purchase and consumption decisions in the same way that The Lorax still has me commuting by bicycle. But now this influence is on a mainstream, massive scale. Emergence of global TV networks and online forums enables instantaneous value-building across the planet.
So how is New Zealand positioned in this new green media? Who is taking responsibility for ensuring we are leveraging these as hard we can to get our stories across?
Certainly some good work is being done by New Zealand in the global eco-PR area. A recent BBC World TV programme with former Prime Minister Helen Clark explaining New Zealand’s unique approach to saving the planet is a great start. But an ad-hoc approach to PR is not enough. A proactive Green Brand New Zealand strategy is needed to put us out in front in global media on green issues.
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Tags: 100% Pure New Zealand, clean & green, clean & green NZ, Clean and Green, clean and green New Zealand, clean and green NZ, David Attenborough, David Bellamy, eco dawn, Environmental Defence Society, Forest and Bird, Friends of the Earth, Gary Taylor, Greenpeace, Guy Salmon, John Hanlen, Kaitiakitanga, Manapouri, Native Forest Action Council
[...] upon a time in the eco dawn environmentalists used to clash swords with businesspeople and `progressionists`. Those clashes [...]