The most important thing to remember when you are promoting your environmental efforts is to be honest. Be transparent about where you are in the process of greening your product. Talk about your diligent research, your goals and the current steps you are taking. Don’t be tempted to announce your product is suddenly ‘green’ when in fact you have a ways to go.
To be transparent means you have to know the facts. Invest the time, particularly in the early stages, in order to understand the impact of your initiatives. An assessment of your current operations is the best way to start because it will give you a baseline to measure your efforts against.
It’s important to support your claims with measureable results. For example, if you have begun a green IT plan and have implemented an initiative for powering off computers, talk about how much energy you’ve saved since doing so and show your results. Having respected products such as a Kill-A-Watt device can give you indisputable results that verify your organizations environmental initiatives.
Finally, get external sources to validate your claims – an environmental association’s support or certification provides credibility.