6 - Green Products and Services

Summary

A green product is differentiated from similar products through an augmented sustainability feature, such as being produced with less environmental harm of having a smaller environmental impact upon disposal. The case of Stonyfield organic yogurt and the company’s founders, Samuel Kaymen and Gary Hirshberg, illustrate the challenges of selling green products. Green products need to offer co-benefits to garner consumer demands. A co-benefit is a functional, emotional, or social value that a recipient receives along with the product’s environmental benefits. Stonyfield’s organic yogurt offered consumers health and warm-glow emotional co-benefits stemming from the lower pesticides used in its production. Certifications and brands can play important roles in assuring customers that a green product’s promised benefits are genuine. Stonyfield used organic certification and its own quirky brand to solve these credibility challenges.