Do You Have Answers When Bombarded With Green Questions?

Late last year I was part of a media trip made on behalf of the American Hardwoods Promotion (AHP) campaign. I can assure you that I had reservations about going, as I had no experience in meeting with publishers and editors of magazines who are in the business of promoting both residential and commercial construction. I can say without reservation that I am glad I made the trip, and I wish everyone in the industry had the opportunity to see and hear what I saw and heard. The lessons I learned were ones that can apply not just to meeting with the press, but also to conversations that happen every day in the wood flooring business with designers, architects and consumers about the environment and the products we use to make our living.

Our first meeting was in the conference room of Hanley Wood, publisher of ProSales, Builder, EcoHome, Residential Architect, and a host of other magazines. As we were making our presentation, the group of five editors, ages 25-45, started throwing questions our way. How is your product trendy? Where is your life cycle analysis? What is your carbon footprint? How is your product better than composites, concrete, steel, etc.? What kind of "apps" do you have available for iPads, iPhones and other mobile devices? I quickly came to the realization that we had an uphill battle convincing these editors we had a complete story to tell. They wanted statistics, numbers, charts … something they could use to grade our industry.

We concluded that meeting and met the next day with Cygnus Residential Network publishing and Scranton Gillette Communications. These meetings were very similar. The editors wanted to understand why our industry should be promoted by their publications. What is American hardwoods' green story, and how are we better than the other competing materials used in furniture (rubberwood, eucalyptus, and radiata pine), flooring (laminate and bamboo), and more? They perceive those products as more sustainable and LEED-certified, even though-considering we are harvesting less than half of our growth-rate volume-we believe our products are more sustainable.

I realized quickly that there is a whole generational disconnect. The younger editors were raised on sustainability and were really into LEED, green building and apps. The older editors understood the bigger green picture of our products and feel our industry is like the gold standard, but their frustration was that there isn't enough money in the hardwood industry to really promote it.

Other industries try to make their products look like wood, and somehow they want to tell everybody that not only do their products look like wood, they are better than wood and greener than wood. They each have their own story about why their products are renewable, and their industries seem to have more money to promote their claims. We need to have all the answers, studies and statistics to back up our answers to questions, whether they are from a journalist or a customer. 

Those younger editors represent the next generation of consumers. They want something green and they want something rich. They want the look, but they want to know it's OK. They think it's good to buy bamboo, because it's quickly renewable. I tried to explain to them that our hardwoods are renewable, too, it's just that our harvest cycle is a little longer. We have to get them to understand that American hardwoods will be around for them, and they will be around for their children and their grandchildren, too. I have environmentalist friends who tell me I'm cutting all the trees down, and I keep saying, "You've been telling me that for the last 40 years and they're still out there-what do you think of that?" 

Those of us who make our living from American hardwoods are sitting in the same boat competing in the building materials industry for both commercial and residential construction, and when so many other players from other materials spend so much more time and money in promotion than we do, then you really do get a true feeling of inadequacy-you're taking a knife to a gunfight. What are we doing to differentiate ourselves from competing materials chipping away at our market share? We better think about how we are going to survive in today's green business environment, because it won't get better unless we make it better.

For more information on the AHP campaign, go to www.hardwoodinfo.com.