Are you Eco-Generous?

According to Reinier Evers, founder of Trendwatching.com generosity is the next big thing:

Has there ever been more urgency for corporations to ditch the greed and embrace generosity? It’s something that countless individuals have already started doing, of course: giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving. And yes, we do realize that this month’s Trend Briefing is massive, but in this business climate, can you really afford not to spend some time figuring out how to get a little closer to your customers?

What does that mean for ecopreneurs? Evers predicts that the next eco-trend is eco-generosity:

Basically, once companies and consumers can no longer get away with anything less than totally offsetting their negative impact on the environment—and this will happen sooner rather than later—the only way to stand out, to gain any kind of respect in the eco-sphere, will be to go the extra mile and to be ECO-GENEROUS. From planting more trees than is strictly required, to cleaning up not only their own mess, but someone else’s, too. Count on being sustainable or being carbon-neutral to soon be merely a starting point, not the end goal. So start thinking about how your brand can actually boost the environment instead of just limiting damage. Call it PR or responsibility or both. As long as you’re going out of your way to be generous, everyone wins.

Evers gives the following examples:

They had me convinced until they cited FIJI Water and its “sustainable growth initiative [that] will offset its total carbon footprint by 120%.” Now, I’m skeptical. What do you think? Green generosity or greenwash?

Photo by MassDestruction on Flickr.com