Steve Odland, CEO of Office Depot, argues that some businesses are ‘green washing’ their products to adhere to consumer trends. The comment comes as part of an exclusive interview with Odland for the executive business channel MeetTheBoss.tv, where he talks about the difficulties Office Depot faced during the global recession and how leadership in tough times isn’t for the feint hearted.
 
At one point during the economic crisis, Office Depot stock was pushed down as low as US60¢, and the future for the company looked bleak. Fortunately, under Odland’s leadership, disaster was averted and the company is finally riding high once again.
 
When Odland brought Office Depot back from the brink of near-bankruptcy, one of his fundamental changes was to go green. “Our customers now have become very engaged in this process and have recognised the importance of green products and sustainability,” he said.
 
Starting with the Green Book in 2004, Office Depot began its assault on the sustainability world. Defined as a simple compilation of products that were all environmentally friendly, Green Book products varied in their “multiple shades of green” across the globe: light green if the product has some post-consumer content, and dark green if it is 100% recyclable and carbon neutral.
 
“I’m really proud of these distinctions because it’s not just about being green or not,” remarked Odland. “It’s about ensuring our products continue to get greener over time, so our continued progress will be to get everything in our catalog in some phase of green and then to continue to deepen our commitment to the darker shades of green.”
 
What’s more, Odland is adamant that a ‘traffic light’ system is the only way to illustrate to the consumer your efforts to help the environment. “I remember the first Earth Day in 1970, and I was in school at the time and we marched the school children with signs to the park and we cleaned up a park,” he said. “Now it’s the 40th anniversary of Earth Day and we’re very proud at Office Depot to be participating in that with events all over the world. We have many promotions that we have going on for our customers around Earth Day in awareness of our trade-in events and awareness of our green catalogue. We don’t want to overkill it, because there’s this notion of ‘green washing’ where companies overstate their efforts, but we are proud of what we have done and what we offer for our customers.”
 
To see the interview in full, visit here

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