"There is a lot of showing off that goes on in this field"

Founder of green events outfit UK Aware, Danny Carnegie, urges firms to ditch the impenetrable green terms and reach out to customers with more accessible marketing messages

BusinessGreen: What is UK Aware?
Danny Carnegie: We are a social enterprise events organiser. We set up about 18 months ago with three main purposes. The first goal is to deliver events that simplify the environmental message for consumers – there is simply too much confusion in the market and while most people want to be green they are not clear what they should or should not be doing. The second goal is to provide a platform from which green businesses can reach green consumers and offer their products and services in a face-to-face environment. And thirdly we want to offer larger companies that are not exclusively green the opportunity to support green start ups through sponsorship, investment and guidance.

What can people expect from your first event in London next month?
We've got a lot of top speakers, including Trevor Baylis, Martyn Williams from Friends of the Earth and Arctic explorer Nathan Allen, and a raft of green companies exhibiting, such as GoinGreen [the company that sells the G-Wiz electric car], Ecover and Ecobookers. The remit for everyone is clear: they will all be communicating in an accessible way that a regular audience can understand. The aim of UK Aware is to really demystify a lot of the green messaging you see – that doesn't mean talking down to people but you have to talk in layman's terms.

Do you think green firms are currently getting their communications wrong?
There is a lot of terminology people just don't understand unless they are very familiar with the environmental movement and its history. I sometimes get the sense that a lot of these terms are only being used by individuals and firms so that they can appear knowledgeable – there is a lot of showing off that goes on in this field. But you have to remember you are trying to reach people and communicate with them and a lot of these terms don't help achieve that. In fact they just alienate the audience, they scare people, and until mass consumers are comfortable with these ideas and understand how green products can benefit them we are not going to make any progress.

What types of terms would you say are alienating?
Terms like peak oil, carbon footprint, organic, even global warming. There is a whole plethora of words that large numbers of regular consumers still find alien. I'd absolutely endorse a simplification of a lot of this terminology when communicating with customers.

How do you go about doing this?
There is no simple solution because it always depends on the audience you are targeting. It's not a case of one size fits all, but there needs to be a greater understanding of how the terms your firm is using are understood and whether or not they need explaining, or in some cases avoided altogether.

What role can a trade show like UK Aware play in this process?
We're offering the smaller green companies a platform. Many of these companies are eCommerce firms and as such they don't have a shop front or much of a marketing budget. But at the same time what they are selling tend to be whole new product categories and they need to get those products out in front of customers so that they can see them in action. We are trying to give these firms an opportunity to meet their potential customers face to face.

There are a huge number of green conferences emerging at the moment. How does UK Aware aim to differentiate itself?
To attend typical trade shows it costs tens of thousands of pounds for a company, but we offer stands for a few hundred pounds. We can do this because we are a social enterprise and we can attract sponsorship from larger corporates. Those larger firms get association with a green event and a chance to build relationships with both green consumers and, perhaps more importantly from a commercial point of view the emerging green companies. We are currently in talks with a number of big names who are interested in the event.

A lot of people are keen to characterise the green consumer boom as all hype and no substance. How big do you expect the event to be?
In London we are expecting between 10,000 and 12,000 visitors over two days at the Barbican. There is an entrance fee of £5, which is mainly there to qualify the audience as people who are really interested in this topic and not just taking a look. We just recently started selling the tickets last week for the event in London on 10-11 May and in just a couple of days, with no marketing having gone out at that point, we had sold 1,000 tickets. I'd reject the idea that what we are seeing is marketing hype in action – the fact is that a huge number of green businesses have emerged in the last few years and they are pretty all much growing. They are growing because the consumers are interested in their products and there is no evidence that is going to go away.

What are the longer term plans for UK Aware?
We are aiming for three events annually. One in London, one in Manchester and one in Edinburgh. We may well look at an event in Bristol as well as there is a huge interest in sustainability coming out of Bristol and the West Country.

About Danny Carnegie

Danny Carnegie is the Founder and Managing Director of UK Aware, a social enterprise event company aiming to educate consumers about green products and services.

Having previously worked as an events manager and as a full time Firefighter, Carnegie set up UK Aware in 2006. The first UK Aware event, London Aware 08 is taking place at The Barbican in London on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 May.