Green Mobiles reallocates 10% of billing for the climate
Australia’s M2 Telecommunications, a reseller of Optus’ mobile network services, is looking for strategic alliance partners to further expand its Green Mobiles-branded product to environmentally conscious consumers.
Green Mobiles, launched in September 2007, promises customers a 10% donation towards purchasing carbon offsets for every dollar they spend with the company. Unlike many other “green” products, the ‘green’ component of the service is not charged as an add-on, or a premium, of the Green Mobiles service, but as part of the standard pricing package.
“We can, by running with a no-infrastructure and low-overhead model, afford to give 10% away off the top basically as the incentive for the customer to join us,” Vaughan Bowen, CEO and managing director of M2 Telecommunications told Green Telecom. Instead of rebating the money back to the customer, Green Mobiles uses it to buy carbon abatements on behalf of the customers. “The way we have structured the offer, it will not cost them (customers) any more, so they are not paying a premium and they are doing something positive for the environment. So it’s not much to think about, as they say in America, it’s a no-brainer.”
CARBON CREDIT PURCHASE
This 10% from Green Mobile’s revenue goes to purchasing carbon credits on the Australian Climate Exchange in the form of Greenhouse Friendly Approved Abatement or selected NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Certificates and the transactions are audited annually.
According to Green Mobiles, a 10% contribution to green credits on an average cap plan of $49/month offsets approximately 7 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to almost two standard motor vehicles, or the total electricity usage of the average Australian household for one year, or a return flight from Australia to Los Angeles.
“The money that we are giving the environment is not money that is out of some manufactured profit figure, it is off the top line, which is undisputable, and is audited specifically every year by Ernst & Young,” Bowen said. “So we actually have a dedicated sub-audit – we are audited as a public company of course twice a year – but we have a annual audit specifically to audit the fact that we are actually buying the carbon abatement that we are promising that we are buying for our customers, and that we are extinguishing those abatements, so we can’t resell them and get our money back. So we have evidence to our customers and the market that we are in fact doing what we said we were going to do, and not just using it as a good marketing tool.”
He adds: “Our main proposition is actually proactive environmentalism, not offsetting the carbon emissions by the mobile phone. It is about using the mobile phone spend – people spend A$37 billion a year on telecommunications in Australia – so what we are trying to do is reallocate some of the investment that people are making on their telecommunications spend into the carbon abatement industry.”
NEW MARKETING PUSH
Green Mobiles is now ready to move beyond its soft launch stage, Bowen said, which consisted primarily of a promotion on the company’s Web site. But instead of launching the product through traditional marketing avenues, such as television, radio or opening shops, the company will adapt a partnership approach. The company is now seeking alliances across different industries to seek out green-minded consumers.
“The actual pro-active marketing phase for us is to finalize strategic alliance with large companies who have a green focus, for example, an energy company that has a big green focus. Our objective is to form an alliance with a company of that genre, we can then, with their support, communicate to their customers,” Bowen said. “Basically, we know those customers are green minded, and in the case of an energy company who have 300,000 customers that have signed on to green energy, the next step for us is to work on an alliance marketing or affinity marketing basis, where we have a partner that is already taking the green proposition to its customers and then allowing them to go back with another green proposition and say ‘we’ve partnered with Green Mobile sand because we know you care about the environment, here’s an offer specially from Green Mobiles to you. And because you are already a customer of us, you can have a further 5% discount, or you can have an extra 50 dollars to buy a phone or whatever the deal is.”
He adds: “Green Mobiles will be presenting them with a deal that is better than what they can get if they went straight to our Web site because they are being rewarded for already being a green spender.”
The company is now seeking expression-of-interests from energy companies, banking institutions, motoring associations, insurance companies, as alliance partners.
“We are focusing on companies that have made statements that they are green-minded, because we only want to partner with companies that have genuinely taken some form of green position,” Bowen added. “We are going through that process at the moment. We will find a partner in every category and those partners will communicate to their customers our offer – with a special sweetener for their customers.”
Green Mobile has also partnered with Australian recycling firm, Mobile Muster to help customers recycle old phones and the accessories.
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Category: Climate change, Green corporations, Mobile
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