The Green Wave in Brazil
The whole world is now worried with the Earth and in Brazil things are not different. In this article you will find what are the changes occurring in the country and how companies benefit themselves making “green choices”.
What is the Green Wave ?
Pollution has become a big problem during the industrial revolution, when manufacturing products demanded the nature degradation. Of course these problems already existed previously, especially due to the sprout of non planned cities and the major concentration of communities near by a river or the ocean, but they became a concern when the production was intense and consumerism appeared. Now the Earth has started to answer and people have decided to change.
The green wave appeared in the world in 1962 through the book "Silent Spring", by Rachel Carson, that pointed out several problems about what was destroying the ecosystem. Ten years later, the first ONU conference about the environment and pollution happened in Stockholm, Sweden.
The world is nowadays suffering the consequences of the consumerism system, which has taught people that things must be changed faster than formerly. New trends, new products, new everything made people throw away products polluting the planet only to benefit themselves, and now, the population, governments and companies are working together to change such happening.
In Brazil, the formal preoccupation with the environment started in 1973 with the creation of SEMA, short for Secretaria Especial do Meio Ambiente, which is the governmental institution in charge of environmental matters, but only about a few years ago the Green Wave have started to be relevant in the country.
In short, the Green Wave is a trend that reaches the whole world, specially Brazil, due to the attention that the country receives nowadays and the local geography.
What is the Brazilian Green Wave ?
It's sad and happy at the same time: Brazilian people have started to be aware of what has been done to the environment and companies had to adapt their marketing projects to maintain or even win customers. The sad thing is that perhaps this awareness has arrived a bit late.
You have not read it wrong: the Brazilian market is changing and being very demanding when the subject is the environment preservation. Consumers would rather buy any kind of product from a “green company” than buying from another one that just does not care about the planet health.
To maintain their consumers, companies have started to purchase green ideas, which are selling not only products but sustainable projects as well. Recycling, fast degradation packs, the procedure by which the products are manufactured and issues like those are very important when consumers decide to buy something.
What happens in the country?
There are many trends related to the Green Wave, as the project “Go to fairs”, that encourages people to purchase goods in fairs instead of going to grocery stores Those who support this idea say that buying in places like supermarkets demand a waste of electricity, water, and packages while buying in fairs promote people interaction and support the green idea.
Another trend is the “bike boys”, an idea brought from the USA that replaces motorcycles with bikes to work with delivery services São Paulo has got two companies working with this idea and they point out as the main purposes to to reduce time, costs and pollution.
"Bike boys" can reach the same places as motorcycles and sometimes taking shortcuts , once they can ride into parks and the “driver” can leave the bike and walk on the sidewalk. Companies and NGOs as Greenpeace and Heineken are some of those who already hire this kind of service in São Paulo.
Nowadays, the Brazilian population is very worried if companies are improving or not their sustainable side. Every year there is a ranking of the most ecologic company in the country. And believe it, this data can double a company's sales record.
Another important trend - that unfortunatelly has arrived a bit later in Brazil, but we can not say that it is not an achievement for the Brazilians -, is that states like Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have prohibited grocery stores (and any other convenience store) from providing plastic bags for its costumers. This measure creates jobs new jobs and also protects the environment from a product that takes more than a hundred years to decompose.
To make the idea of removing plastic bags from supermarkets stronger, the government had invested a lot in population awareness, explaining why the plastic bags are not good, and why people should support the cause. This capaingm is called “Vamos tirar o planeta do sufoco” (Let's save the planet from choking).
If you are planing to open a company in Brazil, have in mind that the eviromental awareness is very important to captivate your Brazilian customers. There are lots of stores, supermarkets, restaurants and industries adapting themselves to compete on the market. A new foreing company can not arrive in the country without a sustainable support, unless customers are not an important point for your business.
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