Brands need to step-up in ‘embattled’ green tech sector

Due to this darkening political maelstrom, great ideas that benefit our beautiful planet now have an even greater need to communicate their offering in an engaging, memorable and distinctive way to an increasingly fatigued consumer base. And I hate to admit it, but there’s a lot of work to do.

Green tech needs to move from ‘worthy’ to ‘specific’

Not that long ago (and arguably still a lot today), green tech branding used to be super fucking worthy. Forests, leaves, bouncy water droplets and smiling mascot planets all awash in a sea of green. This, at the time, was important (and necessary) because it differentiated itself as an emerging sector from the other tech sectors and people understood the tropes quickly and immediately. This was a good thing. The sector was growing fast and it was all loose brush-strokes and breezy cheesy branding.

But as the sector has evolved, everything has become more specific. All these different technologies now span a wide variety of things, so specificity is becoming more apparent as well as required, not just in a green tech company itself but in the way it presents and communicates its offering.

This is similar to the dotcom boom when everyone was piling in and investing at first but as the green tech sector has matured and distilled, niches have emerged. As it has become clearer what everyone is doing in the market itself, companies naturally need to follow suit.

In 2025, you can’t just be a green tech company any more. Hell, you can’t even just be a carbon credit company within the green tech ecosystem any more. Within that niche, there are now carbon credit traders, carbon credit advisors and even carbon credit verifiers – an interesting twist as, ironically, there are so many false carbon credit companies swilling around.

We recently worked with a US-based carbon credit verifier , Pachama, in part because of these issues around authenticity. It needed to evolve its brand away from the backlash; so greenwashing – loosely defined as everyone doing the same, speaking the same and looking the bloody same in a way to legitimize themselves – is now affecting how we brand, which is another interesting development.

The color green: ‘a biodynamic, organic bun fight’

With specificity comes the need to be distinctive because, currently, one of our biggest obstacles in branding green tech companies is that everyone is… green. It’s a bun fight. A biodynamic, organic, 100% sustainably produced from local, foraged ingredients bun fight.

In fact, the question we’re asked the most is never, “Can you make the logo bigger?” 90% of the time, it’s, “Can we have green as our primary color?”

When you work in branding and the reason you get out of bed every morning is to make a business differentiated and category-defining, hearing the same request nine times out of 10 sets off alarm bells. So, no, we politely push back; you can’t have green as your primary brand color. Why? Because everyone else is doing it.

But, of course, we understand the reasoning. Green is the clean tech color of choice, a sort of signifying or legitimizing tool. And it does work (or at least worked in the past). But the problem is that everyone then ends up in the same sea of sameness and your wonderful idea gets lost.

‘Focus on positive changes you’re bringing to this troubled world’

So, in our opinion, the best is to run away from the cliché as much as you can. If you’re a B2B green tech brand, act like a gregarious B2C consumer brand and make people stop and take notice. Have a position and a point of view and, more importantly, have a proper story – one that is unique to you and doesn’t give a toss about your specific product features or ROIs, but actually makes people excited about the positive change you are about to bring to this troubled world. Make them feel. On top of all this, ditch the green and, if you have the budget, spend on a custom font so that you can start to own your visual and verbal narrative and make a splash.

Don’t be a ‘caregiver’ – have an attitude

With the rise of niche markets in the green tech sector, the biggest piece of advice we give our clients is: go big or go home. Attitude, or brand character to put it another way, is how a B2B brand can start to act more like a B2C brand, which is where I believe the market is going. It’s a great way for a brand to stand out and differentiate itself from its competitors.

Previously, environmental brands occupied the traditional archetype of the ‘caregiver’ – one that was looking after the planet, was wholesome and, yes, more often than not green. But that has changed.

In the green tech space, brands like Meati and Impossible Foods are going big and bold with a ‘rebellious’ offering, the latter’s branding arguably a lot more considered and successful.

In the non-tech space, brands like Who Gives A Crap, Supertrash or even Oatly are providing a playful, entertaining alternative with strong messaging and a ‘joker’ archetype, while behemoths like Patagonia are channeling the ‘explorer’ or ‘pioneer’, suggesting to consumers that you should use their products to discover the world they’re protecting.

Plumping for an alternative attitude to that of a caregiver can actually change consumer perception of the product itself. There used to be a feeling – very misguided, in my opinion – that environmental brands “weren’t as good” as the big players: Ecover was not as rigorous at cleaning as Persil. So the traditional caregiver brand personality could actually be seen as a sacrifice to perceived performance and efficacy.

So where does this leave us in this Trumpian world? I’m an optimist and see this time as a moment of opportunity. A time when stepping up has never been so important, a time when fortune really will favor the brave.

It’s a time to go big or go home. Who’s with me?