There are two ethics being addressed with this question:
- How is an agent personally green?
- What does the agent know about green building and houses?
Question #2 is certainly more identifiable and measurable. NAR's Green Resource Council has a designation designed to help agents get knowledgeable about green housing issues and to subsequently market themselves as having said knowledge. Clearly there is value here both to the agent and the consumer. But what isn't as clear is to what extent a consumer is persuaded to work with a green agent based on 3rd party designations. There are certainly consumers out there who seek out green houses but do they really care about the green agent when their last agent proved capable and trustworthy? I don't know the answer but I suspect 'trustworthy' wins out over 'green' much of the time.
Question #1 is more interesting because it requires an agent to make sacrifices that put him/her at a competitive disadvantage to other agents. If you use your car less or stop altogether, you can't visit clients as much and we all know how important it is to be seen by our clients. If you go completely paperless, you stop doing direct mail and your competitors will be seen more often. And so the big question becomes, do consumers care that you lowered your carbon footprint? How would they even know unless you visited them more often or sent them direct mail?
This is issue is near and dear to my heart so I wanted to dedicate some brainstorming on how to best serve the consumer's green needs and how to overcome the competitive disadvantage that is created in personally going green.
What do you think? Feel free to respond here or join me in the Mimicc Real Estate Marketing Lab where we have dedicated a group to this topic.
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