I think we can all agree 2008 was an historic and constantly surprising year:

The folks over at Marketing Profs  also noted 2008 was the year major companies and major brands saw that terms like carbon footprints, CO² emissions, alternative energy and energy efficiency weren’t going away. OK, so Warm Home Cool Planet is now part of the mainstream. What does that mean and where can we expect ‘green’ marketing to go in 2009.

Here are the some of the trends worth noting:

Green campaigns are being created and awarded. On the other hand, organizations who engage in ‘greenwashing’ (i.e. making false claims about their environmental record or the carbon footprint of their products) will be found out and called out by the many watchdog and activist groups using the Internet to make life difficult for these companies.

The bottled water industry has taken a beating recently as people began to realize there was something wrong with drinking a bottle of water transported from thousands of miles away when there is perfectly good drinking water coming out of tap just a few feet away. This kind of information-the kind that changes consumer perceptions–and behavior–is now being shared on the web at lightning speed.

If the car industry in America is ever going to make a comeback it will have to be within the next four years. They are in position to be first to market with an entirely electric car, which if it gains widespread acceptance will help them meet tougher emissions standards. If a universal health care plan is passed, it will also allow Detroit to compete with car companies located in countries where employers do not have to add employee healthcare costs to the price of their products.

In other words, despite the grim economics news, there is enough financial incentive, consumer demand, technological innovation and government assistance to make green products and the marketing of those products grow even more prevalent in 2009.