On April 22, less than two weeks from now, more than one billion people around the world will celebrate Earth Day. Traditionally, Earth Day has been the ideal time for brands to tout their eco-friendly practices and vie for consumers' attention with incentives to promote their brand, rather than promote Earth Day itself. On a corporate level, it's a day dedicated to actually making environmental contributions. Some businesses choose to dedicate the day to conserving electricity while others encourage volunteering with a local community program that endorses sustainability. However, we should not only be recognizing brands and companies that are …

As marketers, we tend to assume that people are looking for products that will make their lives easier and more comfortable. As green marketers, we hope that people will also be looking for products that are sustainable, with a reduced environmental impact.

What separates human beings from other walks of life is that we are guided by emotions. While we are constantly inundated with thousands of ads every day, we often make our final purchasing decision of a product based on how we feel about it. Statistics show that about 40% of purchases are impulse buys, an action strongly linked to emotion. As a matter of fact, some product categories rely on the act of impulse buying for the majority of their sales. If this is true, then brand connection with consumers should be simple: play up to their emotions.

Mobile transactions are revolutionizing the way consumers make payments. Of all American cellphone users, nearly half own smartphones and can assist in creating a greener environment. The ability to redeem a service or product by simply presenting a scannable receipt is not only making transactions seamless for the customer, but is also significantly improving environmental paper waste. With today's technology and the increasing dependence that consumers have on their smartphones, paper receipts are inefficient. Not only does the production of paper receipts emit carbon monoxide equivalent to that of driving a car for a solid year, allEtronic, a digital paperless …

We've said before that sustainability - and being green - is good for business. The recent MIT Sloan Management Review / Boston Consulting Group study is another testament to that, finding that more companies are profiting from sustainable business models.

Going green, online-is it worth it? The short answer is yes. Many marketers may not realize that catering specifically to this type of consumer can actually increase conversion rates, while maintaining your image as a green-friendly organization. And when applying some personalization to the mix, can also help keep your green friends very, very loyal.

As green marketers, we spend a lot of time thinking about brands as clients. In Verdantix's recent study Global Sustainability Leaders Survey: Brands, the tables are turned as they rank the consultants and service providers offering counsel on sustainability. The study was based on interviews with 250 senior sustainability decision-makers at firms with annual revenues greater than $250 million, across 21 industries in 13 countries.

As marketing professionals, we need to think of "green" marketing not only in terms of helping our clients create socially responsible images, but also how we can practice sustainability within our own agency cultures. For this New Year, we can resolve to eliminate waste on the back-end for ourselves and our clients, which will in turn make the experiences we create for consumers that much more delightful and engaging.

Sometimes following what goes on in the world of sustainability feels a bit like doing homework. Carbon emission reduction targets, true cost, carbon markets, standardized reporting, climate change mitigation -- the list goes on. While it's critical to understand what each of those topics means for businesses and consumers, it's not the type of language that will get mass audiences to "go green."