Honda F1's "Earth Dream" a Reailty? Can They Save the World?

I was reading an F1 mail order catalogue recently when I came across a brilliant description of the Honda RA107. Grand Prix Legends named it the "marmite car," as people either seem to love it or hate it.

Aesthetics aside, how much difference can a "gas guzzling" F1 team make to their sport's "carbon foot print?" They seem to have a worthy objective, but did they choose the right cause?

At sixth form, I studied Sociology and Communication Studies; I am also interested in Psychology. I mention this because I am very interested in the effect that sponsorship has on its target audience.

I am not a smoker, never have been, and don’t intend to start. In fact, I am an anti-smoker. But, I was strangely sad to see cigarette sponsorship leave F1.

I realize the underlying consequences of advertising something so bad for your health to masses of people, but I also loved the great liveries of Honda’s "Lucky Strike" RA106 or Renault’s "Mild Seven" car. In my defense, I preferred the ‘Racing Revolution’ and ‘Team Spirit’ liveries to the actual cigarette logos.

I miss those cars, but I do think Formula One is better off without cigarette sponsorship. For 2007, Renault had no trouble finding "ING," McLaren took on "Vodaphone," and Ferrari…well they simply stuck with "Marlboro" for the time being.

Honda, on the other hand, went with something quite radical for the 2007 season. Many writers actually believed that the Japanese/British team was unable to land a significant sponsor and so decided to make a statement instead.

I find this theory rather hard to support as Honda had just come out of a largely successful 2006 season in which they scored their first GP win. Both Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello were famous, liked drivers, and were probably very marketable.

Finally, with a dual British and Japanese nationality, the team would surely not find it too difficult to land a home grown sponsor.

In fact within weeks of announcing their ‘my earth dream’ idea, Universal studios joined as a significant supporter of the team. Honda split from the norm and decided to run a sponsor free livery, instead devoting the RA107’s body to a single cause: combat climate change.

Here is where I start to have a problem with the situation. Whilst I am highly sceptical of the whole "Global Warming" issue being entirely man made, a bad thing, or just part of the earth’s natural process, I do realize our climate is changing.

My problem is that there are many other deserving charities that a Formula One team might have been able to make a more significant difference with by giving its support.

Personally, I am a huge supporter of the ‘MAKE Poverty HISTORY’ campaign. I would argue that it would have been easier to market as well. I didn’t mind the RA107 earth livery, but I certainly missed Honda’s traditional white livery; if they had supported the Poverty campaign, they could have retained the white and black colour scheme.

I was also a great fan of the "Look right/left" and "Don’t Walk" replacement of "Lucky Strike" on the cigarette branded RA106. Wouldn’t replacing those slogans with ‘MAKE HISTORY’ be more affective, smarter, and attractive?

Putting aside the problem of an F1 team trying to combat global warming whilst participating in a sport that burns so much energy, Honda also fell prey to a dismal 2007 season. Many saw the backward progress of Honda that season as being a reflection of the capability of environmentally friendly products.

Ironically after the 2007 season, many suggested that the weight of the transfer of the world on the RA107 had actually slowed the car down!

I only had to visit the official Honda website to see how much the "earth dreams" support seems to be doing for the good. This is great, but I do wonder how much difference a single team can do. Surely, it is mostly up to governments to make a significant difference.

For the 2007 season, I pledged my support of the "earth dreams" campaign by donating some cash. In return my name was placed on Jenson’s car with thousands of other supporters.

This did seem to show, on the surface, that the campaign was a successful one, but whilst I have committed to my pledge (to turn off lights and TVs) I must admit my overriding motive was to be on the car; how many others felt this way?

The 2008 campaign has been another poor season for Honda, but environmentally their success has been more significant through support of partners such as the Marine Stewardship Council and promotions of the Forest Stewardship council (Friday 26th September 2008, see the website for more details).

I would argue, however, that this year’s car looks better (back to white, of course!). My main problem is that I simply hold greater importance to different charities, but that’s just me; perhaps I’m in a minority.

Climate change is a very popular and contemporary cause and I think Honda are making a difference, but I don’t think they can save the world.