Well, after months of palative care at the bedside of a dying cel phone, I finally succumbed to the lure of the iPhone. Is it sustainable? Uhh… Is it recycled? Um, no… Is it cool? Oh yeah.
But it also further emphsizes the opposites in my existence. The push and pull between my love of technology and my desire to simplify. Between my desire to work less and the ability to work more. Between the thrill of being connected and the uneasy feeling that I might never be able to detach. So I write this blog from the deck of our cabin in the Coast Mountains north of Whistler. Poking the keypad while swatting enough mosquitoes to make a salad. Off the grid, but wired to the world. And I tell myself it’s like all technology. Not evil of itself, but just another instrument with which to inflict our insecurities upon the world.
And so it is, dear Green Briefs readers… Stay tuned for even more fumbling attempts at eco-balanced reporting, and perhaps grant me a bit more slack for typos on this little touch pad. I guess life (and green living) isn’t always about efficiency. Sometimes you just have to look col- ccol… COOL.

Reading through Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Thomas  Friedman, I came across an interesting description of clean fuels vs. dirty fuels, by Rochelle Lefkowitz, from Pro-Media.  In a flash of brilliant simplicity she describes them as ‘Fuels from Heaven or Fuels from Hell.”
The Fuels from Heaven include wind, tidal, biomass and solar power. These all come from above ground, are renewable and produce no harmful emissions. (Presumably the CO2 from burning biomass is just releasing carbon that was already captured from the atmosphere – part of the cycle)
As opposed to the Fuels from Hell – coal, oil and natural gas. All are sourced from the bowels of the earth, all are exhaustible and all add to the overall CO2 content of our atmosphere.
Now there’s a branding angle worth exploring. Eternal bliss vs. damnation. Do you want your electricity to come from the realm of the Heavenly Father or The Dungeons of Satan? I can hear the radio ad now:

SFX: Dripping cave combined with factory noises and sounds of human torment. A phone rings.
Annoying Switchboard Operator: “Hell Fuels, how may I direct your call? Oil spills? Certainly. One moment. (click)
Good morning, Hell Fuels. Strip Mining Department? Would you like Coal or Tar Sands? One moment. (click)
Hell Fuels, how may I direct your call? Missing Species Department? I’m sorry, their line is still busy. Please Hold. (click)
Good morning, Hell Fuels. The Global Political Instability Department? One moment please. (click)
Hell Fuels, how may I direct your call? Global Warming Department? I’m sorry, that doesn’t exist. Yes, I know the liberal media is full of lots of cute stories, but I can assure you… You want to talk to my supervisor? The President of Hell Fuels? The Lord of Darkness? Why sir, who did you think you were speaking with? (voice changes to deep bellowing evil laugh, then back to annoying switchboard operator) Buh bye now. Good morning, Hell Fuels….”
Announcer: “There’s got to be a better way. Fuels from Heaven – wind, tidal, solar.”
SFX: Angelic music
Announcer: Let’s put our energy investment above the ground.

Okay, so it’s a 67-second radio spot with no client. But it’s a powerful metaphor that not only clearly points out the differences in fuel technology, it also has implications for our individual behaviour.
Every time you make an energy choice, who’s side are you on?

I guess it was just a matter of time. Poke the giant frequently enough and you’re going to get a swat. Over the last few years, municipalities, retailers and consumers have continued to embrace reusable shopping bags and restrict, regulate and reject plastic bags. And Big Industry responded in classic fashion, aiming at the heart of the mainstream consumer belt with a common-sense study overblown to plague-fear proportions.
The Canadian Plastics Industry Association hired two independent labs to conduct what it said was the first study of so-called eco-friendly grocery bags in North America, and found 64 per cent of them were contaminated with some level of bacteria. They went on to speculate with their own warning of ‘potential’ health problems if the reusable bags are used to carry gym clothes or diapers in addition to groceries. Here they mentioned the superbug called community-acquired MRSA (methycillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) Note that they didn’t find any of this mutant strain in the bags tested, as you can bet they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops if they had.
The ever-cooperative mainstream press picked up the story and ran with it, pretty much as instructed, with headlines like, “Plastics study: Reusable grocery bags dangerous“,  “Study says reusable grocery bags dangerous”,  and my favourite, from the creative conservatives at the National Post:  “Back to plastic? Reusable grocery bags may cause food poisoning.”  For an article that should have been titled ‘Study shows the importance of cleaning reusable shopping bags.”
It’s a clever ploy from the makers of single-use bags, whose products have taken a lashing of late. But I see an upside. Here’s a chance for an entrepreneur to create an eco-friendly reusable bag sanitizer/cleaner. It’s a guaranteed success.  After all, if the plastics industry says we should be afraid, who are we to argue?

This is the second year that your Unicycling blogger has attended this show, and if the crowds heading into Vancouver’s new Trade & Convention Centre on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May were any indication, green products and services are even more popular this year despite the recession. (Click here for a look at last year’s reviews)
Once again I made my annual tour of the event, evaluating products, buzz and potential, and offering up my usual marketing recommendations – unasked for, and unbilled – starting, of course, with the booze-tasting zone.

When I reported on this product last year, my main comment was ‘great beer, shame about the packaging’. Well, this year, the beer is just as good, and the packaging… better. Brian Hansford, Territory Manager for Pacific Western Brewing, told me the packaging had definitely helped sales, pointing out that the new box now actually features a picture of the bottle. The booth included POS designed on the same theme, and overall the effect reflects much better on the quality of the product.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: The package looks good, but could use some story. What is Natureland? What makes it different than other beers? Is there a web site? (Actually, not that I could find. Googling just led me to the Pacific Brewing site, which featured the OLD package) Time now to tell the world the story behind the beer, and create marketing that talks to nature-loving organic beer drinkers everywhere. Email me for more ideas. Will write for beer.

I had seen this product before, as its packaging had appeared in the prestigious Communication Arts Design Annual 2008. So I eagerly stepped up to the sampling table. I’m no vodka connoisseur, but the corn-based beverage seemed adequate to do the job, and set me up well for my day at Epic 2009.
From a marketing perspective, their folksy blue brochure conveyed a lot of solid backup for their organic claim (USDA, Oregon Tilth and Kosher to boot) as well as detailing their biomass energy generation and employee-ownership stake. I just wish more of this genuine prairie goodness had made it on to their website, which is as gratuitous and dysfunctional a flash wank-off as I have seen in a long time. (And I like flash) Visit prairievodka.com just to see what not to do with rich media.  But back to the show at hand. Here at Epic, I thought there was more opportunity to have fun with the prairie imagery of this product. It was taking itself a bit seriously, at least for the tone of this show. And I suspect most of the crowd in attendance would use this beverage mixed in a drink rather than as a pure shot.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: Why not invent a Prairie Martini? Perhaps combined with an organic fruit (an organic blueberry stuck through on a wheat stalk?) Give people a reason to purchase this beverage and enjoy it as part of their sustainable lifestyle.

I had seen the sign for Lotusland Winery around Abbotsford on Highway 1, and in the land of mushroom farms and rural sprawl, hadn’t given it much thought. But their label design has a much more urban flair, using west coast Vancouver B&W imagery that definitely made their product appealing to try. I sampled their ‘Blushing’, a varietal white blend tinted with pinot, and their Pinot Noir, a 2002 vintage. The blushing was a good summer hot day swiller, and the Pinot had decent complexity and nice tones of barnyard on the finish.
I was helped with this last description by the able coaching of Owner David Avery, who brought a great deal of knowledge and enthusiasm to the table. Lotusland wines are made from organically-grown grapes sourced from Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack. So it’s a legitimate 100-mile product. (In Dave’s opinion, global warming is making the Okanagan too hot to grow some grapes, and the Fraser Valley is well positioned to move up the wine food chain) When asked whether the 2002 vintage was actually available for sale, he replied in the affirmative, and that he wouldn’t sell a wine until it was ready to drink, adding that with chemical- and pesticide-free production processes, aging a wine to this stage before release should be the norm.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: As Lotusland doesn’t sell through the BC Liquor Distribution system (our government stores, for you international readers) it might behoove them to partner with some Vancouver-based organic restaurateurs to promote name awareness. A ‘Vancouver 100-Mile Diet Approved’ certification of some sort would also be welcome, perhaps on their label, and they could contact some other suppliers and promoters of that system to cross-market with.

I have seen this publication before at one of my local coffee shops, so I was happy to find out more at their booth at Epic. A chance to win a bike trailer was enough to entice me to subscribe, (for the show-special rate of $15 a year) and I had a nice chat with Managing Editor Terry Lowe and Ulrike Rodrigues, one of the contributing writers. I’ve always thought that as a vehicle for reaching Vancouver’s cycling community, this publication has a good opportunity to be the killer in the category. It’s well laid out, full of interesting articles for the starter commuter to the hard-core fixed-wheel maniac and seems to be well supported with some relevant advertising. In its 4th year of publication, it has also been chosen as a nominee for the Utne Reader Independent Press Awards. But it took a little online research for me to find out just how much this little publication has grown. One thing I didn’t realize was that it’s actually now distributed in 20 cities across North America, and prints 50,000 copies. (Though according to it’s media kit, about 2500 of those copies are paid subscriptions)  As a fervent biker, I find Momentum a very exciting prospect. Their tag-line ‘The magazine for self-propelled people’ has a lot of potential to rally riders to their cause.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: I would see increasing the paid subscription base as a huge priority, and would probably recommend some ‘Guerilla Media’ tactics that would be easy to replicate in the 20 North American cities they cover. Consider that outside the Epic show, sidewalks were bristling with bikes locked to every conceivable rack-like object. How about a simple notice or item that easily attaches to a bike featuring a web link and contest offer? Like an branded pants-clip or cool sticker that would remind me of Momentum and encourage me to subscribe with a web URL. This could easily be distributed at Folk Festivals, Concerts –wherever bikes are gathered at an event.

As CBR Products is a Unicycle Creative client, I have to come clean: This review will be incredibly positive. But besides being their Marketing Guy, I also use their products on my cabin at Lillooet Lake. So I’m sold on the stuff for all the right reasons. Perhaps CBR’s most famous product is BRODA® PRO-TEK-TOR,  a natural oil wood stain that is actually water-borne, so it has low-VOC’s and cleans up with water. Yet still lasts like crazy and comes in over 50 stock colours. The BRODA® line also offers CLARITY Acrylics and PRO-THANE urethanes, which are water-based and tintable. It’s also locally manufactured right here in Vancouver, so there’s less shipping carbon. The team was also showing off the SAFECOAT® line of paints by AFM. These are manufactured in the US (CBR is the Canadian Distributor) but are one of the best non-toxic paints you can get. At this show, CBR shared a booth with Greenworks Building Supply (Featured in Green Briefs way back in 07)  so there were other unique products on display, such as the PaperStone line of counter tops, that look and feel like some sort of coloured slate, but are actually made from recycled paper bonded with a bio-friendly resin.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: Well, I like the way the booth was anchored with a backdrop featuring the arresting signature CBR image (the BRODA® Bear). There was a nice selection of samples available for easy discussion, and the whole effect was warm and earthy. Next time, however, I’d like to incorporate some sort of product demonstration. As a customer, using the BRODA® product is such a pleasant part of the brand experience, it seems a shame not to share it.

Here are some products ripe for the times. What could be more pure than the smell of fresh clothes drying in the sun? What could offer more righteous and newsworthy PR opportunities than the fight for the right to dry clothes?  Add to that a unique range of products tailored to apartment dwellers as well as homeowners and it should spell success. The booth seemed popular, and products were easily demonstrated, including a simple towel rack that hangs on your balcony rail and an ingenious cable gizmo that spools out line to any required length.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts:
My overall brand impression was good, although perhaps more could be done with both the ‘fresh hanging clothes’ sensation and the ‘right to dry’ at the display level. For instance, I heard the owner was working to develop products and solutions that would work with the concerns of condo strata committees and property councils. Some take-home advocacy support tools could be useful. Also, I noticed wooden clothes pins were used as part of the display… I would love to have taken one of those home, custom branded as a functional Sundog business card, perhaps with a built-in magnet to stick on my fridge.