That was the main message I picked up in today’s hour-long webinar with ‘Green to Gold’ author Andrew Winston. The presentation was hosted by the ‘Board of Change’, an up-and-coming organization of green entrepreneurs and sustainable types based in Vancouver. Winston remotely presented a powerpoint show which, while plagued with a few technical difficulties at [...]

[Read more →]

You clicked, you voted, you commented. Then I procrastinated. So before the data is dated, (not to mention the iPod prize) I am happy to present some of the more interesting findings from the Unicycle Creative Brand Survey 2009. And of course, reward one lucky clicker. The objective was to find out where my readers [...]

[Read more →]

I was unusually buoyant, (considering I was reading a government document), as I waded through the new 72-page PDF report -  Vancouver 2020, a Bright Green Future. This is the much-awaited guide to Vancouver City Council’s ambitious plan to be ‘a top-five global clean-tech city’, complete with a shiny new brand for our burg: ‘Vancouver [...]

[Read more →]

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Andrew Sauder from Globe-Net, an online resource for environmental business news. It was a stimulating conversation, leading to big questions around the vision for green marketing itself. Check it out here, along with the whole Globe-Net site. It’s a resource that will definitely be in my [...]

[Read more →]

Green marketing is like following a trail of whole-wheat, organic fair-trade breadcrumbs – one morsel leads to the next, until your shirt buttons are gut-stretched and you need at least 3 free-range beers to wash it all down. Last week, as I blogged about Ocean Wise at the Cactus Club Café, I also noticed an [...]

[Read more →]

Consumers are cutting back everywhere these days, but one 2009 study shows they intend to buy as green as ever. According to the Cone 2009 Consumer Environmental Survey, 44% of US consumers say they are making the same green purchases as when their stocks were flying, and 34% are actually more likely to purchase green [...]

[Read more →]

Like steroid-pumping weightlifters at an academic dinner party, the traditional auto show muscle car stars are looking more than a little out of place. At least that’s the report from the 2009 Canadian International Auto Show. This is the kind of event where auto makers roll out their flashiest new concept vehicles, dream cars that [...]

[Read more →]

One by one, news stories are surfacing that are waking consumers up to the fragility of the globalized manufacturing chain. In China, melamine-tainted milk was responsible for six babies dying and some 300,000 cases of kidney infection. In Canada, the federal government recently placed on its list of toxic substances two silicon-based chemicals widely used [...]

[Read more →]

I was wandering blissfully through my local supermarket when a magazine caught my eye. ‘Junk Beautiful’ it proudly proclaimed. And with its clean, well-styled photography, and a decent design, this magazine/DVD bundle actually does fair justice to its title. What’s more, it has lessons for any company that is facing recession pressure. Now, I am [...]

[Read more →]

It seems like just yesterday we were ushering in a brave new era of environmental awareness and positive behavior change. New fair-trade organic free-range recyclable products were launching daily. Hybrid cars graced Hollywood’s red carpets. The US elected a President who can actually find Global Warming on a map. Then ‘Whoops, where’s that 50 Billion [...]

[Read more →]