Last night I attended Vertality2, a sustainable business networking event put on by Vancouver’s Board of Change. It’s part of my 2012 Resolution Pak™ to attend more of these things and network a little more effectively. Which sounds good until I am really too busy to go, and find myself looking around a room full of people I don’t know and thinking I should just get back home to catch up on work.

Fortunately, beer came to the rescue. I had one, which caused me to hang around long enough to spot someone I did know. Chris Livingstone, the Director of All Sorts Of Things at Globe (including the EPIC Vancouver show) and a guy who can put more names to faces than anyone I know. So I had another beer (Thanks, Chris) and before I knew it, I was talking to more people I didn’t even know.

The best part is, these were really good conversations. Green building standards, sustainability in the oil patch (?!), entrepreneurial ventures, sponsorship, yoga, car co-ops… smart people sharing lots of good ideas. And of course, more beer.

Mercifully quick speeches from representatives of Saltspring Coffee, Vancity and Hollyhock reminded me of just how human the successful corporate face of change is in this city. Monika Marcovici and Sonny Wong folowed up with the announcement of the one-thousand and first member of the Board of Change.

As I had another beer, I began to feel invigorated. Maybe we are building a critical mass of positive green thinking. Maybe the Rebel Alliance can muster a charge against the Empire. Maybe the changes I am working to make in my life and work are part of something greater.

Thanks, Board of Change. Thanks, Beer.

A ride 20 years in the making

I met with General Manager Dean Thompson in the office /ski store upstairs from the factory floor. He explained that in 1990, when the company started in Chris Prior’s garage in Lions Bay, the Pacific Northwest was home to a number of ski and snowboard factories including K2, Ride and Morrow.

“Over the last 12 years, companies have consolidated and production has continued to move offshore.” Thompson says. “Almost no one is manufacturing locally now. K2 pulled out in 2000 and bought up Ride and a few other companies. During this time it was also bought by a bigger company who also owns Coleman (think camping stoves) among other non-snow related companies. But the Prior brand is still undiluted. That’s one of the things that originally appealed to me about the company.”

One of the secrets to Prior’s survival has been carving out a niche. In 2000, they developed their first splitboard, (a backcountry snowboard that separates into two skis for climbing up and reassembles for the single-plank powder ride back down)  The splitboard market continued to grow and Prior is a major player globally. Skis came shortly thereafter and strong support from heli-ski operations and the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides helped solidify a strong backcountry customer base. Prior has now gone beyond their local roots, expanding their line and selling their pure Canadian brand online to customers and distributors in Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and Japan.

How sustainable can a ski or snowboard be?

Every Prior product begins with a wood core sourced from a small manufacturer just south of the border. (“One of the last holdouts from the old ski manufacturing infrastructure”, Thompson says) These are made primarily with apsen and maple, though Thompson says they are experimenting with some locally-sourced alternatives.

But making a durable, high-performance ride takes more than trees. Each is a multi-layered sandwich that includes non-renewable materials like fiberglass and UHMW Polyethylene. Topsheet graphics are also printed offsite, and when asked about the possibilities for recycled substrate, Thompson told me they plan to look at alternatives. “We have recently hired a product engineer,’ he added. “That will let us do a lot more work with our design and supply chain, and maybe put some positive sustainability pressure on some of our suppliers.”

Not that they have been idle.

“We actually tried using an experimental hemp-based fiberglass replacement a few years back.” Thompson says. “But it didn’t perform as well as we hoped.”

No word on whether they burned the rest of it.

Local Culture and the 20-Centimeter Rule

Perhaps the most sustainable part of the Prior brand is its engagement with the Whistler community.

Thompson elaborates, “We like to support local Whistler area talent when we develop our graphics, including using some great First Nations artists. It gives us a Whistler-inspired look that the rest of the world responds to.”

Prior is also involved with the Whistler Centre for Sustainability iShift Program and sponsors numerous local events and riders.

One of the most popular ‘community involvement’ policies is the locals rate. Anyone with a Squamish, Whistler or Pemberton address gets a substantial discount off the retail Prior price.

Growing a company in a mountain town does have its challenges, however.

“We’ve always respected the 20-Centimeter Rule,” says Thompson. “If there’s more than 20cm of fresh powder on the mountains, the factory pretty much doesn’t open ‘til noon that day. Unfortunately in the past, that has left a customer or two waiting at a locked door. So now we leave at least one or two people back at the shop.”

Presumably those who draw the short straw.

So what does Prior’s future hold?

Thompson sees lots of upside. “We have room for growth within our current space – we could pretty easily run more shifts. But it’s also important that we stay small enough to be efficient and let our people police themselves a bit.”

The biggest impression I was left with is that the Prior brand is all about authenticity. ‘Hand Crafted in Whistler’ is proudly stamped right on the skis and boards Prior makes, and North America’s biggest product testing range is right out the back door.

“Everyone who builds our product also rides.” Thompson concluded. “We are immersed in the snow culture almost year round.”

That’s one brand benefit no Asian factory can match.

The Green Briefs Two-Bits

As an independent brand, growing in a market not known for manufacturing, Prior is a great local story. Sales around the world also show the Canadian label resonates internationally. They are a ‘shop local’ option for enlightened Pacific Northwest skiers and boarders, with a mission statement that includes strong support for the community, the mountains and the environment.

Prior has already has a sustainability story to tell, and boosted engineering horsepower may let them make some more innovative advancements in that area. This might also provide some marketing partnership opportunities with other brands that share the sustainable living space. I’d love to see what brand stories develop in the next few years.

In the meantime, I will also be demo-ing a set of Prior Husume skis when Whistler Blackcomb opens, so stay tuned for the Green Briefs White Pow Sustainable Ski Review™ on those.

We’ve all seen the stats. Millions of tonnes of CO2 here, billions of plastic bottles there. Pretty soon it’s all just a sea of number soup. Until you see the work of Seattle photographer Chris Jordan.
The image above, for instance, looks like a forest of conduits or ductwork – until you realize that it is hordes of plastic cups stacked on each other – one million plastic cups, to be exact – the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.
“Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing,” Says Jordan, “…making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.” Jordan doesn’t stop with the purely visual. His ‘Energizer’ image depicts a quote from the company’s own PR department on disposable battery use, using 170,000 batteries, equal to fifteen minutes of Energizer battery production. Beyond the fascinating and sobering critique of our consumer society, Jordan’s images also hold an important lesson for those of us who want to market products and services for a better world. The next time you are tempted to glibly toss a statistic into an ad, annual report or brochure, think twice. Humans respond much more intuitively to images than to numbers that must first be processed internally. Is there a better way to illustrate the calculus? Can you demonstrate the effect of your claim? Better yet, can you improve your environmental footprint even further?
I encourage you to check out chrisjordan.com for yourself. Click on the ‘Running the Numbers’ image and scroll down. You’ll never look at statistics the same way again.

P.S. Remember  this image next time you’re writing a press release. How might your words be interpreted visually?

All images ©Chris Jordan, used with permission

You’ve printed your brochure on 100% post-consumer recycled stock. Your factory buys energy from a renewable supplier. Your fleet runs on biodiesel sourced from oil that was only used to fry organic, locally-grown potatoes. Now it’s time to do your media plan. This is no time to hang up your green values, but where do you start?
Talk to Koen Reynaert. Koen is an independent media planner and buyer who has been researching the green factor in media for over 2 years.
“I found myself not alone in this way of thinking, although most of the work seemed to be going on in countries as the United Kingdom, Australia and somewhat the United States.” Says Reynaert. “I have since been working to create tools that could determine if a certain media type or title fits the profile of a green campaign.”
Sounds logical. And Reynaert’s background of media buying in Europe certainly lets him back up his research. Of course, as with all things green, clients will have to weigh the advantages of proven, traditional choices with newer, greener ones. So Koen is working on a system he calls Eco Rating Points.
“Media Planners are obsessed with GRP`s, so why not develop a system of ‘ERP’s’ that determines whether a certain media type or title can be given preference over another. The matrix takes into account factors that affect the carbon footprint (e.g. recycled content, energy type used by the media type, distribution, recycling and disposal, the need of energy at the consumer end), as well as content, environmental policies such as eco paper purchasing policies, Corporate Social Responsibility, even donations to charities and/or environmental organizations.”
How would this affect the average buy? Wouldn’t such a system automatically be biased towards electronic media over print? Not necessarily says Reynaert.
“A mass TV campaign can have a larger carbon footprint than a targeted magazine campaign reaching the potential buyer of your green product. Which leads to the conclusion that ROI will go hand in hand with carbon footprint too.”
If you want to know more about Koen’s ERP project, or even just want to know how to pronounce his name, he can be reached online at Reynaert Media. But don’t wait too long, in case your customers start doing the research for you. Koen mentions one case in point.
“How could it make sense that a hybrid car was advertising in a magazine that was printed on 100% virgin fibre, most likely coming from the very vulnerable Canadian Boreal Forests? Wouldn’t it make more sense to at least do some research and find out if a certain magazine would be printed on recycled content, FSC-certified and Ancient Forest Free?”

Here’s Koen Reynaert’s Green Media Watch for December 2008:

Magazines in Canada that are doing a good job: Explore, Outpost, The Walrus, Outdoor Canada, Canadian Home Workshop and Cottage Life. All these titles are printed on 100% recycled (mostly post-consumer) FSC-certified paper and processed chlorine free paper.
Companies such as Transcontinental and Rogers have committed to environmental paper policies for all their consumer and trade publications.
Most TV stations in Canada have still a long way to go but they could look up to BSkyB (owned by Ruper Murdoch’s NewsCorp) that announced to go carbon neutral in 2006 and came up with initiatives such as set-top boxes that consume less power and purchasing 100% renewable energy.
BC-based TV networks score better than their sister networks in Ontario because the energy used by the source and their viewers is 80% hydro, where as in Ontario most energy comes from coal or nuclear power.
Surprisingly, the retail TV digital network offered by Walmart would score well too: for example Walmart is a client of Bullfrogpower in Ontario and the amount of energy used to reach viewers is much lower than a TV program reaching a million viewers all watching TV at home.
The outdoor industry: Pattison has struck a deal with Epcor to buy renewable energy certificates for billboards.
FSC-certified poster paper is an option
There are also eco-friendly alternatives for vinyl offered by companies like Astral Outdoor.

Your humble Unicycler is one of a group of bloggers who offer commentary on the emerging green products industry.
My blog entry for them this week poses the question, ‘Where is the Green Mafia?’ Check it out for a light look into the future of environmental lobbying, and have a look at the other bloggers as well. It’s a resource worth exploring.

Green marketing isn’t just about products and services. People working to further the cause of sustainability become their own brands, and need to communicate their values, objectives and personality as effectively as any bricks and mortar company. Earlier this year, I was introduced to Adriane Carr, former leader of the Green Party of BC, and now deputy federal leader and candidate for Vancouver Centre. She impressed me with her honesty, enthusiasm and grasp of sustainability issues. As I researched the platform of the Greens, I discovered a depth of policy that went beyond the issue of environment for its own sake. As a result, it wasn’t long before I was working on her campaign, with long-time colleague Darren Darcy of Lemonade Tactical Marketing.

We began with strategic brainstorming sessions to cull through issues, priorities and challenges. Which messaging would resonate most with BC voters? Saving salmon stocks? Food security? Developing alternative energy? We ultimately decided it was important to make the Green Party feel more mainstream, remind people of the growing momentum for the Greens and convey it all with a sense of urgency and opportunity. The positioning ‘It’s our time’ was designed to empower the voters as much as the party.

We redesigned Adriane’s website and print materials with a cleaner look, using black & white photography for its journalistic, newsy feel, and choosing photo locations within the riding to illustrate Adriane’s connection with the community. (She has been meeting voters on the street and at the door non-stop all summer, beginning long before the election was called) We kept the navigation simple and encapsulated complex issues with a link to the party’s platform document in PDF form, focusing on Green Economy opportunities that voters may not equate with the party as they have known it.

To introduce Adriane, we also created a 5-minute YouTube video and posted it on the website. We elected to forego rigid scripts and instead let Adriane introduce issues in her own words.

As the election writ dropped, Lemonade Tactical Marketing produced buttons, vests, banners, election signs and e-mail marketing design post-haste. We also covered Adriane’s events with local businesses, Green Party leader Elizabeth May and local supporters, helping keep the web site up to date and information flowing to voters.

Polls show Adriane Carr can win in Vancouver Centre, and this riding has probably the best chance in Canada to elect a Green MP. It will be nice to know that she gets there on the strength of a campaign designed to let her personal brand character and benefits show through.

The energy of the conference is appreciably higher today, as this is technically the first day of the conference. (Yesterday was ‘pre-conference’ events). In the big room, Jacqui Ottman (one of Unicycle Creative’s earliest associates and inspirations) started as the keynote speaker and MC. Her straightforward tenets and no-nonsense delivery come from 20+ years in a market space most of us are just dipping our toes into.

She worked through the last green wave in 1992 and one of her main concerns is that we will greenwash and green-fatigue our customers to the point where the green revolution could come to a grinding halt. And this time, it could take more than 15 years to re-start it. That’s 15 years the planet does not have.

So here are some of her basic rules. Read and learn:

1. Focus on primary benefits, not just green messaging.
Skip the babies, kill the daisies and pulverize the planets. Consumers are tired of trite green imagery.

2. Transparency. Give people the info.
Timberland labels are a great example. Their ‘EcoMetrics’ labels allow people to clearly link carbon with consumption.

3. Start from the inside out
Build your sustainability initiatives on who you already are. Homework: research HSBC No Small Change campaign, or GE Ecomagination.

Think like a beer marketer on new years eve.
On promoting sustainability for the future, Jacqui says we have to promote responsible consumption.Tell your customers how to use products effectively, create products that last longer and have higher value and  ultimately, buy less stuff. Companies must create new business models, invent new products, materials and technologies.

But perhaps more importantly, we pioneers have an opportunity and an obligation to include product stewardship in the process.

Next, some speakers and companies that profess to do just that.

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

“Join a staggering faculty of over 70 design, sustainability and brand leaders, along with peers from around the country, with the beautiful Northern California Coastline as a backdrop and explore how you can stay on the cutting edge of sustainable business and translate brand innovation into revenue growth and brand value.” (from the Sustainable Brands 08 website)

How could I resist?

I first heard of this conference (now in its second year) from Jacqueline Ottman, a consultant and author I met in New York in January of 2007. I was immediately impressed by her depth of knowledge in what was, at that time, an emerging field for most marketers. I was unable to attend Sustainable Brands 07 in New Orleans, but heard through all reports that it was an amazing experience for anyone who shares an interest in green marketing.

So now I’m off to Monterey.

But the question is, how to get there? I wouldn’t feel right flying… all that carbon. It’s too far to unicycle, (for someone of my abilities and testicular fortitude, anyhow)

Is that the romance of the rails I hear calling?

More on my travel booking adventures in the next post…

One in a series of articles on Lorne’s Sustainable Journey to the Sustainable Brands 08 Conference in Monterey CA. Click here for the full list of sessions, or here for the ‘Fear & Loathing’ road trip journals.

Unicycle and friends launch Building for Kids with a new brand, TV spot and DVD video.

April 25, 2007 - Healthy communities make us all more sustainable. So I was happy to participate in strategy and branding for ‘Building for Kids’. The Real Estate and Development fundraising program for B.C. Children’s Hospital.

We used the emotional power of video to drive home the need for the program and explain how it works. Thanks to an outpouring of generosity from Vancouver’s production community, not only did we get a sharp corporate presentation, we also produced and cut a High-Definition 30-second PSA TV spot.

“The emotional impact this video provides will really help us spread the word.” says BC Children’s Hospital Developmenmt Officer Leah Nyrose, “It also clearly explains how the program works.”

To view the Building for Kids TV spot, video and design, visit the brands section. Better yet, donate to Building for Kids yourself. http://www.buildingforkids.ca

Huge Thanks to:
Don Barnard – Director, Camera
Shelley Stevens – Producer
Murdine Hirsch  – Casting
Tonic Post – Debby Jenkins, Editor
GGRP – Music & Sound Design