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?

Well, Sustainable Brands 08 is over, and it was a great conference, (Click here for a list of sessions covered by Green Briefs), but as I digested all of the learning, I noticed a green marketing communication tactic that may be a ticking bomb. I call it ‘The Congreentulatory Statistic’. It goes like this.

In an example of logistical brilliance, UPS discovered that by eliminating left-hand turns from their route planning, they were able to save a significant amount of fuel. The statistic presented, as of 12/2007, was actually 3 Million gallons.

DOW Chemical, not to be outdone, claims they have reduced their solid waste production by 1.6 Billion pounds – enough to fill 415 athletic fields one meter deep!

Wow! Isn’t that GREAT! Millions of gallons of petrochemicals unburned! Hundreds of football-fields devoid of DOW’s discharge, whatever that may consist of. Back slapping all around, team! I feel positively green and fuzzy all over!!

But then a traitorous part of my mind goes to work. If UPS burns 3 million gallons of fuel just sitting in left turn bays, just how much of the stuff do their trucks cook through screaming through sidestreets? And how many athletic fields are filled one meter deep by DOW’s tasty solid waste every year? These must be staggering figures. Suddenly, for me, these hardworking corporate citizens have lost their green luster.

OK, I may be a bit greenier and possibly more cynical than the target market for the average Congreentulatory Statistic. For now. But it won’t be long before more and more people are doing the math on the other side of those equations.

So think about how you communicate your sustainability milestones. Be humble. Let people know you are always trying to do better. And remember: Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights do make a left. Just ask any UPS driver.

1. Coffee with all the right adjectives. It was nice to see a departure from the ubiquitous generic hotel swill. This selection by Thanksgiving Coffee had a nice rich flavour, and didn’t leave me with crack-jitters by the afternoon.

2. Innovative disposable dinnerware by Verterra. Pressed leaf plates and starch-based cutlery made an impression. Not to mention they styling look that will go well with your wood-paneled rumpus room.

3. The Usual Generic Hotel Buns. This could have been the most organic, free-range, vegan-victorious pastry in town. But even if it was, you’d never know it. It tasted like pure, high-fructose corn syrup sweetened lard lovin’ to me. Not that I’d know.

4. Individually-Wrapped Multinational Salt Chips. I guess there may have been some arteries going into withdrawal from their usual sodium fix. Maybe one day they’ll figure out how to make an edible starch bag. Then we could just eat them like meds. But seriously, guys. There must be a cracked-sea-salt-organic-spud-farmer version of chips to be had.

5. Free-Range Bike Racks. I didn’t see a real one while I was here. Fortunately, the Hyatt staff seemed content to let me lock up wherever. I live for the day I can pull up to the valet, toss him my helmet and stroll into the lobby, reeking of international intrigue.

6. Complimentary Post-Consumer Waste. I guess a free newspaper is a traditional hotel thing. But when they start to stack up, it just looks like blue-box fill waiting to happen.

7. My New Wind-Powered Phone. A company called CHOICEgadget had these peel-and-stick business cards that purported to provide a year of free carbon offsets for the manufacturing and use of a typical cel-phone. Funny, my battery doesn’t seem to last any longer…
 

8. Great Green SWAG from ECOimprints. Hemp, organic cotton, biodegradable pens, and a trade-show booth that ECO imprints Partner John Borg made himself from reclaimed materials. Share the love.

9. Lighting lightly on the earth. Pulse Staging and Events provided LED lighting systems for SB08 that looked great (subtle colour-changing towers provided soothing entertainment for the patient psychadelic tripper) and use 20% of the energy of traditional lighting systems. They also run cool, which can save even more on A/C energy. President Michael Karp says they also make sure their electronic equipment is as carefully sourced, and complies with ROHS guidelines wherever possible.

10. Having a conference at all. Wouldn’t it be better just to get together over webcams? Or hold local conferences wired together with big real-time videoconferencing video walls? Or plug ourselves in like The Matrix and meet in a freaky virtual world filled with chaos and mayhem? Perhaps. But there is something innately inspiring about sharing a room with over 500 other intelligent, committed, focused professionals who share a goal to make the world greener. I know I will return to my zone much more energized and prepared to take on the forces of inertia. Until next conference, Dear Readers, stay tuned for a day of Sustainable biking in Monterey, and a return  Amtrak Trek which will likely sport some sort of adventure.

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.

Mark Lee, CEO SustainAbility

The theme of Sustainable Brands 08 was ‘Below the Surface’. Lee takes this to a whole new level, with a look at the macro picture of corporate action and potential in the sustainability journey. He begins by describing the green movement(s) as “Waves of pressure, of interest and regulatory activity.” Waves come in a series, says Lee, and timing is critical. If you move too quickly or slowly, you can miss them completely.

The First Wave was environmental, and began with Rachel Carson’s iconic book, Silent Spring. This movement was a citizens approach, and response to it came from government in the form of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Revised Clean Air Act of 1970. The OPEC crisis and subsequent economic stresses, however, caused it to recede.
The Second Wave began with consumer interest in the late 80’s. ‘Green’ Businesses began to listen, but again, a recession shifted our focus, and the wave drew back.
The Third Wave was one of globalization, which Lee personified with a photo from demonstrations against the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. People began thinking about systems – are they fair? Social issues took centre stage. Soon after, 9-11 and subsequent fallout stalled us once again, but not, Lee notes, retreating to the same level as before. Some progress was retained.
This, The Fourth Wave, has attributes of the first three, but is focused on systems. (Climate, water, and food) This time corporations are playing a much bigger part, with big-business responses like the Toyota Prius, Wal-Mart’s supply chain greening etc.

These waves also generate divides in society. Lee lists the top 10 divides currently being created; Demographic, Financial, Nutritional, Resources, Environmental, Health, Gender, Educational, Digital and Security. These divides also create opportunity. Take the Demographic divide, for instance. The planet has just recently passed the 50+1% point where more people live in cities than in rural areas. Yet the automobile, as we know it, is designed for a much more spacious culture. Ford, in response, is now looking beyond cars, to Sustainable Mobility, imagining mega-cities where bus, trains and cars are all part of the same system, with streamlined payment and ridership options.

But for me, Lee’s biggest ‘aha’ moment came when he described the evolution companies must go through to become truly sustainable. In an ingenious hand-drawn Powerpoint chart (itself a thing of reductionist beauty) he showed the progression from incremental steps of efficiency and process, to the redevelopment of products and services to the wholesale re-engineering of entire business models. Only when we get to the third stage, he claims, will we truly be able to solve the big problems. And tthat will take some powerful talent.

The Rise of the Intrapreneur.
In every company that evolves changes, there are usually one or more core people or groups responsible for making it happen. These are the individuals with the vision to see an opportunity, the courage to take risks in an environment that may not reward them, and the sheer indefatigability to resist the energy-sapping inertia of the Big Corporation. These are the Intrapreneurs, and our success may well rest on their shoulders.Because in Lee’s words, “What a wave pushes up against creates the pressure that makes the wave bigger.”

Surf’s up.

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.

John Shegerian, Co-founder, Chairman & CEO, Electronic Recyclers International
Tatyana Kjellberg, Manager of Strategic Programs, Product Take-back, Hewlett-Packard
Brenda Mathison, Director of Environmental Affairs, Best Buy 

This presentation took place against the backdrop of a June 2, 2008 press release from Best Buy, announcing an electronics take-back test program being launched in 117 stores.

The session was well-attended, and hands competed to ask questions.

Best Buy has been around since the 60’s, and that leadership is still there today. When Brenda Mathison started there 6 years ago, there was no formal sustainability plan. But the leadership never said no, and now she and 4 people form a compact corporate sustainability team at Best Buy. But in her words, “We also have the largest team at Best Buy.”

Regarding their new take-back plan, Mathis compares the consumer electronics situation with the re-thinking of the medical waste stream the 80’s. It’s not a new model. Consumer electronics is the fastest-growing waste segment in the world, and it would cost 300 times the value to mine these resources from the earth. This makes these corporations the new urban miners. But this initiative will fail if the H-P’s of the world don’t participate, if marketers don’t participate, and if recyclers are not on board.

Tatyana Kjellberg pointed out that as a manufacturer, HP is not neccessarily a recycling expert. They have to talk to recyclers to learn their processes and understand how they work, and make sure the recycling is happening thoroughly and responsibly. Not just e-trash being shipped to the third world as an exported toxic disaster. (See Green Briefs article, e-Waste, a Toxic Time-Bomb) They are also making progress on the product design front, with simple things such as ensuring the use of screws is minimized, and that the same kinds of screws are used as much as possible to help easy disassembly.

John Shegerian, CEO of Electronic Recyclers International also offered some thoughts. “California has recycled 200 million pounds of e-waste in 2007. What needs to happen is a landfill ban, and then an export ban to keep it from just being shipped overseas.” But he’s not optimistic, given the current demands on Washington, that this type of legislation will be coming any time soon.

Attendee Richard Franklin, from Envirobrand asked a HUGE question. Will the recyclers and retailers be ready for the avalanche of response?

Mathis shares his concern. On the warehouse side for Best Buy, 14 Distribution Centres across the country feed 942 stores. This means trailer-loads of stuff going back to recyclers, which is good. But it’s not without its challenges. Material flow is one of them, including avoiding a land-rush to drop off items, (as might happen with a time-limited event-based program) Best Buy works very carefully with their messaging to ensure people think of dropping off whenever it’s handy. In some cases, they are enabling customers to circumvent the warehouse, or even recycling, entirely. On the Best Buy web site customers can find out if there is re-use value in the item. If so, Best Buy will actually pay them for the product. If not, they can print off a label and send it directly to Best Buy’s recycler.

“We’re not perfect.” Says Mathison. “We’ve learned a lot in 4 days, and we appreciate the accolades, but we still have a lot more to learn.”

 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.

Paul Polak, Founder, D-REV

In 2005, The luxury goods market was worth $455 billion.
$7 billion was spent on haircare products alone.
Corporations spent $140 Billion on advertising in the US alone.
Yet, median household net worth rose only 2% in 2 years. Ours is the very pinnacle of expenditure and wealth, yet this is a saturated and mature market.

What about the other 90% ?
Polak’s presentation made it clear to me that we really know next to nothing about these people. They don’t need Viagra, Botox, or mousse. They need products to help them work their way out of poverty. After interviewing 100 1-acre farmers a year for 25 years, Paul Polak, founded D-REV – to create a design revolution by enlisting the best designers in the world to develop products and ideas that will benefit the 90% of the people on earth who are poor, in order to help them earn their way out of poverty.

Polak then introduced us to some of his friends and teachers – just a few of the 1.2 Billion people who live on $1 day or less, and the 3 Billion people who live on $5 day or less. In the world’s 525 million farms, 85% are less than 5 acres, representing half of all farms in developing countries. Therefore, small farmer prosperity is the key. Yet, says Polak, we must first rethink the 3 great poverty eradication myths:
1. We can donate our way out of poverty
2. We can end poverty through national economic growth (most growth affects cities – the vast majority of poor people live in rural areas and seldom benefit)
3. Multinationals as they are now will end poverty (the closet socialist in me loved this one)

Affordability isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.
You can’t just make cosmetic changes existing first-world products. According to Polak, in order to find solutions to the world’s biggest problems, you have to go where the action is. You have to talk to the people who have the problem, and really listen to them. And you have to learn everything there is to know about the specific context.

Polak and his team had some great examples of product designs successfully developed with this criteria. One was a hanging irrigation bag, which is filled with water (usually hauled from off the farm) which the farmer than customizes by punching holes in the hose to trickle-water their particular crop. Total cost: $3. Better yet, local distributors sell them and make their own profit, becoming entrepreneurs in the process. And hopefully moving from the $1 a day category into the relative luxury of the $5 crowd.

Marketing these innovations takes thinking as well. Take the treadle pump. This is basically a primitive Stairmaster that pumps water to crops. Every 1-acre farmer should have one. Yet without significant media, (or even literacy) how do you get the message to your geographically distributed target market?

Advertising for the other 90%
In small villages, they hired local troubadours to write a song about the treadle pump, and spread its virtues wandering-minstrel style.
Launching in Bangalore, the team created a full Bollywood movie, with famous Indian actors, and played it outdoors to audiences of thousands. Apparently all of these movies feature a wedding, a near-suicide, a happy ending and a lot of dancing.
The film begins with a girl betrothed, yet her father is a farmer too poor to provide her dowry. She falls into the clutches of the dowry bandits and nearly commits suicide. At intermission, local dealers display and demonstrate the treadle pump, which also appears in the second half of the film, saving the day for the poor farmer and his daughter. Everybody dance.

I talked with Kurt Kuhlmann, who showed me some of the other simple innovations, like a low-power UV filter that can purify water a liter at a time, and a solar powered light that is nothing more than a power cell, an LED and a clip stand. All of which illustrated the key point that design is a process of creative problem solving.

Visiting their web site, however, I found few resources that would help me as a designer, engage with their cause. As not everyone can travel to these communities and spend time with these people, I would challenge Polak to take some of the learning his team has amassed and use it to create design briefs that designers can use back here in New Rome. Because Polak’s vision deserves to be spread further.

“90% of designers work for the richest 10% of customers. “Before I die I want to see this silly ratio turned on its head.” Paul Polak

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.

Janet Eden-Harris, Averil Doering, Umbria

 The irony of blogging from a blogosphere session was too much for me to resist, but this actually ended up being one of the most relevant presentations I encountered. Janet Eden Harris opened with an introduction to the scope of the blogosphere as Umbria defines it, which goes beyond wordpress-style blogs to include message boards, MySpace and doubtless other public forms of electronic publishing too hip for me to know about. This currently totals some 112 Million blogs. (Meaning you are reading just .00000001% of them right now). One quarter of adults online blog occasionally or frequently. 60% of people online in the US read blogs and 50% are over 30. 63% of authors are female. Another impressive stat from the Dragon: Chinese has recently eclipsed English as the planet’s most popular blogging language.

It is also important to distinguish between survey responses and the kind of blog conversations that happen online. These comments will be unaided, spontaneous and, in some ways, a more accurate gauge of attitude.

Umbria collects and processs 3 to 5 million blog posts every day. Through natural language processing and machine learning, they are able to analyze syntax, grammar, and phrases  to ‘tag’ bloggers with a demographic and subject-related identity. (Basically it’s a computer that can tell the difference between a Mall Rat (OMG!) and someone writing for the Harvard Law Review)

Now, this can sound pretty Orwellian. Umbria is quick to point out that they only monitor completely public sites, and respect all password-protected content. Personally, I’m not worried. If there’s even one machine out there taking the time to read my ramblings, I’ve just doubled my subscription base.

For this presentation the topic was Sustainability in the Blogosphere. Who mentions it, what they are talking about and what are their attitudes.

Top sustainable subjects, in order of popularity:
Energy & fuel
Automotive
Food & Beverage
Transportation & Travel
Apparel
General Packaging
Retail
Lighting
Electronics
Paper products
Appliances
Pharma

Segmentation:
My regular reader knows I love to carve up the green consumer pie chart. Umbria had one of the most interesting breakdowns yet, plotting peoples’ attitudes on a quadrant chart consisting of one axis measuring belief in global warming (agree/disagree) and one axis measuring sustainable behaviour (action/inaction).

Here are the categories:
Along with Jan-May 2008 percentages of the measured sample:
Negators 14%, Rejectors 8%, Apathetics (who cares), Skeptics 13%, Uncertain 10%, Shifters 19%, Activists 9%, Idlers 15%, and… The Guilty 13%

“Quit negating my rejection, you shifter…” Attitudes within the groups:
Negator: Thinks Global Warming is a scam and works tirelessly to convince others. Misguided evil.
Rejector: Won’t recycle until we’ve run out pof land to fill.
Apathetic: Who cares?
Skeptic: Doubtful of the issues, doesn’t try to brainwash others.
Uncertain? Maybe started to believe with Al Gore, but has been swayed into paralysis by plethora of conflicting news. 
Shifter: Climate change is an issue and we can do something about it.
Activist: Climate change is a critical issue – can sway from optimistic to pessimistic
Idler: “I can’t make a difference, anyhow.”
Guilty: Knows the issues but does not do anything. (Might stick their head in the oven, but that would be a waste of gas)

Overall, consumers have a challenging journey ahead when it comes to sustainability.
1. Awareness
2. Understanding 
3. Accountability & Personal Relevance
4. Action

What benefits do these people desire?
Seamlessness – Sustainable solution must be part of what they already do
Productivity – Sustainable cannot lose functionality
Social Connection – Sustainability is bringing people together
Going from individualistic to collective mindset
Inspiration – People are excited that sustainability will solve the problem.
Optimism! People are out there talking about solutions that are fun, abstract.

Keep in mind that these are people talking about sustainable issues, not pro’s covering Sustainable Brand Shows. Blogs are part of their journey. People are getting personal satisfaction from acting sustainably. Which is the first step to building a more competitive mindset to really drive change.

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.

JoAnna Abrams Founder and CEO, John Burshek, Chief Research Officer, MindClick

This research organization clearly presented the chasm developing within the sustainable marketing space:

The Chasm:
66% Believe business needs to change. 16% believe business is doing so.
77% are engaged in green actions 40% don’t believe it’s going any good
Majority understands terms like Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Few know Certified, Sustainable, or Carbon-Neutral.

So what will it take to bridge the Chasm?
1.Push the envelope on product innovation. Your customers are probably more ready for a bold approach than you think.
2. Position and package based on understanding the ‘green’ perspective of YOUR target audience. Find out what they know and think.
3. Use understandable, trustworthy, believable messaging. Be mindful of the balance between delivering ‘basic’ benefits and ‘green’ benefits. For instance, says Burshek, “Global warming is too ‘polarizing’ an issue. ‘Eco-friendly’ or ‘Reduce reuse recycle’ leaves nothing for people to shoot at.”

Abrams and Burshek also featured this direct quote from the respondents which said a lot:

“Even though I don’t buy into the global warming mumbo-jumbo, I still like to do things that are good for the environment.”

Heck, we can probably even sell that in Alberta!

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.

Erin Carlson – Director, Yahoo! For Good, Yahoo! Inc

This presentation, for me, was a great example of how a mainstream property can make sustainability work. Yahoo! Green is the most trafficked green website on the planet, billing themselves as the one stop shop for the Conscious Consumer. At a more visionary level, their goal is to inspire 600 million people to be green in their daily lives, and may be one of the few media prpoperties left with enough reach to do so. Likewise for marketers, Yahoo!s sheer traffic levels (hundreds of millions of hits daily) lets them offer a look at green consumer interest that few can match.

This wasn’t the core of Ms. Carlson’s talk, but I liked these bits, based on site visitor clicks on various articles and features.
1. People don’t want to hear about doom & gloom. Positive stories draw better.
2. Don’t rely on celebrities. People are suspicious of the ‘backroom deal’. The example given for this was a story on Brad Pitt’s New Orlean’s housing efforts was dwarfed by the story of a 7-year old in Topeka selling reusable shopping bags for charity.
3. Optimistic sustainable innovations and suirprises get great response. Like this article on the air-powered car.

They have also had success integrating their products and services with inspirational programs like ‘Be a better planet!’ (finding and rewarding America’s greenest city or town) using Yahoo! Mobile Service. And because of their frequency of use, they can readily capitalize on spikes in green consumer interest, like Earth Day.

At the end of it all, I asked Ms. Carlson if Yahoo! had a sustainable-consumer interest-monitoring service that marketers could tap into in real-time. She replied that they did not. Take that one for free, Yahoo! For Good.

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.

Steve Pinetti, SVP Sales and Marketing, Kimpton (Earth Care) Hotels
Jeff Slye, CEO, BEC & Strategic Advisor, Business Evolution Consulting

Kimpton has long focused on quality of service and creating a guest experience, helping guests maintain their lifestyle while on the road. But since 2005 they have gone even further with their EarthCare program.

Founded by Bill Kimpton 1981 A privately-held company, the leading collection of boutique style hotels in US. 43 hotels in US and Canada. (including Pacific Pallisades in Vancouver) As a smaller chain, Kimpton has the flexibility to experiment. The Triton Hotel in Los Angeles started with an ‘eco-floor’, featuring all organic products and recycling in every room. The program spread, and was formalized in 2005 as EarthCare – a name actually brought forward by a member of Kimpton’s green team. Its mission: “Support a sustainable world by using non-intrusive, high-quality, eco-friendly products and services at all Kimpton Hotels”

Now EarthCare  represents over 40 different daily practices in place at all Kimpton Hotels, including a program that is as simple ass it is successful; Recycle bins in all guest rooms. Says Pinetti, “It puts EarthCare ‘in the face’ of our guests, and it also allows them to participate. We have great feedback on it.” Another key to success has been partnership with a third party NGO. The Trust for Public Land benefits from a special reservation code offer that sees $10 per room night donated when customers book on-line with the TPL reservation code.
EarthCare has had great impacts on the brand, with positive effects on brand equity, employee values, guest values and the bottom line. Pinetti claims 18% of guests book with Kimpton specifically as a result of their sustainability initiatives. But Pinetti sees their role as a larger one.

“We’re starting a ripple of innovation. We want other hotel chains to take it on.” 

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.