“Brands are uniquely equipped to help us redefine value.”  KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz,  Sustainable Life Media Founder

Sharing four days of sessions with 790 sustainability and brand fanatics is invigorating, inspiring, exhausting and intoxicating. On the Amtrak train back to Vancouver, trying (unsuccessfully) to detox, I recapped some of the sessions and impressions that really stuck with me.

Embedded Sustainability is becoming mainstream
As the movement has grown every major brand has had at least a pilot program in sustainability. Now it is being built right into key product, operational and supply chain systems throughout organizations like Nike, Purina, Unilever, SC Johnson and PepsiCo.

Behaviour change is meeting green change.
We know people need to change some behaviour. But companies and marketers are making ‘green’ less and less of a trade-off in product performance and perception.

People like to feel good.
Guilt-trip messaging is taking a back seat to entrepreneurial enthusiasm and genuine boardroom support. Game playing is changing attitudes and action with fun. And sustainable branding people love to party. (Check out the unsanctioned hotel foyer soccer match on the video…. danger!)

I only had the mental bandwidth to capture a few of the many great conference experiences, but I hope there are some ideas here that every marketer can absorb for the greener. Click below to read individual blogs, or just visit the main Green Briefs site to scroll all my impressions of SB 2011 in Monterey.


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