Shiny Green Button

Photo credit: ansik on Flickr

The equivalency is a common device used in sustainability communications. You’ve seen it. It usually goes something like: “The emissions we reduce by [insert environmentally responsible action here] are equal to taking 500,000 cars off the road for a year. Or like this: By [insert recycling activity here] we save the equivalent of 20,000 trees.

Many of the equivalencies you see in sustainability communications come from calculations provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s handy greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, which helps express carbon emissions in terms of passenger vehicles on the road, barrels of oil consumed, railcars of coal or even propane cylinders used for home barbecues.

The EPA’s website says the calculator can help you translate “abstract measurements into concrete terms you can understand.” But does it? Without context, I have no way of understanding what removing 500,000 cars from the road really means. The comparison gives me a concrete image, but the idea is still abstract. Expressing it as a percentage of all the cars on the road might be more meaningful, but we all know that number wouldn’t sound as impressive as 500,000.

So, what’s a writer to do? I want to suggest we find more relatable ways to express these ideas, but maintaining accuracy can be tricky. So, here’s a thought: We could use equivalencies to make a larger point.

For example, as we gathered data for our own sustainability report, we learned that by setting two-sided printing as our default, we saved the equivalent of two trees in one quarter alone. That fact doesn’t mean a lot on its own. But, it helped support a larger idea we wanted to communicate. If every small business our size in the U.S. did the same thing, together we could saved 385,264 trees in a year. The imagery is still abstract, but it gives us a compelling way to encourage other businesses like ours to make small changes that add up to a bigger difference.

What about you? How do you use equivalencies in your sustainability communications?

Photo credit: Daniel*1977 on Flickr

Over at GreenBiz.com, Tim Mohin, director of corporate responsibility at AMD, offers insights from this month’s Ceres conference in Boston and poses an interesting question:

“If so many companies are producing data on environmental, social and governance issues, who is reading all these reports? And, what are the data being used for?”

Mohin describes a scene at the Ceres awards ceremony, when a representative of Seventh Generation accepted the award for best sustainability report in the small and medium business category and asked the audience how many people had actually read the winning report.

The response? Chirping crickets and a few hands.

But, when he asked how many people had read their own company’s report, almost all hands were in the air.

Mohin goes on to say that CSR reporting can offer more than a window into a company’s programs; it can be useful as a mirror, to engage employees and inform improvements in a company’s CSR strategy moving forward. An excellent point, but I can’t get past that first question: why should anyone read a company’s CSR report?

Mohin identifies a gap that we communicators need to fill. The data companies collect for CSR reporting is a goldmine for stories with relevance beyond employees and investors and industry analysts.

For example, we can take the data out of the report and into the real world,  putting one company’s accomplishments in the larger context of its industry and global efforts. We can connect the dots between corporate sustainability efforts and the products consumers see on the shelf. We can add texture to data about employee volunteerism by highlighting who benefits from it and how others can pitch in.

When we use corporate responsibility as a frame for a company’s larger brand story, we can encourage external audiences—consumers, suppliers, peers and even competitors— to not only read about its sustainability efforts, but support them and also consider their own.

Here’s an example from our own portfolio. We helped HP develop its comprehensive global citizenship report, but we also used the data to create a business-magazine style companion piece for a consumer audience. Would you read this?

Photo credit: MontyPython on Flickr

I finally made time to read Paul Krugman’s lengthy New York Times magazine piece “Building a Green Economy,” which is essentially a crash course in Enviro Econ 101.

One point he made struck me as particularly relevant to those of us in the communications field. He notes, realistically, that one individual’s conservation efforts just don’t have a significant impact on climate change: “Any serious solution must rely mainly on creating a system that gives everyone a self-interested reason to produce fewer emissions.”

His point has a direct application to businesses making efforts to be more sustainable and those of us who help them tell their stories. No matter how large, one business can not solve the problem alone. It can however, set the stage for broader adoption of responsible practices. What better way to do that than to communicate, loudly, clearly and accurately, the business benefits of sustainability?

So often, sustainability communications take a feel-good approach, touting how a company is making a healthier, greener planet for everyone. But, what if more businesses made a bigger deal about how sustainability actually saves their company money through more efficient processes, healthier employees, etc.? And what if they shared this kind of information not just with shareholders, but with everyone?

This is an area where we, as communicators, can help. By adjusting the frame in this way—positioning corporate responsibility not as a responsibility but as smart business strategy—maybe we can all do better for ourselves and the planet.

Photo credit: PhillipWest on Flickr

A company’s sustainability communications often focus on two things: stuff they’ve done (easy to talk about) and stuff they plan to do (kinda iffy).

Take these two statements:
Company A seeks to remove toxic chemicals from its products by 2012.
Company B will remove toxic chemicals from its products by 2012.

Which company do you trust to remove toxic chemicals—the company that seeks to or the company that will? It’s not a subtle distinction. It’s the difference between a good intention and a promise.

I come across this language all the time—aspire, hope, strive, aim, seek and the list goes on. Here’s what these words convey to the reader: “We really think this is a good idea, but things might not work out.”

Some people say that the business world doesn’t lend itself to definitive language about the future. They question how a company could know whether it will actually achieve its goals.

I’m betting that on any given day, you guarantee to clients, co-workers and partners that you’ll get something done by a specified time. Imagine if you told a client, “I hope to complete your project on time.” What would they say? “Oh really? You hope to? That’s cute.”

Instead, you tell them what they expect to hear—“I will have this done by the deadline”—and you deliver. Why would you treat customers—your livelihood—any differently?

We’re past the era of good intentions. Welcome to the era of brass tacks. The public expects businesses to stop aspiring and start getting stuff done. It’s time to use the language to match.

Photo by SLR Jester on Flickr

Even companies that seem like polar opposites in the real world can sound like clones when they try to communicate their corporate ethics. Most of the time, you’ll find language like this:

• Our company operates in compliance with the law.
• We avoid conflicts of interest.
• We are committed to upholding strict confidentiality and privacy standards.

All very necessary, I know. But ethics is more than following the letter of the law. It’s a way to set your company apart, especially if you’re trying to convince your customers of the sincerity of your corporate responsibility.

In talking with fellow SGB blogger Christian the other day, he made a good point: products are neutral. Whether you’re a technology company or a wine maker or a car manufacturer, it’s what you do with your products—from how you manufacture them to how you promote them—that makes them good or bad. An ethical foundation will drive your company to do good in all you do.

Take for example, these two statements, pulled from the websites of two publicly traded companies in (roughly) the same industry:

1) Our leaders wrote the [Company’s] Code of Business Conduct to reflect the values embodied in our Pledge, to clarify expectations, and to promote business that operates with integrity. By presenting guidelines for appropriate business behavior, the code helps employees deal responsibly with the dynamics and range of complex business practices that affect the company’s reputation.
 
2) To help ensure our long-term business success, [Company] strives to maintain the highest ethical standards in all of our interactions with Customers, Team Members, Vendors and other Company Stakeholders. To this end, our Company has adopted various organizational documents, charters, policies and processes.

One is from Monsanto; the other is from Whole Foods. Can you tell which is which? I bet you can’t. When you look at the statements side by side, you can see that Whole Foods is missing an opportunity to differentiate itself through its corporate ethics statements.

If your company is truly operating on a higher plane, it’s worth talking about how your corporate ethics impact the products or services you offer. Even better: use natural language and back up your messages with concrete examples to avoid sounding like the scores of other companies who claim to be doing business with integrity. It just might be the factor that gets someone to choose your company over a competitor.

Photo credit: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center on Flickr

While reading a recent article in Nature magazine about nine environment systems and humanity’s effects on their health, I saw two excellent examples of how the same information can be presented in two very different ways. These two examples are great to keep in mind when developing your own CSR report, presentation or anything for publication. Does your audience need and want the numbers? Or is your audience better served by an easy-to-understand graphic that, while lacking the nitty-gritty details, gives them the big picture?

Example 1 is a table showing hard, number-driven data. This format is great for the data, but it requires some studying and comparison before the meaning of those numbers clicks into place.

Example 2 is a less precise, but representative graphic. It trades the numbers and science speak for a quick graphical interpretation that readers can grasp in just seconds.

Red? Bad. The state of biodiversity? Sad.

Even though it’s one of the most basic rules, it can never be repeated too often: always keep your audience in mind. If your company is developing a report for analysts and NGOs, go ahead and treat them to numbers. But if you’re speaking to the masses, give them something useful. That doesn’t mean dumb it down. It means going the extra step to make an impact.

This column, “Revolutionise CR reporting,” in the UK edition of AdWeek is worth a read.  Mark Line of Two Tomorrows, a sustainability consultancy, succinctly makes the case for companies to shift from lengthy CR reporting to dialogue-driven communications. He writes:

With the upsurge in online activity, maybe it’s time for reports to be built not only on company-generated content, but also as a channel for the voices of those affected by the company … Reporting can be a real catalyst for change. To succeed in the future, it has to become infinitely more two-way – not just a static tool to inform, but a prompt for challenging and exchanging of views on the issues that matter.

He points to the Guardian’s sustainability site as one that’s blazing a path in real-time reporting.

I agree with Line (see this post about Timberland), and the only thing I’d add to his point is that taking advantage of the technology and trends to make CR reporting more interactive must be accompanied by a genuine commitment to engage in the dialogue.

For many companies, a CR report involves a substantial investment of time and money, but it’s likely concentrated in a production window of a few months. Moving to a platform that encourages greater interactivity and exchange of ideas requires an ongoing investment and a willingness to think of the CR report not as an event, but as a practice. That might seem an obvious point, but it has potentially broad implications for how CR practitioners set priorities, assign resources, build skills and measure success.

Remember when you were in grade school, and you tied a note that read, “If found, return to …” to a helium-filled balloon, and then released the balloon? I loved that experiment. No one returned my note, but it seemed magical that I could send a balloon out into the world, and someone in China or Ghana might find it.

Now the geniuses at MIT are doing a similar experiment with trash. By attaching SIM cards to things like used coffee cups and milk cartons, they will be able to track the movement of our garbage.

The project begins in September 2009, and I can’t wait to learn the results. I only hope they are widely publicized, because I think they have a huge potential to educate all of us about the truth about our trash.

The more I learn about how to motivate people to make more sustainable choices, the more I hear about the power of raw facts and transparency. For example, a few weeks ago the folks at the Natural Step were here at AHA! to talk about sustainability practices for businesses. They shared a story about how Shore Bank made a switch to copy paper with a higher percentage of recycled content, which just so happened to also be more expensive. The fact that employees knew it was costlier to print changed their behavior—they began printing less.

Some of my colleagues at AHA! have had similar epiphanies when they learned that replacing a set of four color toner cartridges can cost more that $1,000 a pop. Now that they know, they’re thinking, “Do I really need to print this?” And sometimes the answer is yes, but the point is, that simply knowing the cost of toner is driving a thought process that could have good environmental effects.

Everyone’s selling green products these days. So communicators have to work that much harder to be heard above the noise. Throwing back the curtain and letting your customers see inside the machine can be extremely effective in grabbing their attention. I’d challenge companies to let it all hang out—reveal the challenges and even your failures in addition to your successes. That transparency not only educates your customers and gives them the facts they need to make a good choice, but shows them your CSR efforts are authentic.

After a wondrous holiday weekend here in Portland (blue sky, sun, lots of planting, farmers market, live local music, mountains in view—is this heaven?), here’s something that helped me get back to the ol’ grind this morning. McDonald’s, who, IMHO, has done quite well the past few years in the area of CSR reporting, has done it again.

The granddaddy of all fast-food chains has just released a report that includes 80-plus green practices from their locations and operations worldwide.

The report features successful practices in energy, packaging, anti-littering, recycling, logistics, communications, restaurants, sustainable food, supplier leadership and other areas

Here are two nuggets that I’m particularly McLovin’ from this showing:

• You can read the report in a nifty virtual flip-book format (not just the standard PDF)
• You can cast a vote for one of five different environmental initiatives for the corporation. Way to get people to interact with the brand!

So … hats off to Micky D’s for its CSR communications efforts. Great, now I’m hungry for fries.

We’re big on walking the walk at AHA! In our work for financial services and technology clients, you’ll often find us reading Investment News, debating the best ways to diversify our personal investments, or descending on Best Buy to check out the new printers and PCs.

That’s because to write about something, you really have to know a lot about it. You have to experience what your audience experiences. You can’t just sit at a desk and make this stuff up! You have to live the stuff.

So it makes sense that because of the work we do to tell our clients’ sustainability stories, we figured we should do a little work to build and tell our own story. Many of us have been biking into work and recycling our pop cans for years. But this year, we’ve gotten a bit more serious—we’re looking at ways to be more responsible in everything from our energy use and waste output to the carbon footprint of our commutes.

Bill Bradbury speaks on climate change at AHA!

We kicked things off by inviting Bill Bradbury, former Oregon Secretary of State, to share his version of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth presentation, tailored to the Pacific Northwest. Bradbury, a longtime advocate for sustainability, was one of the first to be trained by the former vice president and Nobel laureate to present the slide show on climate change.

If you’ve seen the film version, you know that An Inconvenient Truth combines hard scientific evidence with gut-wrenching stories about starving polar bears to make the case that climate change is real and is affecting our planet right now. Bradbury’s presentation echoes that approach, but instead of polar bears, he talks about the impact of a warmer planet on salmon, wine grapes and pine forests. For example, climate change is making it harder for winemakers to grow the delicate grapes that create Oregon’s beloved Pinot noir. Our carbon-generating habits are making for tough times in the fishing and timber industries, putting our fruit farmers at risk and producing increasingly bad consequences to human health.

But if you’ve seen the film version, you also know that An Inconvenient Truth ends with a positive message. We have the means to do something about climate change—right now.

I for one, was inspired by Bradbury’s message. I decided I was going to walk the walk—or bike the bike—this morning. I put on my helmet and pedaled my way to work for the first time this year. I have faith that my efforts, and the efforts that AHA! makes, can make a real difference.

If you’d like to watch a brief interview we conducted with Bill Bradbury during his time here, click here to go to the AHA! website.