Shiny Green Button

That’s how Gil Friend kicked off the first full day of the Sustainable Brands conference yesterday.

It was a powerful and surprising statement. It showed how far sustainability has come from the days when environmentalists were labeled “tree huggers.” Today, it’s become another part of the business landscape. Companies aren’t demonstrating social and environmental responsibility because it’s nice. They’re doing it because it gives them a competitive advantage.

Friend’s statement also emphasized the urgency and complexity of our challenge. You just can’t afford to be nice when climate change threatens to turn our home into a blistering, sooty rock. You can’t afford to be nice when you are reinventing the industrial engine of the economy.

Still, change is hard. Bruce McGregor from IDEO told us yesterday that only 10 percent of people are successful in making a change when faced with a life-or-death situation. There are an awful lot of smokers out there who can’t kick the habit after a diagnosis of cancer, and plenty of people fail to exercise and eat better even after developing type I diabetes. Just telling someone to change because it’s good for them doesn’t mean they will do it.

Now, here we all are—facing a life-or-death situation—and still drinking water out of plastic bottles, flushing bleach down the drain, driving our cars.

As marketers and communicators, the lesson is to stop talking to consumers about how they can feel good about their more eco-friendly purchase or their microloan. Only a handful of consumers buy because they want to do good for the planet, and recent research by Fruitful Strategy shows that 24 percent of people are “rejecters” of green products, purposefully avoiding products with green messages on the label. Most people are not buying or behaving green out of altruism, but because it also makes them feel more secure, comfortable or attractive—or it saves them money.

So it’s time for sustainability to stop being so nice. We have to be sustainable and beautiful. Sustainable and healthy. Sustainable and simple. Sustainable and affordable. Our future depends on it.

Photo credit: Señor Codo on Flickr

As the international community continues to work toward a global climate change treaty everyone can agree on, there has been much discussion about the rapid rise (with no end in sight) of emissions from countries like China and India. But, who is responsible for those emissions—the ones who emit, or the ones who benefit?

Here’s an interesting compare/contrast via the Good Blog.

This interactive carbon atlas, created by the Guardian in 2008, offers a graphic representation of the globe, illustrating where emissions come from.

This map, from the Carnegie Institution for Science, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses big, bold arrows to indicate where the products that caused the emissions end up.

National media coverage of the Carnegie map has put the focus on who is really to blame for emissions, and the implications for trade and carbon policies.

It’s an important reminder of the shape-shifting role context can play when it comes to presenting data. Maps and information graphics offer the illusion of objectivity, but they always have a point of view.

Photo credit: tonystl on Flickr

Consider this potential solution to global warming: the Stratoshield or “hose to the sky.” The Stratoshield was proposed by a collection of scientists, engineers and intellectuals at a company called Intellectual Ventures, funded by some of the world’s largest Fortune 500 companies.

An overly simplified explanation: Take a long hose. Attach it to large balloons. Float it up to the stratosphere. Use it to pump sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. Block the sun’s rays. Reduce the earth’s temperature. Save the polar bears. Of course, it’s much more complicated than this, but that’s the gist.

Opponents say it’s too simple, too easy, too cheap and targets the symptoms of global warming rather than the cause. Supporters say it’s simple, easy, cheap and targets the symptoms of global warming rather than the much more daunting cause.

Hmmm…

When I first heard the idea, I thought it was crazy. But then something happened to change my view. A brand that I have interest in—Freakonomics—presented the idea as if it were totally valid. After I read that Freakonomics authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner supported the Stratoshield in their new book, Superfreakonomics, the idea went from “crazy” to “a legitimate solution,” all because it gained the power of a brand I enjoy.

But my brand-influenced shift didn’t end there. In this same book, another brand that I respect—the brand of Al Gore—opposes the idea. Al Gore thinks the Stratoshield is crazy.

So, here’s a breakdown of how my stance shifted in the time it took to read a few pages.

1. Seems a little out there, but whatever. (Intellectual Ventures? Who are they?)

2. This is starting to make perfect sense! (Freakonomics! I know those guys!)

3. Wait, is this idea crazy? (Al Gore says so, and he’s, like, the patron saint of saving the earth!)

I like to think otherwise, but maybe this just means I’m fickle and easily influenced. Even if that’s the case, it’s worth remembering that I’m not alone. Progress is made, products are sold and ideas are accepted, not always because of their necessity, value or worth, but because of who is selling them.

Photo credit: crazytales562 on Flickr

Last week, I wrapped up all my holiday gifts for my out-of-state family, stuffed them in boxes and schlepped them to the post office, all the way thinking, “This is not very green of me.”

Too bad I hadn’t heard about UPS’s carbon neutral shipping option, which allows customers to offset the emissions associated with shipping for a fee. Apparently DHL is rolling out a similar program, though it’s only available in Europe at the moment.

I like this strategy for so many reasons. First, it’s a way for these companies to take a step toward integrating sustainability into their core business, rather than just tack it on as an afterthought. Also, the program makes the environmental impact of shipping more visible to their customers, and provides their customers with an easy way to make their own businesses more sustainable.

Unfortunately, there’s one aspect of UPS’s program that’s missing for me. I was hoping they would make it easy for customers to see the associated carbon footprint for each package. But this type of carbon analysis service is only available to their high-volume customers. Providing all customers with the environmental cost of shipping a package could drive increased awareness of the issue. Pairing the carbon footprint numbers with some simple tips, like using smaller boxes when possible, UPS can extend their influence even further, by helping smaller businesses and individuals do better for the planet.

Be sure to check out this intriguing post by senior writer Mark Gunther at GreenBiz.com. The volume of user-generated content and commentary coming out of Copenhagen is staggering, which Gunther interprets as a sign that the most important technology for combating climate change might be smart phones, Flip video, digital cameras and social media.  While not necessarily a revolutionary idea, it does emphasize that the solution to climate change isn’t going to be found in some technological silver bullet, but in authentic communications that compel us to get engaged, rethink our priorities and transform our behavior.

On Wednesday, I attended the Sustainable Industries economic forum in downtown Portland. Paul Hawken was the keynote. He focused his talk on the challenges we face transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Although this was familiar ground for most in attendance, Hawken brought new perspective to the issue, delivering both a sobering (perhaps depressing) and hopeful message.

He cautioned us to think of the unrelenting news about climate change and other urgent environmental issues as neither good nor bad. It’s just information—and information is the engine of opportunity. In other words, it’s what we do with the information that matters. Rather than see the worst and be overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness, we should feel inspired by opportunity and empowered to act.

Yet Hawken pointed out there is a place for climate change pessimists, which he called “doomers.” They exist, he said, to make the designers of solutions brilliant. Designers are motivated to prove the doomers wrong, to do what’s necessary and figure out later whether it was possible.

The bulk of Hawken’s talk took its cue from what he called the Red Queen dilemma, namely that “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place” (from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll). While we need to drastically cut our reliance on fossil fuels to slow the rate of climate change, we also need to increase our consumption just to maintain our current quality of life.

That’s because we need more energy to extract increasingly marginal resources that keep civilization running until renewable sources of energy can be produced on a massive scale. The largest new oil fields are under miles of ocean and sand. The easy veins of copper, zinc and other vital metals are tapped; we’re working with declining, less productive mines. We have to drill deeper and deeper into aquifers to get our water. And so on.

The problem is, the rate of bringing new sources of energy online in time to mitigate the worst of climate change seems almost impossible. I didn’t capture the specifics Hawken rattled off, but it essentially requires us to begin adding staggering numbers of solar panels, wind turbines, wave generators and even nuclear power plants every minute for the next 25 years.

At this point, all the air went out of the room. There was a palpable sense of doom.

But Hawken was undeterred. “You should all be smiling,” he reminded us. “Think of the opportunities.”

Industries need to organize to accelerate progress, he said. The U.S. building industry, for one, is the largest green NGO in the world, and it is having success creating a new industry around green standards. (Hawken acknowledged you could debate whether they were going far enough.) Where are the similar organizations for the banking, chemical or other industries, he asked?

And there are emerging technologies that don’t limit us to current constraints that make a daunting challenge seem impossible. For example, a solar panel made of more efficient but less toxic and energy-intensive materials that can be printed could leapfrog our ability to generate energy from the sun. Just 70 minutes of sunlight, Hawken said, is the equivalent of the entire world’s energy use.

There are enormous opportunities to reduce energy use, too. While increasing the supply side of the equation is sexy, lowering demand is where the real action is, Hawken said. There are countless innovations to be discovered and huge money to be made. It’s all there, everything we need, in the information. The rest is up to us.

photo by Kevin Dooley

Here at AHA!, many of us are writers who live, breathe and even dream about messaging. So when the New York Times ran a front-page article, “Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus,” on a soon-to-be-released report that gives climate change messaging a makeover, it got my attention. The report, “Climate Truths: Making the Necessary Connections,” written by EcoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing firm in Washington, D.C., is due out at the end of May.

The writer for the Times, John Broder, who read a leaked summary of the report, generally pans the report’s assertions as misguided advertising techniques. Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Carbon dioxide discussions should be reframed as “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” And, “cap and trade” may gain more traction rebranded as a “pollution reduction refund.”

My first reaction to the writer’s skepticism is why should concepts like “global warming,” “climate change” or whatever you want to call it NOT get the same attention to the nuance of language and research around its perceived meaning among key target audiences that goes into successfully marketing a product, service, campaign or program? I mean, this is the greatest messaging project of the twenty-first century. And clearly, science doesn’t sell itself.

My second reaction is that—if examples cited in the article are any indication—the writers could use our help. I do like “pollution reduction refund” versus “cap and trade.” However, “our deteriorating atmosphere” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I share many of the same thoughts as George Lakoff, who responded to the Times article very eloquently on the Huffington Post.

I don’t want to detract from the report with even less information than the Times writer. I eagerly await the published report. I promise I will hang on every word. And, I invite EcoAmerica to contact us immediately to begin work on “Climate Truths 2.0.”

I’m serious. Call us. 360-750-1680.

The food industry has already wrung every drip of meaning out of the word “organic”—is “local” the next victim?

On Tuesday, Frito-Lay launched a new marketing campaign that positions their potato chips as local food, focusing on the 80 “local” farmers in 27 states that grow its taters. The Lay’s website even features a “Chip Tracker” that tells you which factory your bag of chips was processed in. “Chances are,” the site says, “it may be closer than you think.”

Maybe it is—but that’s SO not the point. The local food movement is based on the idea of knowing more about where your food comes from. It’s about having a stronger relationship with the people who grow or raise it. It’s about eating food that’s in season, grown on a diversified farm without massive use of pesticides.

It most certainly does NOT mean food processed in factories (even if they are only two hours away), sourced from farms in more than half the states in this union, grown in massive monocultures, and stuffed with all sorts of preservatives and additives that extend shelf life far beyond any natural expiration period.

The director of public relations for Frito-Lay North America had this to say to the New York Times:

“Local for us has two appeals. We are interested in quality and quickness because we want consumers to get the freshest product possible, but we have a fairly significant sustainability program, and local is part of that. We want to do business more efficiently, but do it in a more environmentally conscious way.”

She forgot to mention the third, most obvious appeal: there’s a growing market for local food that Frito-Lay would like to tap into.

As a foodie who loves potato chips, I can’t help but see this campaign as anything but an epic masquerade. Frito-Lay’s target is obviously not the real locavores, who have already spoken out on the absurdity of it. No—their marketing team is smarter than that. They are aiming for people who are becoming more conscious about their eating habits but haven’t yet learned how to find food outside of the aisles of the supermarket. This campaign is a thinly veiled and poorly thought-out attempt at duping shoppers into thinking they’re making a healthier, more sustainable choice.

Will it work? Let’s hope not. So far, the campaign hasn’t jumped off to a great start: at this very moment, a Twitter search for the word “Frito” returns tweets about greenwashing, co-opting and spin. But if history is any test, Big Food is well on its way to repurposing a once meaningful, grassroots term.

Michael Pollan said it best today on Democracy Now!, referring to, among other similar attempts by the food industry, Frito-Lay’s new campaign:

“The language of sustainability and the critique of industrial food is being picked up by some of the major players within industrial food, either as an effort to co-opt the rhetoric or simply confuse the consumer and the citizen … I think what we see here is another example of the food industry’s ingenuity in taking any critique of industrial food and turning it into the next marketing strategy.”

Memo to Frito-Lay: if you really want to do it right, start by examining your product and the way you source its inputs, and look for ways to encourage safer, more environmentally sound agriculture. (And no, your compostable bag made from what I can only imagine is subsidized commodity-crop corn does not count.)

And, really, come on. Don’t pretend to be local. That’s like telling us your chips are “home-cooked” simply because there is a house down the road from your factory.

Some things just can’t be adapted to corporate, industrial food. Local is one of them.

Call me a nerd but it’s Friday afternoon and I’m excited because I just found a great new report on sustainability efforts of major American cities. According to the writers, it’s “one of the first-ever assessments of exactly how cities are addressing climate change—and what they need in order to take these efforts to the next level.”

The report, “Green Cities: How Urban Sustainability Efforts Can and Must Drive America’s Climate Change Policies,” by a group called Living Cities, examines 40 of the largest U.S. cities’ progress on reducing emissions and provides recommendations in three areas identified as having the greatest potential for immediate impacts.

While I must admit I’ve only scanned this extensive report, I’ve already learned a lot and can tell it’s a valuable tool for city planners, nonprofits and companies looking to serve the needs of the green economy. 

For a quick hit, go to the back of the report and take a look at some of the survey stats:

• While four in five big cities regard sustainability as a top priority, only three to 10 staff members are focused on climate change in sustainability. Several big cities have just one full-time person.
• Most cities report budgets of $150,000 and $500,000 allotted to reducing greenhouse gases.
• More than 75% of big cities have, or will soon have, detailed plans on how they will reduce greenhouse gases. Nearly all of their targets call for emissions cuts of between 10 to 20 percent in the next five to 10 years.
• More than two-thirds of cities report that state and federal government have had little impact on their work.

Doing some quick math with these staff and budget figures leaves me wondering how big cities will reach their emissions targets with their current resources. However, the report’s recommendations are encouraging, outlining a bottom-up approach that includes retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency thereby creating middle-class jobs (a la Obama’s stimulus bill), reengineering workforce and economic development systems, and focusing on sustainable transportation and compact development. 

It’s heartening to read how cities have taken the lead on tackling climate change and may soon get much-needed support from the federal government. But of course it’s going to take a lot more help and resources to accomplish the goals identified. For starters, I’m going to make a point to look at the sustainability plans of Portland, where I live, and Vancouver, Wash., where I work, and see how I could possibly help.

Photo credit: Noël Zia Lee on Flickr

Dare I mention it? Next Wednesday is Earth Day. Before you tune me out—because every company from BP to JCPenney is Whap! Bam! hitting you over the head with its green marketing campaign, making you feel like you need to consume your way to a better world—I have good news for you.

You do not need to go out and buy a Prius right now. It truly is the small things that make a difference.

Yesterday, I attended a great webinar on greening the office, presented by Sustainable Industries. The first presenter, Marlowe Kulley, from the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, showed Portland has earned its status as one of the greenest cities in the U.S. by taking small actions—using mass transit and cycling, recycling, participating in residential renewable power programs. All these small steps have helped Portland reduce its greenhouse gas emissions significantly, while nationally, emissions continue to increase.

So I suggest you celebrate small for Earth Day. Here’s one idea. April 20-26 just so happens to be Turnoff Week, brought to you by the Center for Screen Time Awareness, who urges you to turn off your television, cell phone, computer, iPhone and PlayStation. Celebrating both Earth Day and Turnoff Week at the same time can help you avoid the jangle of Earth Day advertisements, save energy and maybe use the extra time to do something earthy, like plant some veggies or something. Or maybe walk over to your neighbor’s house for a conversation rather than sending her a messaging on Facebook (I’m guilty of this one).

What are your ideas for small ways to celebrate Earth Day?