Shiny Green Button

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.

I love how John Rooks thinks. His most recent article explores how zombie pop culture can be a lens for understanding sustainability. Sounds crazy, but it holds up and is definitely worth a read.

Rooks is president of SOAP Group, a creative agency focused on sustainability branding and communications. I first encountered him through his always intriguing columns featured on Environmental Leader.

Photo by Marco Annunziata on Flickr

There was something different going on onstage last Wednesday morning at the GoGreen Conference. Four powerful executives were not talking about their companies’ leadership, nor were they plugging their new environmental programs or green technology.

They were telling stories.

The panel included Sheri Flies, general merchandising manager at Costco; Sarah Severn, who leads Nike’s sustainability efforts; Joyce LaValle, senior VP of marketing for the carpet manufacturer Interface Americas; and Darcy Winslow, the founder of DSW Collective, a sustainability consulting firm.

Each of them shared their own personal story about how they came to the world of sustainability through a series of seemingly random but connected events, most of which involved reading a good book.

For example, LaValle’s story went something like this: Her daughter, who was working for a landfill management company, called LaValle on the carpet, literally, because of the amount of non-biodegradable carpeting waste she was seeing in the landfills. Her daughter recommended she read Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce. LaValle read the book, and then promptly passed it on to the company’s CEO, Ray Anderson. If you’re familiar with the Interface story, you know that Anderson then completely overhauled the business to be not just a sustainable enterprise, but a restorative one.

To tell you the truth, as I sat there in the audience, I couldn’t help feeling like I was viewing an Oprah’s Book Club episode. The themes of personal engagement, tuning in to the universe and the transformative power of books came up over and over again.

But it’s the one session that’s stayed with me. Perhaps that’s because it felt so honest and real. Their stories have personified the sustainability efforts of their companies.

Corporate responsibility at companies happens because of individual efforts, and it benefits a company to talk about those efforts. Showing a human face—bringing a relatable story down to the individual level—can help stakeholders trust that a company’s CSR efforts are real. Statistics can be manipulated and facts can be fudged, but real people with real stories make me into a believer every time.

As long as people are widely thought of and referred to as “consumers,” there’s little hope of making the shift to a sustainable economy. The term may seem innocuous—just a label used by marketers and business media—but it represents a pervasive archetype that fundamentally shapes our cultural values and behavior.

The identity of consumer transcends gender, race, citizenship, education, economic and political class and virtually all other demographic descriptors (especially in the United States). It is the great unifier. We may go about our roles differently and to different degrees, but by participating in our modern culture and global economy each of us, by default, agrees to fulfill the responsibilities of consumerism–i.e., to devour, to exhaust, to destroy through use.

By accepting our identity as consumers, we’ve internalized those destructive responsibilities. We made them integral to how we think and act. We’ve been told that our security and comfort depends on all of us doing our part as consumers. And until very recently, we celebrated conspicuous consumption as the ultimate sign of success or happiness; hyper-consumerism was something for everyone to aspire to.

For the most part, those days are gone (or at least on the wane), thanks to the environmental and economic crises. Yet the notion–our shared identity–as consumers lives on. This despite it being fundamentally responsible for the overwhelming challenges we face.

Yes, there are calls for us to be responsible or conscientious or green consumers. But those well-intentioned qualifiers can’t change the very premise of consumerism, and may actually being doing more harm than good. In the words of Einstein, we can’t solve problems with the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

The issue is, there’s no ready concept to replace “consumer” within a sustainable culture and economy. Carrying it forward with us is a sort of Trojan Horse, threatening the clarity of our thinking and integrity of our commitment. In other words, how can we envision and realize a truly sustainable economy if we can’t describe our role within it with accuracy and authenticity?

As communicators, we can be part of the solution. Rather than clinging to our old thinking and searching for incremental changes that protect the status quo, we can accelerate the move to sustainability by advancing an entirely new cultural identity built on responsibilities that counteract consumerism. The new identity should embody inherently productive qualities—e.g., to improve, create and collaborate—that align with the principles of sustainability.

Yes, this is idealistic, perhaps borderline fantasy. It’s at odds with the conventional function of marketing and  business. But we’re at the point where we need to scrap the conventions that got us into this ugly mess. By framing marketing communications in terms of this identity, we can help reshape perception of our collective role and responsibilities in a sustainable world.

Just one thing left. Any ideas for how to describe our new identity? Any words jump to mind?

By Daveybot from Flickr

One of the best things about attending a conference is how seemingly small facts, offhand comments and asides add vibrancy and energy to the day. The GoGreen Conference provided so many great stories and examples of people who were making a profit while maintaining integrity. Here are just a few fun facts. I’ll be back with more detailed thoughts about the conference soon.

1. The City of Portland plans to have 43 acres of eco roofs, and currently has nine acres in place.

2. Elephant’s Deli (which has the best tomato soup, ever) composts 1,000–2,000 pounds of food every day!

3. Sheri Flies, general merchandising manager at Costco, believes in synchronicity. It was a seemingly random, but oddly connected events that led her down the sustainability path. (You won’t hear many business leaders talking about synchronicity at other conferences!)

4. The average carbon footprint per person in the US is 19 metric tons a year. If we want to be sustainable, Americans need to reduce that to two metric tons a year.

5. Portland’s ReBuilding Center reuses shutters that are falling apart to make paint stir sticks.

6. The average ZipCar member drives 2,500 fewer miles a year after joining.

7. When a large, multinational company put out an RFP to car companies asking if they could build a carbon-neutral car, only one company said yes: Subaru.

8. Kettle Foods’ first product was nut butter, not chips!

9. Oregon’s Governor Ted Kulongoski has earned the nickname “Governor Kilowatski” from the folks at Pacific Power for his progressive energy stance.

10. Anyone who’s anybody in the world of sustainability has read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce.

I’ll be taking my green quotient to the next level tomorrow (at least that’s what I’ve been promised) at this year’s GoGreen Conference, a one-day sustainability conference for businesses, held in Portland. The lineup looks great. I’m especially excited to hear what the folks at Costco and Nike have to say about the sustainable business landscape, and I’m looking forward to a different perspective on sustainable storytelling from the improv actors/ business consultants at On Your Feet.

Check back here on Thursday for highlights from the conference.

I learned today that there’s now a green version of the venerable Good Housekeeping Seal, which has been around since 1909. The stated purpose of the new green version is obvious–to help consumers make sense of all the confusing and sometimes contradictory green claims being tossed around by brand after brand.

It’s an interesting extension of a well-trusted brand. As the accompanying FAQ notes, none of the various ecolabels out there have yet the earned the depth of trust or widespread awareness as Good Housekeeping. But perhaps more significantly, none offer a warranty.

That warranty is arguably the most important element. It demonstrates a greater commitment to thoroughness and objectivity, and has been key to
the staying power of the original seal.

Good Housekeeping pledges to replace an item or refund a consumer if a product carrying its green seal is found to be defective. Here’s what I found
on the Good Housekeeping site:

Products with the Green Good Housekeeping Seal, since they have earned the primary Good Housekeeping Seal, carry a limited warranty: If the product proves to be defective within two years of purchase, Good Housekeeping will replace the item or refund the consumer.

Which begs the question–within the context of green, what’s considered “defective”? Does it cover products that may be originally deemed green but are later found to be lacking due to new information, such materials toxicity?

And what about misleading claims? Say a brand earns the green seal, but then crosses the line and begins to inflate its claims. Will Good Housekeeping make good on its guarantee for consumers who were misled into making a purchase? Will it revoke its endorsement?

I don’t mean to disparage Good Housekeeping’s Green Seal. The methodology behind it seems thorough and transparent. I’m just curious if the new seal pledges the quality of products or legitimacy of claims. Or both. It’s positioned as a trust mark for claims, but as far as I can tell, the warranty focuses only on performance. That disconnect could be an issue. If Good Housekeeping is going to meaningfully extend its brand to the green space, I think it ought to be more clear about whether its new seal carries teeth both on the front end–i.e., testing–and back end, with its warranty.

Imagine you chose a product for a specific health benefit; maybe you even switched from a competitor. Then you find out you may not be getting that benefit after all. You’d be kind of steamed, right? But what if the product maker never promised you the benefit—do you still have a right to be angry?

That’s exactly the scenario playing out around Sigg, which sells aluminum water bottles popular among the health and eco conscious. The result is a cautionary tale for companies, consumers and communicators alike.

Sigg offers trendy alternatives to plastic water bottles that have been a hit with consumers concerned about bisphenol-A ( BPA) a substance used to harden plastic that can also mimic the hormone estrogen. Sigg was careful not to make BPA-free claims, but at the same time seemed to promote a healthy image with bottle slogans like “Simply Eco Logical.”

So imagine the shock when Sigg Switzerland CEO Steve Wasik posted this bulletin on the company website, revealing that bottles “manufactured prior to August 2008 have the former water-based epoxy liner which contains trace amounts of BPA.”

Why did the company wait to let customers know this? Wasik: “The primary reason that I am writing this letter today is because I believe that the BPA conversation has changed dramatically in the last 12 months. Last year, the primary concern was that of BPA leaching from bottles. Since that time the dialogue has evolved such that now some people are concerned about the mere presence of BPA and some states are considering legislation.”

In addition, the company seems to further beg off responsibility by stating it had an agreement with the liner manufacturer not to divulge that company’s proprietary formulation.

Now the admission itself, while ill-conceived and tone deaf, doesn’t rankle me. I understand that corporate agreements and shifting sentiments dictate what companies can and cannot say—although you walk a fine line playing internal demands against customer expectations. What astounds me is the way this bulletin expects me to be thankful that Sigg handled things the way it did. Again, from the CEO:
 
“…my team and I initiated a project in June 2006 to develop a new liner which would be both BPA free and produced in a more environmentally friendly manner. We recognized early that there were questions surrounding BPA and we wanted to be sure that we had a bottle liner that you, our customers, could have absolute confidence in.”

And: “I am proud to say that SIGG took action quickly back in 2006 to begin the development of a high performance bottle liner that is BPA free.”

So, you recognized early that BPA was an issue and took steps to earn my confidence. Yet, you didn’t tell me until more than two years later—and only when the conversation was shifting?

Sorry, Sigg. You can’t have it both ways. Either you are beholden to your interests or mine, but not mine only when it’s convenient for you. Many consumers felt the same way, lighting up the blogosphere with posts and tweets decrying the company’s announcement, which led Wasik to post a second letter, admitting the company “missed the mark.”

What should Sigg have done?

• Come clean quicker, when it was obviously the right thing to do, although perhaps difficult for the business.
• Don’t bury important customer information in a bulletin posting. Instead, try an open letter that’s emailed to customers and promoted on the front page of your site, or a microsite with facts, competitive information, customer support and a link to your bottle return program. Either would have been a better approach. Intentionally or not, when you aren’t forthcoming, you look like you are trying to put one past us.
• Separate what you are doing today from what you did (or did not do) previously. That can be achieved through timing, by spacing apart backward- and forward-looking messages. Or by switching messengers. Have a product manager send the “what happened” communication, or make it a general company announcement. Then the CEO can follow up to share what the company is doing to rebuild the relationship.

This story is unfortunate because Sigg appears to be a company that focuses on doing what’s right for its customers. But when people feel betrayed by the good companies, it erodes trust for everyone.