Smart Solutions for Sustainable Business

Patagonia: Providing Continuing Ed for Voters

All that rock climbing must be what makes Patagonia fearless in the business world.

Today they announced that they'll be using their retail reach to encourage individuals to "Vote the Environment" and are using You Tube to get the message across.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW3V6ThF6dc&feature=user

Casey Sheahan, president and CEO of Patagonia says, "We're using our story-telling and marketing expertise to get this message out during a critical time in our country's history. We know that some customers may be put off by the strong environmental message. Not all our customers are environmentalists. But we are."

That last line is the most telling about Patagonia's brand, they stick to their mission regardless of who may not agree. That's being authentic at at a time when trust in corporations is at an all time low.

Patagonia understands its responsibility to not only make a profit, but to use its advertising and retail distribution connections to provide continuing education to the masses. If repetitive advertising can change a buying behavior, then it also can change a social responsibility behavior.  

It's hard to tell where the .com stops and the .org starts.

Patagonia has already given over $30 million to grassroots environmental activists since 1985. These are mostly micro projects, such as cleaning up a local river or bringing an environmental education class to a small town. Those actions don't make the big press releases, but are the ultimate in consumer engagement. It must be working, they crested $280 million in sales last year.

What I appreciate most is their ability to educate their base on both the micro and the macro issues impacting the planet. To do so they hold their own story up to scrutiny. Their "Footprint Chronicles" provide a retail-lite, Life Cycle Assessment. It falls short on quantified numbers, but does give a nod to the good and the bad of each product. That's a big step towards transparency.

"Vote the Environment" doesn't pick a party, it provides educational links for individuals to use and decide for themself who will do a better job. In the primaries, according to research by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the environment was #18 on the list of top voter concerns across party lines. With this new initiative, Patagonia is hoping to put environmental issues into the #1 spot.

contributed by Mary Hunt. Contact Mary at Mary@InWomenWeTrust.com

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SMaRT Sustainable Standard Orientation - free on Blip TV

Sustainable Product Standards don't move forward on their own. Our thanks to Mario Vellandi for taping the "Getting SMaRT about Sustainable Products" last month. You can watch Mike Italiano's presentation by going to http://sustainableproducts.blip.tv/#1034725 or hit the play button below.

If you would rather read all about it, John Marshall Roberts the director of communications at Evenson Design Group wrote up a great summary found on Sustainable Life Media, the defacto place for sustainable messaging and marketing trends. John's key takeaways were:

• Universal Sustainability Standards are vital for creating new markets.
• Authentic sustainability certifications are the antidote to greenwashing.
• Credible sustainability standards much be accessible.
• Leadership from visionary brands will be critical for mass adoption.
• Industry (not government) must lead the way

Read the full write up on Sustainable Life Media here.

The City of Santa Monica, DMJM H&N, Forbo, Milliken, Knoll are honored for their work on Sustainable Standards

Before you transform the market you need participants from all sectors working together - designers, manufacturers, buyers, and specifiers. This week inside a LEED Certified Gold building at TreePeople in Beverly Hills, individuals who have been working with MTS came together to be honored for their diligence and leadership in creating the SMaRT Sustainable Standard.

Watch the full video on Blip TV here http://blip.tv/file/1028183.

Mike Italiano, the CEO of MTS presented the awards to:

Dean Kubani, Environmental Programs Manager, City of Santa Monica: "We've been working on things in Santa Monica since the early 90s.... We found SMaRT as a fantastic thing... these standards are incredibly rigorus and the fact that it's a Life Cycle Assessment gives us a full picture, so we're very confident by requiring a SMaRT certification... "

Honorable Kevin McKeown, Council Member, City of Santa Monica: "What people don't see is the important stuff that we do day to day - procurement... our city budget is now up to 1/2 billion dollars a year. The choices we make in procurement make a big, big difference... we've been able to show our local businesses and other governments how much sense it makes to do it right..."

Lou Newett, Environmental Director, Knoll Furniture:  "When we looked at the different standards, and we did look at other ones and none compared to the SMaRT standard... it was very robust and hit all the key areas and goals that Knoll had and part of SMaRT was a heavy emphasis on Climate Change..."

Claire Bonham-Carter, Director of Sustainable Development DMJM H&M "...We as designers have a real responsibility to make sure everything we do and we design has low impact..."

Ginny Dyson, Sustainable / LEED Manager, DMJM H&N "The more you know, the more you know you need to know more... as individuals we can make a difference and as specifiers we can make even more..."

Casey Johnson, National Sale Director, Forbo. "It's [SMaRT] done in the light of day.. Everyone in this room has the ability to be involved. In fact when you look at this cross section, this is the cross-section that you want on the development of a standard... it has to be transparent.. It shows that the decisions are being made out of the boardroom rather than marketing."

Rusty Lance, Sales Manager,  Milliken  "We're a textile research company ... I'm in the floor covering division where we have had a zero waste manufacturing program, where we HAVE zero waste, it is not a goal... we are PVC free..."

We would like to thank all who found their way up to TreePeople and shared the afternoon of learning and leadership. You can see a video of the full day at: http://sustainableproducts.blip.tv/

Knoll Furniture's Sustainability Training Tour

Lou Newett is the Corporate Director of Environmental, Health and Safety of Knoll, Inc. Over the course of his 29 year career he has pioneered developing and implementing clean technology.

Now that Knoll's Life Chair has become SMaRT certified as Sustainable, we're helping get our distributors, buyers/specifiers up to speed on what real sustainability means. By the time the SMaRT presentation is over, everyone knows the difference between green and greenwash. Download presentation here Download act_smart_presentation_2.pdf

The presentation covers the three most important aspects of greenwash-free marketing it's 1. accessible, 2. comprehensive and 3.transparent. We're happy we chose SMaRT as now those three attributes are what the market wants most.

Last month we trained over 200 employees of various firms including Gensler, Toyota, HOK and Warner Brothers on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) a critical prerequisite of SMaRT. Next month we will be providing this training in Charlotte, NC and Philadelphia, PA. Additionally we trained over 300 Knoll sales reps on the SMaRT Standard.

The questions we have been asked most often are, "What can consumers do to influence major issues such as deforestation?" The Answer? Buy products that have been vetted through a process such as FSC or SMaRT that insures wood used on a product is not being illegally harvested.

The question that was not asked that surprised me was, "Is there still time to make a difference?"  To which I would reply, yes, there is time, but we must act soon. We can all help by changing our buying habits (i.e. fuel efficient cars, sustainable products) and our personal habits such as minimizing driving, recycling and insulating our homes.

Buying Sustainable products is good for the market. The Life Chair was the first chair to be SMaRT certified and as such has earned an additional Innovation point towards LEED credits.

To be honest, getting the Life Chair certified wasn't easy, we had to document all the attributes that contributed to the chair before achieving certification. Fortunately, the Life Chair was designed for the environment and all the essential SMaRT prerequisites were met. Now that it's done, the paybacks are already coming in and getting the next chair, the Chadwick chair certified will be much easier especially since most of the documentation work can be done in house without incurring a great deal of cost.

About Knoll

Knoll U.S. manufacturing facilities are more than 95% hazardous air pollutant (HAP) and volatile organic compound (VOC) free. Knoll has made key innovations that have changed manufacturing practices in the contract furniture industry and beyond, including non-VOC emitting hot melt adhesives that replace contact cement; water-based finishes that replace HAP and VOC emitting solvent-based finishes; and formaldehyde-free backing materials for wood products. The company has established a program to eliminate PVC from Knoll products by 2012, and is currently sourcing bio-based foam made from rapidly renewable materials.

Project Vulcan - Quantifying CO2

Project Vulcan lets you see Carbon emissions. It makes them tangible by quantifying what's putting out the emissions overlaying power plants with traffic patterns and manufacturing. It's as different as, well, night and day. If there was ever a visual showing how CO2 emissions are man made, this is it. It cycles over cities and areas of high manufacturing.

We'll let the video speak for itself and for more information, go here.

Sustainable Marketing - are Bloggers "Buying" what You're Saying?

Toyota's 17% of the conversation, captured talk about their green image. GM's 6% of the conversation, captured talk from skeptics and neutral responses.

Just who are the market influencers? How do they think? Are they buying what you're selling? Is your green message resonating as authentically as you had hope? Are you ready to back it up?

Last week, Umbria Listens put on a timely webinar that captured not only the state of the blogosphere, but the state of things to come when creating a tipping point for market influence. The full webinar is free to download at their site.

Umbria is a research company that scans social media. For this webinar they scanned for key GREEN phrases like eco-friendly, Sustainable, green... and then analyzed the discussions around them. Here's where it gets interesting - they can also get a good idea of if the writers are male or female and part of the Gen X, Y or Boomer crowd. It's not an exact science, but it's an indication of things to come. For the sake of this study, they identified 160,000 blogs to monitor.

Here's what you need to know:

• Activists or champions of Climate Change and all things green, are few and far between, but growing. Only 18% are in the ACTIVE role which means you have a lot of people for are waiting to be impressed by you. Find yourself on the chart below. Now locate your dominate customer...
• The conversation has shifted from "is there Global Warming" to "What can we do about it". Conversations around Sustainability are up 65% from January-December 2007.
• Energy - saving theirs or saving the world's - resonates the most.

Your buyer, whether it's a consumer or someone in purchasing, may fall into any of these quadrants. The webinar provides a full breakout of each. The important thing to note is that they broke it into two levels of action, Personal and Social.

Personal was just that, bloggers reacted personally. Social was on a higher level of conversation and more important as it influences others, not just them.

This is a big deal. Old focus group research looked at how the individual reacts to a product or campaign. Measuring online influence adds a whole new discussion to marketing. It's why having a Life Cycle Assessment and a standard to back up what you are saying is so important. This crowd doesn't suffer fools or worse, it makes fools, suffer.

How's your industry being talked about? See below.

Much can be learned from bloggers that can help you fine tune your marketing message, such as:

Oil companies are bad, but energy companies are good (how are you saving them and your company, energy?)

Electronics get more buzz than appliances (tackle electronics first if you carry both)

Packaging is a BIG deal. (It's personal as people have to touch it and then personally dispose of it.)

The final takeaways were this: keep the message simple, personal and VISABLE. Show your green side in a distinctive way and be ready to back it up.

Contact: Mary@EcolutionarySelling.com

About Mary

We welcome your comments and emails.

Bringing Sustainability to the Stars and Consumers

Celebrities have made a big difference in drawing attention to Climate Change, from Leo DiCaprio's movie The 11th Hour to Ed Bagley's more hands-on approach in his TV show, "Living with Ed."

That's why this week, we're heading off to the Sundance Film Festival to educate more stars on what REAL Sustainability looks like and to set new expectations for excellence. Sundance tends to bring out the risk-taking, world-changing personalities who can drive the conversation out to the masses.

We're also conducting a fund raising effort for World Peace One and the Alaska Wilderness League via a Sustainable Walk of Fame in which the "squares" on the walk will be auctioned off on E-Bay. (World Peace One is the group that brought the world the first global concert to increase Climate Change awareness.)

The "walk" is based on Forbo's Marmoleum Flooring, Click. Olympic Paint is providing the hands-on experience as we encourage stars to put their handprints on signed segments of Click flooring. We chose Click because it's SMaRT Certified Platinum and Olympic Paint is heading in the right direction with Green Seal.

Big Green Purse is anchoring the Suite and live blogging the event. The Sustainability Suite is open from 12-6 each day inside the ONLY Green building in Park City the Treasure Mountain Inn. The Suite is also the site for three "after parties" which will bring a new mix of media and stars every night. We'll be entertaining the cast and crew of Flow: For Love of Water, Chronic Town and Phoebe in Wonderland. All three films offer different dynamics from star power to place to issue:

Flow: For Love of Water - Directed by Irena Salina. This is an eco documentary..Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. FLOW confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause.

Chronic Town- Director: Tom Hines; Screenwriter: Michael Kamsky - A bittersweet slice-of-life comedy about a cab driver with substance abuse problems who weathers a cold Alaskan winter with his cadre of friends and lovers. Cast: JR Bourne, Emily Wagner, Dan Butler. http://chronictownthemovie.com/

Phoebe in Wonderland - Directed by Daniel Barnz. Confounded by her clashes with the seemingly rule-obsessed world, a little girl takes her already dysfunctional family down the rabbit hole when she seeks enlightenment from her unconventional drama teacher. Cast: Elle Fanning, Felicity Huffman, Patricia Clarkson, Bill Pullman, Campbell Scott, Peter Gerety.

Stay tuned for updates on Big Green Purse and on this blog.

About: Smart Solutions for Sustainable Business

The marketplace is moving from "Green" to "Sustainable" to "Prove it" - this is a greenwash-free world where Product Life Cycle Assessments and Third Party Audits are the norm. Smart Solutions is about who is doing the best job, what standards do investors care about and what will consumers trust?

Everything will be openingly discussed in this blog. We've reached out to market developers, operational experts, business leaders and consumer advocates - all working to create a sustainable planet as well as a sustainable new, global economy.

The Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS) is a non-profit public charity of leading environmental groups, governments, and companies working to achieve 90% sustainable products market penetration and stop irreversible climate change, by 2015.

In response to the need for quantifiable and verifiable Sustainable Standards, MTS developed SMaRT (Sustainable Materials Rating Technology). The standard is based on product Life Cycle Assessment across the product's entire supply chain. Once documentation is gathered, Third Party Auditors review it for accuracy before certification is issued. For more on MTS go here.