Shiny Green Button

Photo credit: From Robbie Veldwijk on Flickr

Back in April, Fast Company ran this story pitting Walmart against Target in the corporate responsibility ring. Target had the advantage in areas such as sustainable seafood and human rights, but Fast Company declared Walmart the champ. Why?

One big reason is the Sustainability Consortium, Walmart’s massive effort to bring academia and industry together to develop a new standard in product life-cycle reporting. Another reason: Target had made progress toward becoming a more sustainable business, but it didn’t have a plan. Target hadn’t published any specific goals related to sustainability or spelled out how it planned to measure progress.

Now, eight months later, Target jumps back in the ring with its Here for Good initiative. The initiative outlines goals and milestones toward achieving them in four key areas: education, environment, well-being, and safety and preparedness.

In terms of size, supply chain and revenue, Walmart is so much larger than Target, it doesn’t seem fair to compare the two. But, then again, why not? There’s no doubt that competition between companies with their reach will be good for corporate responsibility in the retail sector and beyond.

AHA! had a fabulous experience at the Opportunity Green conference last week. Thanks to all who made it possible, and who contributed to such an engaging, enriching couple of days. As official bloggers for the conference, our writers had the chance to see just about every session. Here’s what they learned at some of their favorites:

100 MPG is possible. Now. Meet this years X Prize winners.

Affluent consumers still seek an emotional connection with the brands in their lives. Here are a few more insights from Dwell president and publisher Michela O’Connor Abrams.

Even consumers who already have the tools to be more energy efficient need a nudge in the right direction. Smart grid experts say simplicity is key.

Corporate philanthropy is alive and well, with help from organizations like 1% for the Planet. 

Carbon mapping, with information reported right on an individual product, is the next step in the path to transparency. Find out what’s happening now.

And, congratulations to the OG competition winners: Ride-sharing startup Zimride won the innovative green startup competition; and The Life Box, creators of a forest in a shipping box, won the innovative product design competition.

Were you at the conference? What bit of insight stuck with you? Post a comment and let us know!

Photo credit: 4PIZON on Flickr

Every other week, AHA! publishes a useful compendium of recent news from the financial world. It’s always an enlightening and interesting read, and it touches on a concept that’s relevant to everything we talk about here on Shiny Green Button: economic sustainability. So, we thought we’d share the wealth. Enjoy!

Today’s Wall Street Journal article titled, “The Case Against Corporate Social Responsibility,” has our hackles raised around here today. The basic gist of the argument is that companies exist to maximize profits, and social responsibility puts profit at risk. The author advocates for leaving social good to government and corporate watchdogs. Here’s a tidbit:

Executives are hired to maximize profits; that is their responsibility to their company’s shareholders. Even if executives wanted to forgo some profit to benefit society, they could expect to lose their jobs if they tried—and be replaced by managers who would restore profit as the top priority. The movement for corporate social responsibility is in direct opposition, in such cases, to the movement for better corporate governance, which demands that managers fulfill their fiduciary duty to act in the shareholders’ interest or be relieved of their responsibilities.

Provocative argument, but it seems a little short-sighted and simplistic to me. What about the positive impact of CSR on brand reputation? On employee productivity and innovation? What about its potential to reduce risk? I dare say, that’s just a short list of benefits that are all in line with shareholder interests, and therefore are a reason for corporate executives to make CSR a part of their agenda. Also, the author seems to be making the assumption that short-term profits are best for shareholders. What about long-term, sustainable success and the viability of the company?

What’s your response to the WSJ article?

Making a pitch to your company’s executives about the importance of sustainability? AHA!’s very own Betsy Henning has a few words of advice in her recent column, “Getting sustainability a seat in the C-suite,” on the Sustainable Industries website. Take a sec to check it out.

Photo credit: jeroen_bennik on Flickr

I was just blown away by how honest and principled Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz seems to be, when reading the recent interview with him in Harvard Business Review. 

For example, here’s his response to a question about decisions he’s made that have been unpopular with Wall Street:

Within the past year I got a call from one of our institutional shareholders. He said, “You’ve never had more cover to cut [employee] heath care than you do now. No one will criticize you.” And I just said, “I could cut $300 million out of a lot of things, but do you want to kill the company, and kill the trust in what this company stands for? There is no way I will do it, and if that is what you want us to do, you should sell your stock.” What I stand for is not just to make money; it’s to preserve the integrity of what we have built for 39 years …

Especially in light of other recent CEO news, Schultz’s words were a welcome change of pace, and I must say, a brilliant piece of PR. Schultz seemed to be reaching out to all of his audiences—employees, customers, shareholders—and hitting just the right note. If I were a Starbucks employee, reading those words would make me proud to work at Starbucks. It’s motivating to know the company’s top guy cares as much about people as profits. As a socially conscious customer, I can feel great about buying my morning coffee, because my $2.50 happens to be funding the well-being of human beings, not corporate growth at all costs. For me, that’s a better purchase motivator than any sleek new packaging or combination of syrups.

And, shareholders? I’m sure he scared a few of them off. But maybe Schultz’s strategy is to not just have a more sustainable company—and by sustainability here, I mean long lived as well as green. Maybe he’s shaping a more sustainable investment environment, with shareholders who care as much about the complete health of the company as they do their returns.

It’s not often we talk about social issues here at Shiny Green Button. Usually, it’s all green, green, green.

But the needs of people are a big piece of the sustainability puzzle. Even, ehem…their most basic needs.

On a run through the streets of downtown Portland last night, I couldn’t help but notice a big metal box—say, walk-in closet-sized—on the sidewalk. The box was a bathroom; one of the Portland Loos the City of Portland put in place a few years ago to help alleviate one very real problem associated with a large homeless population—the problem of people relieving themselves on the streets.

Portland City Commissioner, Randy Leonard, calls access to toilets a basic human right. The tagline that was painted on the side of the Portland Loo, “A unique solution to a universal problem,” expressed that same sentiment in an upbeat and positive way. The tagline seemed perfect. It instantly helped me understand the use for the box. But it did more than that: It gave me a reason to support its existence, whether I care about the struggles of the homeless or not. It reminded me of the immense power of language—that finding just the right phrase can ease social tensions and connect us all.

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: Yogma on Flickr

In his discussion of the verbal challenges in communicating sustainability and describing people who practice it (are they sustainers? sustainabilitists?) Joel Makower addresses something we’ve discussed before here on Shiny Green Button: You can only use the word sustainability so many times before it starts to feel hollow.

Anyone who writes about corporate sustainability can feel the pain here. There just aren’t a lot of solid synonyms for the word. Sure, you can sprinkle in a few references to corporate responsibility, but that gets tired pretty quickly too, especially when you have to broaden it to corporate social responsibility. If only there were another single word that communicates the broader-than-the-environment spirit of sustainability.

Makower suggests we take another look at green. We’ve all heard warnings to steer clear of the term, for fear it will be met with green fatigue or, even worse, carry the stink of greenwashing.

But, isn’t that the term everyone is using anyway? Makower argues that green is commonplace in the business world and that it’s not much of a stretch to broaden its meaning to include more than environmentalism. That’s already happening in the political arena—the most obvious example being the U.S. Green Party, whose platform includes democracy, social justice and economic sustainability along with ecological sustainability.

So, what say you? Can we embrace green and broaden its scope? Or, are there still valid reasons to resist a meme that seems so firmly established?

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.