Green Marketing

Software tools help meet business objectives and environmental goals

As noted in business news and many of the green blogs, business intelligence software maker SAS (traditionally pronounced "sass") is stepping out with SAS for Sustainability Management, a "first decision-support software platform for proactively identifying innovative strategies that effectively address complex environmental, social, and economic situations while achieving stakeholder objectives," as we read in a press release. The SAS software targets the increasingly prominent "triple bottom line" of environmental, economic, and social metrics presented by many recent writers, including Andrew Winston, author of Green to Gold: Eco Strategies to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage. A webcast by Winston is conveniently linked to from the SAS pages. As SAS materials describe, Cisco Systems already uses the SAS solution to support its sustainability efforts. View a video with Cisco Senior VP Laura Ipsen to get her take on the story.

If interested, you can download a brochure on SAS for Sustainability Management and a SAS white paper based on research by ComputerWorld called Expanding Eco-Practices Benefits the Bottom Line and the Brand. Once you've waded through all available evidence, you'll see that the potential audience for environmentally sound technology expanded quite a bit: If business value by itself can make a compelling case for green practices, you can win the attention and participation of the people and companies that can't simply translate conscience into strategy.

SAS for Sustainability Management is based on other SAS technologies and also incorporates the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. If you're interested in growing a software solution of your own to support your company's or clients' environmental initiatives, the tools and ideas available at the GRI Web site might be a good place to start. But don't take too long. We can expect more announcements shortly, when other software companies launch products and services that help businesses implement green business practices, and then measure, document, and publish their results. If you don't get to market within about a year or so, you'll likely be serving more and more specialized, circumscribed needs.

Making Earth Day relevant

Next week is Earth Day, on Tuesday, April 22. There won't be a blog post all week because I'll be off the grid and hiking around rocks and ruins in northern Arizona. Earth Day might well have a different meaning in Tuba City or on the Hopi Reservation than it has in Seattle and on the West Coast. Out here, there'll be ample media coverage, many symbolic activities, and lots of ads with flowers, butterflies, green things... as if Earth Day was mostly an occasion for children or the chronically uninformed. In recent years, many companies and inviduals who take environmental challenges seriously have backed away from Earth Day as a special date; they understand that meaningful communications and actions need to take place at all times.

One way to restore meaning to Earth Day would be doing volunteer work; if not on the actual day, then on the weekend before or after. Some organizations are already doing that, but it's not as widespread and well coordinated as it could be. The model for this effort could be the Day of Caring, as facilitated by United Way in King County and elsewhere. United Way, in this case, serves as the clearinghouse for a large number of deserving agencies, usually not-for-profits, which need volunteer assistance in projects ranging from cleaning shelves to repairing housing stock to bagging emergency groceries. United Way connects these situations of need with volunteers in the business community, who spend a day working at whatever project can use them.

I don't know which would be the best agency to do for Earth Day what United Way accomplishes in the Day of Caring, but I'm sure that could be resolved. Maybe Earth Share, or EarthCorps, or the Northwest Environmental Education Council. These organizations are used to recruiting and managing volunteers, and already do a lot of good work. A special Earth Day outreach program would allow them to build new relationships with the greening business world, and it would be a great networking opportunity for environmentally focused businesses, service providers, investors, and analysts. Maybe more enjoyable than another day spent in a conference facility, or with e-mail and telephone calls.

And, after bonding with your new ecologically minded business associates during the day, you could come home and re-read Ecotopia, Ernest Callenbach's breakthrough book that was originally published in 1975. It might make you feel at home, especially with Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels mentioning secession this week.

Summit was great. You should have been there!

I wish more businesses would have showed up at the Washington State Technology Summit the other day. The exhibit hall was mostly populated by regional universities, city and state agencies, not-for-profits, and a handful of interesting companies with innovative or ecologically relevant products or services. There would have been plenty of space left in the Meydenbauer's hangar A for many of you business leaders who thought about participating but chose not to. And, with many of the exhibitors leaving their booths and tables unstaffed for large portions of the day, people wandering through (including a lot of investors and financial planners) would have been delighted to talk to you. Please keep that in mind for next time!

The audience at the Summit included many representatives from city and state governments, elected as well as appointed. If you had something to say in person to a state senator or state representative, for example, this was the perfect forum. Several panelists directly addressed, often with critical comments, the elected officials they saw in the rows of seats in front of them. Governor Christine Gregoire gave a compelling, elegant opening keynote about the innovation power of the state. During the rest of the day, many presenters and panelists poked well-reasoned holes into her statements: Democracy at work.

The panelists and moderators were excellent and fascinating. For example, in a session on renewable energy...

• Harold Collins, a Soil Microbiologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Adjunct Professor at Washington State University, made a case for controlled cultivation of fuel-yielding plants in four different climate regions of the state.
• Rick Orth, Manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, highlighted challenges and opportunities in the Northwest's biofuels industry and the implementation of biochemical and thermochemical conversion.
• Jack Baker, Vice President at Energy Northwest, discussed the likelihood of "opportunity or train wreck" in managing the reliability of electrical systems in low-water years, combined with the need to support growth, and the urgency to develop reliable greenhouse gas trading and educate a naive public.
• Burton Hamner, Founder and Owner of Hydrovolts, presented exciting plans to generate energy directly from the ocean off the Washington shores, using ships as hydrogen carriers that can offload directly into the power grid, which would make use of already installed transmission capabilities at the abandoned Satsop nuclear power plant.
• John Castle, Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington, provided a healthy dose of sobriety and challenged the realism and practicality of the panelists' visions.

That discussion alone was worth the reasonable ($190 early registration) cost of attendance. But it was only one of many.

In another panel discussion, Christian Belady, Principal Power and Cooling Architect at Microsoft, shared the steps Microsoft is taking to make its data centers more environmentally sound. He made it perfectly clear that the cost of owning a data center directly relates to the efficiency of the infrastructure in the data center, which has a powerful impact on the business value of IT in a corporation. And that, in turn, connects directly to the environmental benefits of using resources sparingly or minimizing the need for cooling. He also demonstrated the stringent metrics that Microsoft uses to verify the success of its greening strategies. Belady's comments were in part echoed and amplified in the closing keynote by Rober Gulrajani, a Senior Director in the Windows Core Operating System Division at Microsoft. The regional newspapers and their journalists and bloggers apparently heard Gulrajani, but not Belady, so they were not well equipped to assess the environmental activities of Microsoft, and offered comments that were a little high level, if well intended.

By the way, did you know that the power draw of one average corporate data center amounts to that of 60,000 individual users? That, in the United States, carbon emissions related to IT are as high as that caused by aviation (both at 2 percent of total emissions)? That 40 percent of those emissions come from PCs and their monitors? And (just one more thing, and then I'll quit, promise!) that U.S.$3 billion worth of electricity is wasted every year because people don't turn off their devices and companies don't use already-available ways to manage power more efficiently?

I didn't either. Therefore, educating the business decision makers and general public is an urgent task for companies, such as Verdiem, which offers affordable technology solutions that can help save a bundle, use scarce resources more efficiently, and safeguard the environment. Our responsibility as concerned marketers is to support that effort as credibly and effectively as we and our clients can.

Have an interesting Tuesday

If you're interested in learning about clean technology and meeting the people that make it happen, it's not too late to arrange your schedule to be at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Washington, tomorrow. The Washington Technology Center hosts the Washington State Technology Summit, with a focus on environmentally sound technologies. Take a look at the interesting agenda. Registration is a reasonable $220 at the door.

I've not seen anything much about this event in the Seattle newspapers, that's why this post. If you come from the Westside, the #550 Sound Transit bus line gets you within a couple of blocks of the Meydenbauer.

See you there!

Intelligence from anywhere

If you think green marketing is all about being environmentally accountable and communicating that with great impact and integrity, you and your recycling bins may be at risk. Today, Mother Jones magazine published an article by senior correspondent James Ridgeway about a private security firm that spied on many environmental organizations, including the Center for Food Safety and Friends of the Earth. The company in question, first called Beckett Brown International (BBI), later S2i, performed these operations in the late 1990s and the early years of the new millennium. Eventually, the business collapsed when the principals' goals clashed. Download MotherJones_BBI_20080411.pdf

Ridgeway provides a heap of source documents, including internal reports and e-mail exchanges, to illustrate how BBI operatives proceeded. Apparently, gathering intelligence from trash receptacles and dumpsters was a favorite, reliable standby. They also placed BBI agents in environmental organizations and had them facilitate conferences and events. On whose behalf did BBI do this work? Most of the clients were public relations companies whose clients were involved in environmental controversies and had expensive, highly exposed disagreements with environmental organizations about the value of their products.

This article will definitely heighten your awareness of your trash, and maybe that bad-mood colleague will look a little suspicious when you've plowed through the whole long thing. In a touch of sleaze, at the end of page 3 of the online version, a teaser says, "NEXT PAGE: The firm's Obama connection." And if you hold a long breath and read through to the end of page 4, there it is. The current company run by a former BBI principal "provided bodyguards to Senator Barack Obama" last year. That's it! The amazing Obama connection!

Speaking of, Obama's environmental messages are worth a look both for what's there and what's not. While the goals are commendable, if a little hazy, the environment according to Obama seems to have little value in itself, but it does provide us with alternative energy sources, air to breathe, and water to drink. That approach is not unlike that of Senator Clinton, whose plans don't offer as elegant a presentation as Obama's, but feature more substance, with tangible goals and strong metrics. Related content presents her views on green jobs, green building, responding to the climate crisis, and more. It would certainly be interesting and worthwhile for voters if Clinton and Obama could have a substantive debate on how they plan to approach environmental issues.

If you're in the mood for a crowd, are in Seattle this weekend, and aren't already busy with Dalai Lama events, there's a Green Festival at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center downtown. You can even bring garbage:

"Bring your household e-waste to the Seattle Green Festival! This includes laptops, cell phones, PDAs, CDs, and household batteries. 3R Technologies will be accepting these smaller items onsite at the event. Do not bring large electronics."

Large electronics, of course, could hurt and confuse the intelligence agents rooting around the waste containers. Throw gently in any case.

Your participation, please

This week's topic must be crossing borders. Yesterday, we introduced the Apollo Alliance, which has the potential to span green collars and green suits, and maybe more. Let's consider another kind of transition today.

Founded in February 2007, the Western Climate Initiative provides an informational, climate-focused public-interest resource to the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba, and to the American states of Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington. It's not quite Cascadia and certainly not Ecotopia, but certainly a worthwhile effort that tries to maintain a West Coast focus with supralocal collaboration. The states and provinces I just mentioned are considered partners; observers include even more entities, including Mexican states.

What does this organization actually do? The presentation on the Initiative's Web site may seem a little abstract, and it does not include anything like an "about us" section. The homepage offers a brief overview:

"The Western Climate Initiative is a collaboration which was launched in February 2007 by the Governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to develop regional strategies to address climate change. WCI is identifying, evaluating and implementing collective and cooperative ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the region. In the spring of  2007, the Governor of Utah and the Premiers of British Columbia and Manitoba joined the Initiative. Montana joined in January, 2008. Other US and Mexican states and Canadian provinces have joined as observers."

Current activities include:

"Through WCI, the Partners set an overall regional goal in August 2007 for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (see the GHG Reduction Goal Statement). By August 2008 the Partners will also complete the design of a market-based mechanism to help achieve that reduction goal. The partners developed a Workplan to guide their work and are seeking public input throughout the process."

Maybe the easiest and most worthwhile point of entry for some of us nongovernmental types is the public involvement page. You can sign up for news (they use the old-fashioned term "list serve," but I assume that's what they intend) and submit comments. The same page also offers public-event listings (meetings, teleconferences, workshops, and recordings from past programs).

Most fascinating and informative is the record of discussions of the Western Climate Initiative's work plan. The organization posts comments from a wide spread of entities and businesses, including ConocoPhillips and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Intriguingly, comments from individuals also find a forum here and on the draft recommendation and options comments pages. The Initiative's presentation may be a little clunky ("click here!" like it was 1994, and the multitude of typos is unfortunate), but that capability is excellent. Let's hope that engaged, smart people and organizations start chiming in here to make the effort more relevant and public.

There's much more interesting material to find here, so please be patient and spend a little time learning and reflecting. Submit a comment and see if and when it appears. Join a (toll-free) conference call. You'll be heard only if you talk.

Apollo Alliance across the abyss

I'm not too wild about the Apollo Alliance's partial tagline "freedom from foreign oil," as opposed to, say, "freedom from oil." It's too easy to get good intentions misdirected toward xenophobia (don't let anybody holler "China" at a crowded meeting this week). But "three million new jobs" and the strong green-collar messaging on the organization's site, that I can happily buy into.

If you're not familiar with the  Apollo Alliance, you may have followed the environmental business news that gets the most attention. Much of that relates to companies' frivolous greenwashing practices or individual organizations' innovative products and technologies. So far, the labor movement has not been granted a lot of mindshare in the environmental conversation. Founded in 2004, the Apollo Alliance is relatively new. The mission statement reads as follows:

"The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the carbon emissions that are destabilizing our climate, and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers.

"Inspired by the vision and technological achievements of the Apollo space program, we promote policies and initiatives to speed investment in clean energy technology and energy efficiency, put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of well-paid, green collar jobs, and make America a global leader in clean energy products and services."

As you see, the Alliance aims to create an unprecedentedly broad coalition. The organization's founders claim inspiration from the Apollo space program, but their language also reminds one of the Civil Rights Era. And the kind of patriotism expressed in its goals should resonate well with those who have been uncommitted to environmental values because they don't consider themselves as liberals.

"Harkening back to President Kennedy’s visionary call to meet the challenge of the Sputnik launch with an aggressive national commitment to landing the first man on the Moon within the decade, the Apollo Alliance spoke – and continues to speak -- directly to the core values we share as Americans: our can-do spirit, our inherent optimism, and the pride we feel (or want to feel) about our country’s place in the world. The subtext is clear: we did it before, we can do it again. This is America, the richest, most technologically advanced and industrious country in the world. If anyone can do it, we can do it. And we will."

The Apollo Alliance has received endorsements from labor unions, environmental organizations, businesses and trade groups, and faith-based and other initiatives. When Christine Gregoire, the governor of Washington State, recently announced draft legislation to promote green-collar jobs and climate action, the Apollo Alliance did not receive a lot of credit in the media because it had not taken a visible leadership role in promoting that effort, but Alliance members from Washington immediately came out strongly in support of Gregoire.

The Apollo Alliance has the potential to cut across ideological divisions to advance environmentally sound energies and policies. Even better, it could bridge chasms of race and class that have been confining green activism to mostly white, mostly middle-class people. You might want to get in touch, subscribe to the newsletter, and see what might be relevant and actionable for you personally. Maybe the most valuable section of the Alliance's Web site is the resources area and the reports it offers; consider spending some time there before you head back to more trafficked, segmented areas of environmental technology, policy, and marketing. A little perspective never hurts.

Sustainability? Really?

Most environmentally themed marketing communications share certain assumptions: sustainability is good, desirable, valuable, important, a worthwhile goal, a meaningful metric, an accomplishment to be proud of. Given the concept's high level of acceptance, its definition remains elusive, making sustainability a moving target forever in search of balance.

A simple search will quickly generate hundreds of sites with varying definitions of sustainability. The University of Reading, for example, offers a handful of definitions together with challenging questions. Author Maureen Hart has been working on defining sustainability at least since 1995. The Global Development Research Center chimes in, and so do many others, especially since the decade from 2005 to 2015 is meant to be the United Nations' decade of education for sustainable development (it parallels the "second international water decade," also tagged "water for life"). For a more home-spun view, you can enjoy the "sustainable practices and opportunities plan" of the U.S. National Park Service.

Notions of sustainability are bound to change for many reasons. We are still developing our sense of the environmental impact of our activities and of events in the environment. What might have been perceived as sustainable yesterday may turn out to have been misguided, mendacious, or naive in tomorrow's bright light. Sustainability for a certain community or country may mean increased misery elsewhere; perspective and empathy are extremely important in these conversations. Changing populations, industries, economies, and values will continue to influence shifts in the sense of sustainability. At the same time, you don't want to use a critique of sustainability to encourage environmental denial. But sounding out the evolving meaning of sustainability is something we should do if we care about the issues.

In the meantime, Sustainable Industries is worth a visit or two, with lots of news on environmentally sound technologies, business and public-sector initiatives, events, and more. Most pertinent to this blog, the green marketing section of the site gives a thorough, timely overview on that topic and what companies are up to. Highly recommended. 

Live from London: Ken Livingstone, Al Gore, and lots of great environmental news coverage

If you haven't looked across the Atlantic lately, at least in a certain direction, the view is enchanting. The Guardian maintains an excellent online section for environmental news, with tabs for the major issue areas.

Much-maligned prime minister Gordon Brown announces a national effort to help homeowners make their houses environmentally friendly. The complex undertaking is a series of concatenated initiatives, to be tracked and funded separately.

The new scheme includes the launch of an "Act On CO2 advice line," which will give callers across the country information on how to use less energy in their homes, save water, reduce waste, adopt greener travel methods and get information about grants and offers from energy companies.

The government said it would provide £100m for the Energy Saving Trust to deliver a broader program for green homes, which will see the rollout of a network of one-stop advice center around the country over the next 12 months.

The package of measures also includes a "green makeover" for up to 100 communities in England to cut their carbon footprints. The green neighborhoods initiative will encourage communities to focus on homes with carbon footprints that are hard to reduce, such as Victorian terraces and tower blocks.

The scheme, backed by up to £10m from the government's environmental transformation fund, will also target properties which use gas or oil for heating and action outside the homes, including efficient street lighting and community energy projects.

I hope Obama and Hilary are listening. Lots of "tower blocks" in the United States could use some assistance. In other news, London mayor Ken Livingstone talks about environmental issues in the current mayoral race, scheduled for May 1. Livingstone is daring, has lots of viable ideas, and boasts a successful track record of getting something as seemingly radical and controversial as congestion pricing enacted in his city. I hope U.S. mayors, including Seattle's Greg Nickels, are paying attention. (Disclaimer: The discussion in the broadcast covers many different issues, not just Livingstone's initiatives.)

And if you're observing Al Gore's sizeable tracks, The Guardian provides a fine compendium of his current activities. Mercifully, the coverage omits speculation about another presidential run by Gore.

Al Gore yesterday launched a drive to mobilize 10 million volunteers to force politicians to act on climate change—twice as many as the number who marched against the Vietnam War or in support of civil rights during the heyday of U.S. activism in the 1960s.

During the next three years, his Alliance for Climate Protection plans to spend U.S.$300m (about £150m) on television advertising and online organizing to make global warming among the most urgent issues for elected American leaders.

The We Can Solve the Climate Crisis initiative aims to build up pressure on the next U.S. president to support stringent mandatory emissions controls when they come before Congress, and take a leadership role at the renegotiation of the Kyoto treaty.

Environmental activists yesterday described the plan as the most ambitious public campaign launched in the United States.

"The resources are completely unprecedented in American politics," said Philip Clapp, of the Pew Environment Group. It is equally ambitious in targets. The Alliance has already reached out to organizations as diverse as the Girl Scouts and the steelworkers union to try to broaden its appeal.

Thank you, President Gore!