Category: Corporate Social Responsibility

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Business-general, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Marketing, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Mindset, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,
Sign by Nancy Hodge Green, used at Seabrook by Shel Horowitz, 1977. Photo by Shel Horowitz
Sign by Nancy Hodge Green, used at Seabrook by Shel Horowitz, 1977. Photo by Shel Horowitz

An energy consultant I’ve known since high school raised a frustration he has in his work:

Sadly, the biggest problem is culture, Shel Horowitz. Building owners have a mentality in their culture, in their business dealings of loving the status quo. I can’t tell you how many times I have offered free energy audits, to give them information and tips to save money, and they turn it down. Free (no obligation). They just don’t want to know. I have been involved in many proposals for simple upgrades with numbers that show that this will help their bottomline ($$$), for solar panels or LED lights, and they say no. As long as money is flowing in, they don’t want to change. How do you get over that mindset?

And I responded,

You have to approach changing culture with the mentality of a marketer and organizer–this is what I do, and I’ve helped to change some cultures in my time. Think about what the world was like when you and I met in the early 1970s: Environmental consciousness was close to zero. Most families had never tried organic produce, or tofu, or even yogurt. War was still raging in Vietnam, and you could be drafted at 18 but had to be 21 to vote. South Africa and Rhodesia had rigid apartheid. Dictators were running things in places like Spain. All of these changed because organizers and marketers changed the culture. When I moved to my current town of Hadley, in 1998, the dominant paradigm was “You can’t change Town Hall.” 14 months later, our landscape was threatened and I launched Save the Mountain, and did so with mom-and-apple-pie messaging like “[developer’s name] has wildly underestimated the love the people of Hadley have for this mountain.” I knew we’d win, but I expected it to take five years. We did it in just 13 months!

It’s true that culture change is usually neither easy nor fast. But it DOES happen. Usually, it happens because people’s movements for change bubble up from the grassroots. Sometimes, technological shifts speed the process of change, turbocharge it. As one example, the widespread acceptance of clean energy had to do with technological shifts that made those choices economically as well as environmentally superior–but it was the widespread rejection of dangerous, polluting energy systems such as fossil and nuclear that created the momentum behind the technological growth and price drops/efficiency increases.

I would suggest to my old friend that his offers need to be phrased in terms of how they mitigate pain and add profit. Marketing to others’ self–interest in order to foster your own agenda of social and environmental progress is totally legitimate. And if the case is made properly, they will see that the cost of moving forward is lower, and the benefits higher, than the cost and benefits of keeping things as they are.

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By Posted on Posted in Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Living/Green Lifestyles

After reading this post, The Problem with Green Standard Offerings, on the Indoor Health Council’s blog, I wrote a response worth sharing with you (slightly edited for readability):

Cleaning by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

 

 

You write, “focus on the main issue, health-focused cleaning; directing energy to one and not two main goals: health or sustainability, not both, or you compromise the program.”

We need a reframing here.

The question is not whether to choose health over green practices (of course we do!). The better question is how to achieve the health outcomes while also creating positive environmental impacts.

As one very easy example, how much packaging do we really need? Does it really increase safety to wrap every component of a kit individually, place the wrapped components on a foam tray, wrap the entire inner contents, box the wrapped set, and then add another layer of shrinkwrap around the box, stick the box in a case with 11 others, shrinkwrap the case, stack cases on a pallet, and then wrap the pallet?

For that matter, could some of the components in that kit be used again? Why do we design so many products to be used once and then thrown away?

My comment ended there–but that’s only the beginning of a much larger discussion. Some other questions to raise would include:

  • When can we use nontoxic natural cleansers and disinfectants such as baking soda and peroxide—and when do we actually need something stronger?
  • Can we get our cleaning agents in eco-friendly formats such as pellets to be dissolved in water, rather than harmful ones such as aerosol cans?
  • What are the most ergonomic ways to clean that protect our hands, shoulders, and backs from injury?
  • How do we most effectively train cleaning personnel to understand health, environmental, and safety issues?

Please feel welcome to add your own questions in the comments.

 
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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, localism/locavore, Mindset, poverty, Psychology, Science, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , ,

A whole bag of usable produce thrown away. Photo credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dumpster-a-plenty.jpg

I have a moral problem with food waste when others are going hungry. In the developed world, our hunger crisis has nothing to do with insufficient supply–and everything to do with throwing out vast quantities of usable food, and the people who need it being unable to get it. 30 to 40 percent of all food grown in the US is tossed. Some gets thrown away because it spoils–but 1) a whole lot of perfectly good food goes to the landfill, and 2) if one area has gone bad (like mold one side of a block of cheese), in many cases, the item can be trimmed and most of it saved. Smell, taste, and appearance can help you decide what can be salvaged and what should go in the compost.

Where it does food waste come from? To name a few: Restaurants cooking more than they sell. Uninformed consumers who think food has to be dumped once it passes its sell-by date. Produce wholesalers who reject fruits and vegetables because of non-uniform appearance. Commercial processors who are not set up to capture and process every bit.

This New York Times article describes two apps, Too Good to Go and Flashfood, that match unsold food with ready bargain-seeking buyers. I think this is terrific–a win-win-win. It reduces costs for restaurants, who still get paid a reduced price rather than having to pay to throw it away. It reduces costs for consumers who’d like a good meal and don’t mind taking whatever’s available. It reduces pressure on landfills, which are overrun with wasted food, and on the environment and climate, which take multiple hits when food is wasted.

Grocery stores need similar programs. One step in the right direction is services like Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market, both of which sell reject produce direct-to-consumers.

On the consumer side, the biggest results will come from education. We need trainings that demonstrate:

  • What foods really aren’t safe past their expiration dates, and which are perfectly fine (in general, meat products should be used or frozen before their expiry dates, opened refrigerated dairy is typically good for at least three days beyond, and unopened often for a week or two, while many processed foods are shelf-stable for years)
  • How to preserve various foods
  • Where to donate if you have too much food that’s still good
  • How buying locally grown organic foods minimizes waste (including the huge environmental burden of transporting foods across oceans and continents
  • What makes sense for your size household to buy in bulk, and what’s much better to just buy as much as you need inn the near future
  • How to use smell, appearance, and small tastes to determine whether food is still ok
  • When it makes sense to trim bad parts off, and when to discard the whole thing
  • How to use leftovers without getting bored with them
  • Environmentally friendly options for disposing of spoiled food (compost, slops for animals, etc.)

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Marketing Trends/News, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

One area where sustainability can really easily interface with consumers–and give them a direct role in becoming more sustainable–is the very simple step of adding signage (including website notices) that indicates how far a product has traveled. Informal observation (not any real research) at a store that was doing this showed me that it significantly raised consumer awareness and drove purchasing choices toward more local options. Similarly, signage can clue people in about what progress you’re making on the social equity issues you’re addressing.

Another is revealing what goals were met in the making of the product, which were not meant, and how the failure to meet a sustainability or equity goal is pushing your company to do more.

And a third is to open actively monitored channels where customers and other stakeholders can make suggestions on your sustainability and social justice improvements. Think of it as a form of zero-cost consulting help (but recognize that however well-meaning they are, they are unlikely to know the true costs and feasibility levels of their suggestions. ALWAYS respond to any serious suggestion (ignore and block the addresses of the ones who spam your form, though). Engaging in real dialog is not only excellent PR, it’s also excellent market research.

Are there benefits to this approach? Absolutely! Consider Marks & Spencer, a major UK retailer. In 2007, they started measuring and reporting on 100 environmental metrics, calling this initiative “Plan A.”

Very quickly, the results provided so many benefits that the company started measuring an additional 80 metrics. As Bob Willard reports in his book, The New Sustainability Advantage (which I cite in mown book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World),

The company expected to invest £200 million in the program, but by 2009-10 Plan A had broken even and was adding £50 million t0 the bottom line. In response, M&S added another 80 commitments to the original 100 in Plan A. (p. 159)

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By Posted on Posted in Corporate Social Responsibility, Demographics/Psychographics, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Marketing, Innovation, Mindset, People Helping People, poverty, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

Hiring fair picture. U.S. Army photo by Bryan Williams, licensed under Creative Commons
Hiring fair. U.S. Army photo by Bryan Williams, licensed under Creative Commons

I’ve long been an advocate of hiring practices that give a leg up to those who don’t have a stable or steady work history. In fact, my most recent newsletter (published less than two weeks ago) highlights a company that pioneered this and now consults with other companies on how to implement open hiring. That article focuses on the positive bottom-line benefits their clients experience as they hire “unemployables.”

Today, I stumbled onto another great  example: a company whose products are deliberately eco-friendly, allowing reuse of old rubber and keeping thousands of pounds out of landfills (or worse, incinerators)–and whose workforce is roughly half ex-cons–with great results. Rather than paraphrase, I invite you to read the original article (the link is in this paragraph).Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Gratitude, language, Mindset, People Helping People, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,
I went through a course from Pachamama Alliance called “Awakening the Dreamer,” a prerequisite for an activist training course I signed up for.
Near the end, I was asked, “Identify and write down the actions you will take to express your commitment to creating a thriving, just, and sustainable future.
And, for added effectiveness, include the date by which you will complete the action.”
My response has a lot to do with who I am, who I have been, who I hope to become, and why I do what I do. I’m sharing it in full:
  • Continue to work on immigration justice through Jewish Activists for Immigration Justice (ongoing since 2019).
  • Continue my career path of showing business that meaningfully addressing climate change, hunger/poverty, racism/otherism, war, etc. through core products, services, and mindset can be a success path (ongoing since 2003).
  • Continue to nurture democratic impulses in my own town/region and help some of them run for local office (ongoing since 1983).
  • Continue using my writing, speaking, and organizing skills to spotlight important issues locally, regionally, nationally, and globally (ongoing since 1972)–and strengthening these skills through continuous learning (which is why I signed up for this training).
  • Continue to be an activist who shows up to make a difference and be counted whenever practical (and sometimes when it’s not).
  • Continue to act on my belief that each of us can make a difference, and that difference is greatly amplified by working with others.
  • Continue to celebrate the victories I help achieve or passively support.
  • Continue to find ways to evolve as a person: to be more supportive of others, to recognize barriers others may face, and to face new experiences with gratitude and enjoyment.
None of these have completed-by dates. Most will not be completed in my lifetime.. I will do this work as long as I can.
<End of my response>
Three quick takeaways I want to leave you with:
  1. Each of us can have an impact, especially if we go about our work with focus and determination
  2. That work is amplified when we collaborate with others in an organized way
  3. We are all growing and changing and evolving–ideally, into our best selves; that journey never stops

For the past few years, I’ve been doing Chris Brogan’s exercise of picking three words to guide my year. In 2020, they were Clarity (20/20 vision), Justice, and (perhaps presciently) Healing. Last year, Rethink, Pivot, Transform.

This year, I’ve picked a single word after reading this article by my friend and mentor Sam Horn. My Word for the Year is EVOLVE–and it’s an acronym:

Enthusiasm

Vision

Optimism

Leverage (getting my message in front of more influencers, and more people generally)

Victories along the way (which we achieve through both small and large steps toward a more just, eco-friendly society)

Evolution (a better world)

 

And how are you framing YOUR 2022? May it be a blessed one for you your loved ones, and all of us.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Mindset, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

Earth Lightning, by Stephanie Hofschlaeger
Photo by Stephanie Hofschlaeger

While it sounds deeply pessimistic, I was actually extremely encouraged to read this quote by ecopreneur Paul Hawken in Sierra Magazine (part of a long excerpt from his new book, Regeneration):

Most of the energy we use, whether it be coal, gas, or oil, is wasted, meaning the energy does no useful work. Energy, in its thermal or electrical form, powers systems that are badly designed and poorly engineered, including our buildings, cars, and factories. According to the National Academy of Engineering, the United States is approximately 2 percent efficient, which means that for every 100 units of energy employed, we accomplish two units of work.

Why? Because if we are wasting 98 percent of our energy that means all we have to do engage in a drastic campaign to increase efficiency and conservation. I’d guess that if we can get our efficiency up to 50 percent, we’d never have to drill for more oil and gas or mine for coal and uranium. If we can reach 80 percent, we’d be actively reversing catastrophic global heating. While the technological challenges are steep, they’re not insurmountable—and even if we can go from 2 to 10 percent efficient (and THAT I think we can do easily and relatively quickly, since other parts of the world, including Northern Europe, use far less energy per capita than we do in the US), the changes will be enormous. A lot of this can be done just by thinking different. For example, most of the fuel a car consumes is to move the car itself, not the passengers. If we can cut the weight of a car in half, or carry more people at a time, more of the fuel goes to moving the people and less to moving the vehicle.

Hawken says 82 percent of our carbon output is from burning coal, oil, and gas. So, since we’re wasting 98 percent of the energy those combustion reactions produce,  being more efficient will lead directly to less carbon going into the air and sea.

He concludes with a clarion call to address social justice here and now, as a necessary step to cleaning up our energy act:

To reverse global warming, we need to address current human needs, not an imagined dystopian future.

If we want to get the attention of humanity, humanity needs to feel it is getting attention. If we are going to save the world from the threat of global warming, we need to create a world worth saving. If we are not serving our children, the poor, and the excluded, we are not addressing the climate crisis. If fundamental human rights and material needs are not met, efforts to stem the crisis will fail. If there are not timely and cumulative benefits for an individual or family, they will focus elsewhere. The needs of people and living systems are often presented as conflicting priorities—biodiversity versus poverty, or forests versus hunger—when in fact the destinies of human society and the natural world are inseparably intertwined, if not identical.

Social justice is not a sideshow to the emergency. Injustice is the cause. Giving every young child an education; providing renewable energy to all; erasing food waste and hunger; ensuring gender equity, economic justice, and shared opportunity; recognizing our responsibility and making amends to myriad communities of the world for past injustices—these and more are at the very heart of what can turn the tide for all of humanity, rich and poor, and everyone between. Reversing the climate crisis is an outcome. Regenerating human health, security and well-being, the living world, and justice is the purpose.

As Rebecca Harrington has pointed out, “In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the Earth is more than the entire world consumes in an year.” Multiplying that hour by 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, we learn that just from the sun, we have 8760 times as much energy coming in as we use. This doesn’t even count wind, hydro, geothermal, and many other promising, truly green technologies that can be designed and deployed in ways that minimize harmful impact (that’s another area where we need to work; not all alternative energy deployments are well-thought-out).  I personally favor small-scale, decentralized installations that are designed with the particular site in mind and are easy and clean to install, service, and eventually disassemble–along with solar and wind on non-forest locations that have already been built upon. Building and vehicular rooftops, parking lots, and highway median strips are all very promising places for green energy deployment, to name a few possibilities.

In short, once we make the transition–and we absolutely need to–we can live perfectly well without the dirty and destabilizing fossil and nuclear technologies we currently rely on–and the first step is getting more work out of the energy we’re already using.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Green Marketing, Greenwashing, Innovation, localism/locavore, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Talking to the Other Side, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

While searching “electric lawn service near me,” I found this CNN story from 2000 miles away that describes an eco-village sold down the river by the new owner of the land.

It is very unfortunate that the original developer didn’t get any guarantees that a buyer would maintain the fossil-free commitment written into the sale documents. Nonetheless, I think a creative and skilled attorney could make a number of different legal arguments that could force the developer to honor the agreement. Could the Environmental Defense Fund? perhaps take this on? It would be a great precedent to say that a community developed specifically as an eco-community could not then be put at the mercy of eco-hostile development.

As a non-lawyer, all I can do is speculate about the arguments a lawyer might use to block the conversion of the acquired parcels to fossil fuels (I have no idea if any of these would hold up in court and I am not presenting this as legal advice). Arguments could be made about such harms as

  • Introducing new health risks (especially to children)
  • Negative progress on climate that goes against International, US,Colorado, and neighborhood climate goals
  • Adverse possession (a doctrine that gives rights to squatters in certain circumstances)
  • The deliberate destruction of a cohesive intentional community
  • And of course, about consumers’ rights: this could clearly be seen as bait-and-switch: buying into a community with a stated purpose, and having that purpose violated, even shredded.

After all, a group of children have sued for climate justice, and the US Supreme Court recognized that their suit had validity (there have been many conflicting decisions on this case, however).

But the courts aren’t the only recourse. I do know something about organizing movements, and these neighbors should be organizing a movement. To list a few among many possibilities, they could be:

  • Organizing mass protests outside the developer’s office
  • Saturating the local paper with letters to the editor and op-eds
  • Enlisting allies in powerful environmental organizations, of which Colorado has no shortage
  • Protesting at the capital in Denver that their rights are being taken away
  • Contacting the press ahead of and after all of these events
  • Physically but nonviolently blocking attempts to connect the pipelines (note: this is illegal civil disobedience and participants might be subject to arrest)
  • Researching obscure laws that might provide tools that can successfully block the connection
  • Organizing boycotts and other public shamings of the developer

Plus, I really have to wonder what the developer is thinking. Eco-friendly homes are in high demand, can often sell for more than the price of comparable fossil-powered homes, and prove a skill set that many homeowners want. After all, people moved from other states just to participate in this community. And forcing eco-hostile housing development into an eco-friendly community is a recipe for public relations disaster and a bad, bad reputation.

Why not simply stop, think about the benefits of keeping this community identity, and use it as a marketing tool? That would make so much more sense than risking ongoing hostility, a ruined reputation and possibly much worse.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, General Commentary, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Green Marketing, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , ,

A lead story in my local paper covers a proposed ordinance banning plastic in local businesses, with special attention to food businesses, in the small city of Northampton, MA (a big restaurant destination).

The sponsoring City Councilor is someone I know, and I wrote her this note:

Thanks for your good work on the plastics ordinance. As you know, I’ve been a green guy for 50 years, write books and give talks on greening business. One of my talks is called “Making Green Sexy.” Thus, the concerns I have with the plastics bill you’re championing are not about the intent. I would like to see potential problems addressed before it becomes law–so we avoid a debacle like the one we just had over the Main Street improvements (which I loved) and their sad, swift demise).

My big concern is that “recyclable” food containers aren’t recyclable, because paper and cardboard with food waste is not recyclable. We already know we’re not supposed to recycle pizza boxes. Any food waste in paper for recycling could cause the whole batch (potentially thousands of pounds) to be landfilled. It would make more sense to 1) require compostable, and 2) provide city composting stations in several neighborhoods as well as multiple ones downtown. It makes no sense to require compostable and do nothing to encourage composting. Many people will eat their food while still downtown and won’t be bothered to bring their compostable containers to their home compost pile or may not have access to composting at home.

Second, on the straw issue [banning plastic drinking straws]. Why not simply make an exemption for people with motor disabilities in their arms or mouth. For most businesses, a box of 100 plastic straws would probably last months.

Please share this note with your committee at today’s meeting.

We see over and over again that good intentions, not thought through, create more problems than they solve. The Main Street issue involved the city making its extremely wide Main Street much friendlier to bicyclists, pedestrians, and patrons of restaurant outdoor dining areas (which, in the pandemic, have increased in number tremendously)—but failing to get buy-in from (or even consult with) affected business owners, who agitated successfully, and the mayor removed all the improvements. This was sad, as a better situation returned to a worse one, wasting significant money in the process.

In my mind, the lesson was to think things through before acting.

I got this response, which shows that the councilors are indeed thinking about these issues:

Hi Shel- thanks for your support and counsel! Straws for those with disabilities are exempt. We are requiring reusable or compostable and are working on composting services and bulk buying.

Which then says to me that they’ve got a marketing challenge. The general public doesn’t know about this exemption. They also had a marketing challenge with the Main Street improvements. Getting affected parties to participate in decisions that affect them is always a good strategy. Putting in improvements only to discover that vested interests will fight them is not. The trick is to win over those vested interests before they dig in their heels.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

If you’re wondering how social entrepreneurship works at a marquis company, try this New York Times interview with Patagonia’s recent CEO, Rose Marcario.

I’ve cited Patagonia many times as an example of a company that gets a lot of things right. Social responsibility is part of its DNA and has been from the very beginning. I was very intersted to learn about some of the initiatives under Marcario’s leadership, and particularly the open embrace of political activism.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail