It may be counter to common logic, but Stoiber thinks this will increase sales, and tells why. And I agree, for reasons I cite in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green—that caring and an envirnmental/soial justice agenda build fans and build the brand.
Patagonia is always a great company to watch and learn from, and this initiative does not surprise me.
Earlier today, I was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame, recognizing my 40 years of work for the environment (as a writer, speaker, and organizer). Pretty good, considering I’m only 54. Yup, I’ve been doing this work since I was 14.
Among the accomplishments NEHF cited: my work in founding Save the Mountain, an environmental group I founded in my town of Hadley, Massachusetts to protect the Mount Holyoke Range when it was threatened by a large and nasty housing development…my work in the safe energy movement (my first book was on why nuclear power makes no sense, in fact)…initiating the first nonsmokers’ rights regulations in Northampton, MA (and one of the first in the state)…and of course, my award-winning eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green.
Shel Horowitz is inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame. Credit: Andy Morris-Friedman
In my acceptance, I mentioned that I felt this award was really for all of the several thousand people who worked on these campaigns, and the millions who work on these kinds of causes around the world. I was delighted to accept on their behalf.
Sweetly enough, the range was visible from the award location behind (Barstow’s store)
In case you didn’t know, LED lamps are more or less proportionally as efficient compared to CFLs as CLFs are to incandescents. Add in mercury-free, much longer bulb life, and in this case, made in US out of recycled materials.
Thinking about the problems caused by the BP undersea oil rig, I have questions. But I’d love to see that this actually works. Anyone know more about it?
Hooray for Antioch College, an education innovator all the way back to its founding in 1850, when it became the first college to admit women and men, blacks and whites, all as equals.
In the South Bronx, once a deeply distressed urban area of New York City that the cops had dubbed “Fort Apache” because it had been so dangerous, a lot of the comeback has been around sustainability (thanks in no small measure to years of terrific organizing by Majora Carter and Sustainable South Bronx). A new initiative I just learned about creates three wins at once:
Cleans up polluted water
Creates clean and usable biofuel that doesn’t sacrifice agricultural land
Creates jobs and a general economic boost in a depressed area
Read about this triple win here. More and more, I think we’ll be seeing development projects like this. (I know of many others around the country and around the world.) The key is to look at waste from one process and see how it could be used as an ingredient for the next process. Another great example is The Intervale, in Burlington and South Burlington, Vermont, where beer waste becomes a growing medium for mushrooms, which in turn feeds fish. This thinking shift is one of the major principles of true sustainability.
I’ve long been a fan of marketing to different market segments according to their own hot buttons, as anyone knows who has read my books (especially Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green).
According to the New York Times, it seems the Chinese want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to electric cars. With only a minuscule budget for R&D, the Chinese want to coerce their way into access to expensively developed technologies for electric cars by making that access a precondition for foreign manufacturers who want to sell electric vehicles in China, if they want the same subsidies that Chinese-made electric cars enjoy. (This happens to be a violation of the World Trade Organization’s rules, and China is a WTO member)
Here’s how I think that would play out:
At least some foreign automakers, wanting access to the vast and rapidly growing Chinese market, make the devil’s bargain and share their technology secrets
China begins a crash program in its state-owned car companies to bring cars to market using this technology
After one to three years, the foreign automakers find themselves closed out—and sitting on a big useless pile of expensive infrastructure—as the Chinese rush cheap and shoddily built EVs to market using American, European, or Japanese technology
General Motors is actively resisting and protesting; Nissan doesn’t even want to go into the market under these conditions; yet Ford apparently plans to cave.
This is one time I find myself agreeing with General Motors. This is a bad idea!