Category: Energy & Sustainability

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Advertising, Energy & Sustainability, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , , , ,

Scott Cooney writes on Triple Pundit about ecopsychology…the correlation between sustainable lifestyle choices and happiness (which seem to focus, in this particular article, on how much happier Germans are than Americans, even though Americans earn and consume so much more. But Germans have a lot more time off work, and presumably spend some of that time getting close to nature.

While he doesn’t exactly connect the dots–in fact, relying on the reader to make some rather big leaps in assumptions–there is a key takeaway here: that beyond the feel-good aspect of doing what’s right for the earth, sustainable lifestyles also offer inherent psychological benefits, because being outside in a clean and well-functioning environment reduces stress, increases feel-good hormones, etc.

And the implication for marketers–and this, I think, is extremely important–is that when marketing a Green product, you should have some hooks not only about saving the world, but about the better mental state that results in doing what’s right for your soul and your psyche, as well as the earth. I bet some very powerful campaigns could be shaped around this message.

For more on marketing Green,I recommend my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. It includes profiles of people like Amory Lovins and some unique, holistic ways of looking at Green issues in the marketing world.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , , ,

Triple Pundit’s been getting lots of comments on a post questioning whether nuclear power plant decommissioning schemes can work in today’s economic climate, and stating that this is a reason NOT to build more nukes.

It’s shocking to see how many nuclear defenders have commented. Back in 1979, I wrote my first book about why nuclear power was a terrible idea, and I remain convinced that it is a terrible path. Decommissioning is only one of dozens of serious problems. Just to name a few:

  • Waste disposal that requires secure storage for a quarter of a million years
  • Enormous consequences in event of accident, and insurance coverage that won’t even begin to cover claims (thanks to a very dubious US law called the Price-
    Anderson Act, which both subsidizes the insurance premium and sets wildly unrealistic caps on liability    )
  • Poor safety record to date
  • Net power loss over the entire fuel cycle from mining through waste disposal (and transmission to end-users)
  • Susceptibility to terrorist attacks all along the fuel cycle (not just the heavily protected plants themselves)
  • Loss of liberty due to centralization of police-state force to protect the plants
  • Thermal pollution
  • Radiation leakage
  • Health effects…

    To those who say nonpolluting renewables are just as if not more expensive… 1. Take a look at the work of people like Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, who demonstrates over and over again that when you take a whole-systems approach to locally-grown solar and wind power, economies show up that conventional design and engineering miss completely–like the ability to eliminate a furnace. 2. Count the true costs of nuclear, without all the subsidies and hiding costs by moving them into other budget streams, and the picture is different.

    I put solar hot water on the roof of my 260-year-old farmhouse in cloudy Massachusetts and the system paid for itself in about five years. I admit that the pv system we put in a couple of years later has not performed as well, but I suspect some poor siting choices have much to do with that.

    But even so, solar is widely applicable, environmentally inoffensive, and, coupled with an aggressive program of conservation, could remove the “need” for many nuclear and coal plants. The days of centralized power generation and remote transmission to user sites are probably coming to a close; far too much energy is wasted in transmission.

    On the conservation side, I happen to have written a short, inexpensive ($9.95) e-book called Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life—With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle: – this is stuff you can put into practice immediately, and most of the tips cost nothing or almost nothing.

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    By Posted on Posted in Copywriting, Energy & Sustainability, language, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

    From a Starbucks press release–the second sentence in the first paragraph, and within the quote, I’ve linked to the full press release:

    With the goal of prioritization and agreement on criteria for a comprehensive recyclable cup solution, discussions will address obstacles and opportunities.

    Who writes this crap? I’m sorry, but that’s not English. Will someone please tell Starbucks that the purpose of a press release is to communicate, not to obfuscate? Especially when there actually is real news buried under the blather: First, that the chain is committing to 100% recyclable cups within three years, and second, that systems theorist Peter Senge will moderate a summit on the topic.

    So why not say so without making people dig for it? If it had been my assignment to write this press release, you can bet it would have gotten right to the point and been understandable by ordinary people.

    Starbucks of course is not the only offender. But a press release like this is useless. You want to tell the story, not hide it.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, Media Ethics, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy

    Very disturbing article on Total Health Breakthroughs about a deliberate campaign by Merck to intimidate, defund ,and otherwise make life miserable for doctors who dared to speak out about the nasty and sometimes-lethal side effects of Vioxx.

    I am not in a position to evaluate the claims this article makes, but if there’s any truth to it at all, we’ve got yet another very serious problem in our health care system.

    Isn’t it time we put actual healing in front of corporate profits? And isn’t it time that drug companies and others are held responsible for the consequences of their products–and their strategies?

    If you’re in the US, tell your representative in Congress to support HR 676, the Medicare for All bill.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People Tagged with , , , ,

    Want to make a REAL impact on carbon footprint, as well as put money back in the pockets of those suffering in this troubled economy (or perhaps those who never participated in the economic boom in the first place)?

    I got an e-mail describing a wonderful sustainability project in Cambridge, MA–one that would be easy to replicate anywhere: Weatherization Barnraisings.

    Steve Morr-Wineman, one of the initiators, wrote that a group of people organized…

    a local energy co-op called the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET). In August we organized our first event – a weatherization barnraising. It was a simple idea: bring people together to weatherize a house by doing things like insulating doors, windows, and pipes, and installing programmable thermostats and compact fluorescent lightbulbs. We publicized the event with a simple flyer, got on some listserves, and then it just took off through word of mouth – and 40 people showed up.

    Since then we’ve been doing one weatherization barnraising a month, and people just keep turning out; 30-40 every time. We’ve assembled a pool of skilled team leaders, gotten contractors to come for free to some of the events, and have expanded the range of weatherizing we can do. The multiplier effects are huge, because people are learning skills they can use to weatherize their own homes.

    The Boston Globe even ran a story on the community weatherization project, noting that the group is looking at doing public buildings as well, including a school.

    If you’d like to start your own weatherization group, Morr-Wneman and his friends have posted a free how-to manual at https://www.audreyschulman.com/HEET/manual3.htm

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

    When are sustainability measures real, and when are they a counterproductive waste of time and money?

    That was one of a several very interesting questions posed by Dean Cycon, CEO of Dean’s Beans and award-winning author of Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee (Chelsea Green, 2007).

    Dean’s Beans uses only organic fair-trade coffee and cocoa, typically pays farmers well above the fair-trade minimum while still keeping consumer prices very affordable, and reinvests substantial profits into locally governed sustainability/economic development projects in the communities that supply his coffee. He’s also perhaps the business person with the highest integrity that I’ve ever encountered.

    Not surprisingly, his revenues and profits have grown every year, despite the recession.

    In a speech to small business owners in Massachusetts, Cycon described how he had decided not to invest thousands of dollars in a more eco-friendly liner for disposable coffee cups, that in a year would keep about a basketball’s worth of plastic out of the landfill on a year’s volume of 100,000 cups. It didn’t make either economic or environmental sense, he said.

    On the flip side, Cycon was asked to be the organic coffee supplier when Keurig introduced its wildly popular single-serve coffee makers. He looked at the machine, was disturbed by the large amount of plastic that would be consumed, and suggested to the engineers that they redesign it more sustainably, replacing the disposable plastic containers with biodegradable ones made of the same thick paper used to make egg cartons. When the company declined, he refused to supply the coffee, a decision that cost him millions of dollars, but which still feels like the right decision to him. He’s actually looking to develop a competing model that would be more eco-friendly.

    Cycon has also been an agent of change within the coffee industry, challenging companies like Starbucks and Green Mountain to up their percentage of fair-trade sources, and to make much larger donations to village sustainability programs in the coffee lands: $10 million to his $10,000, in one case.
    On the fair trade issue, he points out that if a large coffee roaster sources four percent from fair-trade co-ops, that could mean 96 out of every 100 farmers are not making a living wage.

    His challenge to business in general? Bring CSR and sustainability “deeply into your business” as an integral part of decision-making, and don’t just tack it on at the end. With that attitude, Cycon believes companies can influence their vendors, their customers, and other stakeholders to take many more sustainability steps: from convincing UPS to use biodiesel trucks in the fleet to biodegradable paper from their label supplier.

    Award-winning author of Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and seven other books, Shel Horowitz writes and speaks on driving success through environmental sustainability, business ethics, cooperation (even with competitors), attitude, and extreme service. He is the founder of the international Business Ethics Pledge.

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    By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Copywriting, Energy & Sustainability, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies Tagged with , , , ,

    Watch this ad from Honda about how to be a doer for the environment, and tell me what you think.

    Here’s what I think:

    I love the message of the ad, that not only gives us specific, easy things we can do to be more environmentally responsible drivers (only the beginning of what’s possible), but also positions Honda as a leader. But I think for a general audience the ad is a disaster, because it doesn’t give one important snippet of crucial context before slowly beginning the sloooow narrative.
    I was halfway through before I realized the voiceover was Garrison Keillor (or a very close sound-alike). If people “get” that more quickly, then they will forgive taking 30 seconds or so to even start talking about the issue, because that’s his style. But I didn’t realize that at first, and if I hadn’t been told ahead of time what the ad was about, I would have been gone. So this could be a whole lot more effective if
    1) There’s a splash page at the beginning that has a caption like “Garrison Keillor’s Eco-Driving Tips”
    2) It aired in places where Keillor is a known quantity

    BTW, if you want easy tips to be more eco-friendly in AND out of your car, I recommend my just-published e-book, Painless Green: 110 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life-With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle. It’s cheap, and the tips are very easy to implement. Yes, there’s a section on transportation.

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    By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Energy & Sustainability, Publishing Tagged with , , , , ,

    In 2002, when I was writing my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, a lot of the ideas in it were way out in front of the pack. Not a lot of people were talking about corporate environmental sustainability, and pretty much no one was talking about success through business ethics.

    I spent a lot of time this weekend editing the manuscript for my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (which will be published about a year from now by Wiley, and co-authored with the legendary Jay Conrad Levinson). And I was struck once again by how much these issues have moved into the general discourse. It’s so easy to find sources now! Everyone’s talking about sustainability, and business ethics has a lot more street cred than it used to.

    Of course, no one ever really knows what takes a radical idea and pushes it to become a trend–but I like to think that my work, and particularly the Business Ethics Pledge campaign I started in 2004, has at least something to do with the shift. The whole idea of that campaign is to move the ideas through a small number of influencers and create a “tipping point” within society. We certainly haven’t reached the tipping point yet, but I think we might be seeing some of the early rumbles.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , , , , ,

    Okay, we all know the usual places to put money are performing pretty badly right now. But get this: the Empire State Building is embarking on a massive energy retrofit that will return nearly 28 percent a year! The project will cost $13.2 million, not exactly chump change–but will slash energy consumption by 35 to 40 percent, and save $3.8 million a year (considerably more, if energy costs spike back up again). After the third year, that’s nearly $4 million going directly to the bottom line. If the improvements have even a 20-year lifespan, that $13.2 million investment would return $176 million, and that’s with stable energy prices. The number is much, much higher if you factor in average energy cost increases of 5 percent a year. (I’m not going to do the math here, because I don’t know all the factors we’d need to compute–but it’s sure to be at least $200 million, maybe much more).

    Too bad we can’t put our Roth IRAs into renewable-energy retrofits .

    Meanwhile, we can all learn from the creative thinking at Rocky Mountain Institute, which is doing the heavy lifting on this project–for example, remanufacturing the windows on-site to reduce trucking costs in fuel and money. For years, RMI has been generating this kind of holistic, big-picture energy planning that saves many times the cost, and quickly. I profile RMI founder Amory Lovins in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

    Unbelievably stupid quote from the agrochemical trade group Mid America Croplife Association, whose members include the likes of Monsanto, Dow, and other manufacturers of farm chemicals (oh, and can you spot the two grammar errors in those three sentences?):

    Did you hear the news? The White House is planning to have an “organic” garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the Obama’s and their guests. While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder.

    This quote was in an e-mail to the group’s supporters, enclosing a classic-PR letter to Michelle Obama (or “Mrs. Barack Obama,” as the letter calls her–and for which one blogger took the authors to task), apparently authored by Bonnie McCarvel, Executive Director. You can see both MACA’s letter to Michelle Obama and the cover note here.

    As a long-time believer in organic agriculture/sustainability and as someone who eats out of my family’s organic garden and a local organic CSA farm all summer and fall, I was all set to do a rant on the idiocy of this statement. But before jumping in, I Googled around, and decided to focus on some other lessons; that one’s been done about 24,000 times on the blogosphere already.

    Lesson 1: Never say or write anything that will come back to haunt you. As MACA found out, you can’t assume an internal memo will stay internal. so say what you mean, mean what you say, and be prepared to back up your assertions.

    Lesson 2: Backlash is quick and can be humiliating. Numerous petition campaigns have sprung up supporting Michelle’s desire to grow organic, and the already-shaky credibility of the pesticide industry might take a big hit.

    Lesson 3: Old-school PR is no longer enough in a world where journalists no longer stand as intermediaries and gatekeepers between press releases and the public. From a technical PR standpoint, the letter MACA sent to Michelle Obama is quite good: full of reassuring language, on-the-surface well-reasoned arguments about the importance of agriculture, etc. But in a busy, harried world, it doesn’t get to the point; without the controversy, the recipient might not have even figured out (on the quick 30-second scan) that the letter was advocating chemical agriculture. Which hasn’t stopped the blogosphere from picking apart every nuance.

    Lesson 4: Controversy and stupidity are just as sexy to the blogosphere as to traditional media. For all the carefully worded letter to Michelle Obama, what stands out (and is getting most of the attention) is the dumb quote in the supporter cover letter about organic gardening making them shudder.

    Lesson 5: If the mainstream media wants to stay relevant, it needs to be visible. On three different Google searches on this story, including one for the exact quote from the cover letter, I did not see a single mainstream media result in the top three pages. The closest was a non-journalist’s blog quoted (apparently by a content-scraping robot) on the Wall Street Journal site, which was #28. Blogs and newsletters about gardening, sustainability, and progressive politics were all over this story, but the voice of traditional journalism was not being heard. I was actually beginning to wonder if the whole thing was an urban legend, until I finally tracked down the actual letter, on a local-foods blog. As newspapers are folding every week, as electronic news organizations are laying off staff, people will be asking why we need these trained and theoretically unbiased filters, if they’re AWOL on important stories (or if not AWOL, hidden deep under a rock). This will be a critical question. I’m of the strong opinion that we still need journalists to keep politicians and corporations honest, but journalism’s lack of presence on this and other stories makes that a much tougher argument.

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