Nature’s Path at Expo West 2012.

Natural Products Expo West is the world’s largest natural and organic products tradeshow. In 2013, it will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, from March 8th to 10th, with education and events beginning on the 7th.

A number of Fairware clients — Stonyfield Farm, Nature’s Path, Daiya Foods — are in the natural food and products business, so planning for Expo West has become a big part of our own seasonal calendar. Leanne Stasiuk, Fairware’s Natural Product Category Account Manager, worked with Nature’s Path for six years, and is a five-time veteran of Expo West. She’s shared this list of tips and ideas that should prove invaluable to anyone planning to exhibit at the show.

General Planning Tips

• Hold a pre-show booth audit and meeting. If you haven’t pulled out or reviewed your booth since your last trip to Expo West, make sure you give it the once-over to ensure that it’s in good working order and that you have what you need; also, confirm that it has any new brand elements you’ll need for this year. Meet with the team you’ll be bringing to the show, and make sure that everyone is briefed on the expectations for the team and the goals for the booth.

• Book hotel rooms first – they sell out fast!!  If you want to be in the tent that holds the Fresh Ideas Organic Marketplace, book that early too.

• Get sizes for all team members working the show. This will speed things up when you order apparel.

• Pre-make kits for sampling areas. Make kits that contain all you’ll need to offer a range of samples of your product in one box, and send them to each location ahead of time. Here’s a sample kit we put together for Nature’s Path.

• Find out the last advance-shipping date for the show. You’ll need to have everything ready to go on that day; if you miss that date, you’ll have to ship to your hotel or bring things in your own luggage!

• Keep your giveaways small. Pretty much everyone is travelling to this show, and they’ll all be picking up samples along the way. So if you’re giving something away, make sure it will fit in carry-on luggage.

• Do a post-show audit. Get together with your team to review what worked, what they liked, what didn’t fly. Keep the list handy for future booth design, apparel, handouts, etc.

Keep this list handy, and have a smooth and fruitful Expo 2013!

Sure, we believe in our cause with passion. We talk about it all the time at our conferences, workshops, and shows. Talk about it among ourselves on a daily basis. For some of us, our families probably know much more about the water industry than they ever dreamed about—and you know they dream about it.

We agree with ourselves. Everyday. So why doesn’t the rest of the world “just get it?”

Maybe it’s our approach?

We forget that our customers—our real audience—don’t have the same experience that we do. They have plenty of other things to worry about. The children need a college fund, Grandma is sick, or maybe they can’t make the mortgage payment. Not to mention, they have their own jobs to worry about. They don’t really know—or maybe even care—that our nation’s water and wastewater infrastructure is deteriorating at a rapid rate. In fact, they may not understand what that means.

We know. It’s language we use everyday. Right? Yes. But to our customers, it’s shoptalk. It means nothing. And some people may even be offended by our use of such talk. They think we’re just trying to trick them—talk over their heads.  We’re just trying to raise taxes or increase customer rates so we can make a big profit and laugh all the way to the bank.

To get the message out to our customers, we need to change the way we’re sending it. We need to say it in simple everyday language that anyone can understand. And we need to give them a reason to care about what we have to say. If we have a customer who can’t pay his/her mortgage, you probably aren’t going to have much luck in his/her support for a rate increase.

First and foremost, we have to find what resonates with our customers. There are a number of studies out there in which the results can be tailored to a more general audience.  For example, NESC and WVU’s School of Business and Economics recently completed a study that noted that social responsibility plays little role in someone’s choice to conserve water. What does matter is: How is this action going to benefit me?

In other words, what’s in it for me far outweighs doing the right thing. While this may not be what we want to hear: who wouldn’t want to do the right thing? It’s what we need to understand if we really want to get our message out.

This is the second in a series of post about marketing water. The first post is Marketing Water.

When retailers and communities consider ECOgrade photodegradable bags as a solution to plastic bag pollution, they are excited by the fact that they are the only bags that eliminate damage from littering, as they will photo-degrade from sunlight exposure. However, one of the most common questions raised is “what if they go into a landfill?”.  We love this question!  Not only does ECOgrade have an advantage over plastic and paper in landfills, but as landfills become less of a factor in solid waste disposal, ECOgrade will carry us into the future.

Landfills have been a common method of trash disposal in the US since the days of the settlers.  As recently as 50 years ago, virtually every town had their own landfill, in which they simply dumped all of their trash, covered it up with dirt, and left it to (hopefully) rot.    Little did the earlier settlers know about landfill gases, and the dangers and environmental damage of methane buildup and landfill fires. Today, landfills are rapidly becoming obsolete.  According to the EPA, the number of landfills in the US has decreased from approximately 8000 in 1988 to 1908 in 2010.  So what are we doing instead?  The three R’s (Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce) are having a major impact. 34% of what we used to throw in the dump is now recycled and diverted before it gets there.  In addition, more progressive communities are now moving towards modern incineration plants.  According to The New York Times, new incineration plants, such as those in Europe, have become so efficient that many times more dioxin is now released from fireplaces and backyard barbeques than from the incinerators.  Furthermore they create energy from this waste.  Denmark now regards garbage as a clean alternative fuel rather than a smelly, unsightly problem. Denmark has 29 such plants, serving 98 municipalities in a country of 5.5 million people, and 10 more are planned or under construction. Across Europe, there are about 400 plants, with Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands leading the pack in expanding them and building new ones.

Waste To Energy Plant

A 2009 study by the E.P.A. and North Carolina State University scientists endorsed waste-to-energy plants over landfills as the most environmentally friendly destination for urban waste that cannot be recycled. Embracing the technology would not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions and local pollution, but also yield efficient electricity. The US federal government and 24 states now classify waste that is burned this way for energy as a renewable fuel, in many cases eligible for subsidies. Still there are only 87 trash-burning power plants in the United States, a country of more than 300 million people. According to Ian Bowles, a former Clinton administration official and former Massachusetts state secretary of Energy, “Europe has gotten out ahead with this newest technology,” Mr. Bowles said that as America’s current landfills topped out and pressure to reduce heat-trapping gases grew, Massachusetts and some other states are “actively considering” new waste-to-energy proposals.

So how does this relate to ECOgrade Photodegradable bags?   One of the key differentiators of ECOgrade vs. other type of alternatives to plastic bag (such as bio-degradable or oxo-degradable bags which contain heavy metal salts), is that they are safe for the recycle chain.  The key oxidizing agent in ECOgrade is Calcium Carbonate, which is already an ingredient as  filler in many plastic bags.   Over 12,000 locations exist to recycle bags, and, according to the EPA, over 15% of bags in the US were recycled, upfrom 12% in 2009.  So if the percentage of bags being recycled is increasing, why do we need ECOgrade?  Why don’t we just encourage plastic bag recycling?  The answer is that whether 100% of bags are recycled, or 0% are recycled, we would still mitigate our impact on the environment by switching to non-toxic photodegradable bags, (ASTM 5272 certified) like ECOgrade.  This is because ECOgrade bags are made from 46% natural materials using less HDPE than plastic, use 15% less energy, and produces 34% less Greenhouse gases in pre-production when compared to plastic bags and 94% less emissions compared to paper bag manufacturing. If ECOgrade bags go into a landfill, and are isolated from light and oxygen prior to any exposure to sunlight, they may not degrade any faster than plastic, paper, and other materials that are buried, which can take hundreds of years.  But, in addition to being less damaging to our environment in production, when they do degrade, they will not release methane or other additional Greenhouse gases.  Landfills are currently the largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions in the United States.

And if ECOgrade bags are incinerated?   Unlike plastic bags, which tend to melt into a plastic “goo”, ECOgrade bags burn gracefully and do not clog up incinerators as plastic does.  They produce very little smoke and have been tested to prove that the residue is a non-toxic ash. This non-toxic ash may then be used  as an acceptable soil additive for planting.  Not only is incineration an up and coming solution for trash disposal, but it also leverages the advantages of ECOgrade.

In conclusion, we can see that landfills are an obsolete solution for solid waste disposal, and will continue to be less of a factor in the future, as recycling improves and safe waste-to-energy incinerators are constructed.  But no matter how people dispose of their ECOgrade bags, whether they are (unfortunately) littered to degrade in sunlight, recycled, incinerated, or buried in a landfill, they provide an environmental advantage to plastic or paper bags of the past.   They are truly an alternative to plastic for today and the future.

If you’d like to learn more about ECOgrade bags and other new economically viable environmentally responsive technologies, please contact us to learn more. ECOgrade bags were recognized as The MassTLC “Consumer Product of the Year” for 2012.  If you are a retailer and you’d like to sample ECOgrade photodegradable bags in your store, you can request one here.

-Edward Weisberg is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, GXT Green

FAST COMPANY.COM

How Patagonia Makes More Money By Trying To Make Less

WRITTEN BY: Jeff Rosenblum

A green approach is not just about producing a more sustainable product, it’s the way it is produced that matters too. adopting strategies as the green chemistry principle for example, in the way to prevent wasting, design safer chemicals, reduce the use of derivatives.

To develope a sustainable product strategy companies have to be aware of how their choices are shaping sustainability so they can identify resources to improve them, questinoning about:

• How sustainable is this material? How toxic, renewable, reusable, recyclable, biodegradable and ethical is the product as a result of its use?

• Where in our organization do we have information and/or need to have information to guide decision making about this material? Who has access to it and how efficiently can they access it?

• How much of this material are we using in our product or in the processes that make it? What are the implications for our employees? What are the implications for the way that we envision customers using it?

Here we can find a clear explanation of how and why develope a sustainable product strategy in the way to trasform it into a benefit, a competitive advantage or a business opportunity.

A report written by Chad White with Emma Stewart present a management model to develope a sustainable product re-design.This A-B-C-D model highlights these four behaviors as components of “sustainable design intelligence,” a dynamic learning model to help companies build more sustainable products.

• Assessing: The ability to analyze the social and environmental impacts of products and  production and to evaluate organizational capacity to address them.

• Bridging: The ability to connect ready parties and to bring the right functions and the right people together to redesign products.

• Creating: The ability to generate projects that enable exploration and learning about product sustainability and about changes needed to the design process.

• Diffusing: The ability to deploy tools that build literacy, integrate learned design principles and build accountability.

Green Marketing

People is everyday more sensible to environmental issues, a way to align with emerging consumers interests is to adopt a Green Marketing strategy. Aspirational consumers love shopping, prize social connections and they also want to make a difference for people and the planet, these are the three people’s attitudes companies have to consider to catch their attention envolving them into a green methodology.

Do you really think we are buying less and at the same time buying better? Which essentially means that we (as in, some of us) have reduced our consumption patterns or reduced what we buy – groceries, clothing, gadgets and what have you. And in the process are buying better quality (read, by paying higher prices) stuff.

It might be true to an extent, but in developing countries, I have my own share of doubts.

Developed countries have the luxury of rethinking their consumption patterns but not Indians.

We are a very social society and what we consume tells upon our status within the community and our peers.

Big fat Indian wedding is getting fatter and fatter every year. People are having surplus incomes and they are splurging on cars, devices, branded clothing, holiday homes and partying it all with increased wine and meat consumption….no, I don’t think Indians are rethinking their consumption patterns.

Or else, how do you explain all MNC’s looking at India or China or Brazil as their next big markets and set up shops here?

But a study like this or like any other can sometimes be mis-leading. Nothing against the organizations conducting it – it’s just the nature of the study as people who take part in it are pretty much aware of such issues. Period. A typical consumer doesn’t even come close to knowing what the S-word (sustainability) even is.

Anyhow, so what is this report?

RE: THINKING CONSUMPTION- Consumers and the future of Sustainability

Developed by BBMG, GlobeScan and SustainAbility, The Regeneration Consumer Study is an online survey of consumer attitudes, motivations and behaviors around sustainable consumption among 6,224 respondents in six major international markets (Brazil, China, Germany, India, United Kingdom and United States).

Key Findings from the Regeneration Consumer Study

• Consuming less, consuming better
• Shifting perceptions on price, performance and credibility
• Collaboration and participation by being a part of the solution
• “Aspirationals” offer the key to sustainable consumption

The study segments the consumer with a different terminology, but basically mapping out the similar behavior patterns. According to the report’s research, four consumer segments on the sustainability spectrum are seen:

• Highly commited Advocates – 14%
• Style and Social Status seeking Aspirationals – 37%
• Price and performance minded Practicals – 34%
• Less engaged Indifferents – 16%

My take

Overall the report throws some neat insights about the emerging consumer pattern in their green buying behavior, but what I am a bit skeptical about is the Indian study.  Let’s  see:

• A typical Indian consumer, as I suggested earlier…is not reading the product ingredients before making a purchase decision. Even if he is, the environmental impact of the product will not be even on the radar – he is doing so, because it’s status
• The report also indicates that an overwhelming 63% of consumers in developing countries buy products based on their recyclable characteristics, which again may not be true in a typical real case scenario in India.
• I also doubt the 73% understand what makes products environmentally and socially responsible.
• And this the big one…81% of people feel a sense of shared responsibility – if that were the case, then a lot of social problems we have today would simply evaporate.

The report also says that India has the second largest “Advocates” consumers for sustainable buying (16%) - I just don’t know who these advocates coud be!

Having observed this, I do agree that…

China with 53%, followed by India (42%) have the largest ”Aspirational” consumer segment…

…that tend to buy for style and social status, than for any other reason at all!  And this group, incidentally is the largest segment even in the developed nations.

A number of reports similar to this have previously come out by various organizations. What makes it different from others, is that, it lays down some opportunities for action and also tries to re-engage consumers.

The challenge is how to measure the impacts of these actions? I hope, not by asking the same set of consumers who made this report possible! What do you think?

Know more about The Regeneration Roadmap. Click here to download the 27 page report.

Please leave your comments below as it helps generate some meaningful discussion for change.

Related articles

• New Study: “Rethinking Consumption” Finds Consumers Buying Less and Buying Better (sustainablebrands.com)
• The Regeneration Roadmap Launches Consumer Survey (sustainability.com)
• Sustainability a Key Factor for Consumers, Survey Finds (environmentalleader.com)
• Sustainability a Key Factor for Consumers, Survey Finds (Going Green) (whattheythink.com)

If you benefited from this post, I’d be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to your friends or share via links below on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you!

Is social media right for you?

Here at the National Environmental Services Center, we recently dove into using social media for the first time—employing Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging. Prior to actually creating a presence, we took some time to decide whether we really wanted to do it. After all, it would take manpower to keep it going. But then we realized that we’d reached a day and age where not having a social media presence wasn’t an option. If you want to stay relevant, you have jump onboard.

What we’ve learned is that social media allows you join with like-minded people and create a dialogue. But it isn’t easy. It takes a while to build an audience—or “followers” as they are better known. And once you’ve gained a few followers, you have to keep them engaged—and maybe even entertained—to keep them around.

Because of that, commercial and social marketers are finding ways to use the power of social media to reach desired demographics. Woo. Wait. What does that mean? It means that if you use the right methods, you’ll reach the right people. And getting the hang of it takes some experience and practice. In other words, you won’t learn if you don’t do it. But you can reach the audience you want.

Facebook and Twitter offer you options to ”follow” or “like” others who have profiles similar to yours. Conversations can start between you and your followers when you agree or disagree with something that has been said. You also have the option to share or retweet information, videos, pictures, and other items that you believe will be of interest to your followers.

Keeping conversations going can be tricky, but it can be done. Social media sparks shared ideas and information that is debated, agreed to, and sometimes trashed. And like any conversation, social media is a living, evolving communications tool that requires attention, response, new inputs, and tweaking.

In addition, social media messaging can be an efficient way to build an online community for your cause. This community, in turn, shares message points—not as static slogans, but as part of discussions about how to incorporate your message into daily living.

Successfully using social media means that messages have to be almost subliminal. While some of the campaign’s messages may be direct (for example, “here’s how your toilet can save you $200 a year”), most are indirect (for example, “when remodeling my bathroom I found beautiful fixtures that matched the look I want and turns out they are designed to save water”).

But, because indirect messages can be endorsed by a third party, who also expresses additional benefits, they can be more powerful than direct messaging. Unlike traditional outreach efforts, messaging is not directly controlled with social media. But the social media effort will encourage the behaviors you want to promote. Results build over time with the hope that broad communities are reached and rethink their approach to water use.

Look for more about social media and messaging in future posts.

Guidelines on green marketing have gotten a lot clearer. Picture via Michael Caven

Green? Eco-friendly? Earth smart?

Marketers have been throwing these terms around freely for the past decade as consumers have taken more notice of the environmental impact their purchases can make. Until recently, these terms have had little restrictions placed on them—and advertisers have gotten away with misleading buyers through a scheme called “greenwashing.”

After five long years of deliberations, the Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guide has been revised for the first time since 1998 to ensure that marketers’ green claims are truthful and accurate.

We talked a little bit about greenwashing a few weeks ago in our post exploring the proper disposal of sustainable alternatives to plastic. Put simply, greenwashing is exactly what it sounds like: stretching the truth about how sustainable or environmentally friendly a product really is.  Sometimes, the truth hasn’t only been stretched—but fully manufactured.

The Green Guide sets the rules on how marketers can promote the eco benefits of their products. As demand for these products continues to boom, these new revisions couldn’t have come sooner. After all, the Green Guide was written in 1992 at a time when “green” and “eco-friendly” weren’t exactly on buyers’ radar.

The most striking of the revisions made to the guide is the cautioning of marketers against the use of these terms in general, as they are “broad and unqualified.” To consumers, terms like “green” and “eco-friendly” suggest that the product has specific or far-reaching environmental benefits. According to the FTC: “Very few products, if any, have all the attributes consumers seem to perceive from these claims.” Up until now, any slight changes made to a product that could be construed as beneficial for the environment has given marketers just cause to label a product “green.”

The newly updated Green Guide also requires that claims of a product’s degradability be backed up by evidence that the entire product does actually break down naturally and return to nature over the course of one year.

And we are happy to report that the guide calls for clearer labelling of how products can be disposed of—whether they are compostable, recyclable, or safe for landfills.

You can read more about the revisions to the FTC’s Green Guide here. We are stoked about these revisions not only because of what they mean for our industry, but also because it really shows a strong push towards growing the market for products that are accurately labeled.

Green initiatives undertaken by companies may include; altering existing products to be less harmful to the environment, designing new product lines targeting environmentally concerned consumers, changing the organisational culture to ensure that ethics are integrated into all aspects of the business and repositioning existing products without changing them. In the eighties when green marketing first became popular, some organisations exploited consumer ignorance by changing  their marketing claims without altering their products or production processes. This reflected a classic sales orientation, there was limited product development and little market research undertaken by businesses to better understand consumers needs and responses. When research was undertaken it usually focused on identifying the green attributes of existing products, rather than seeking more environmentally friendly alternatives. Once gaps in corporate behaviour and marketing claims became known to the public, consumers boycotted the offending companies. The negative publicity generated  had an impact on consumer confidence in green marketing claims and research shows that many consumers are unsure whether to believe many ‘green’ claims. This consumer scepticism and greater scrutiny of companies advertising environmentally friendly  initiatives may be the reason that many companies that now undertake green marketing activities do not always advertise the fact.

Refs:

• Babiak, K & Trendafilova, S 2011, ‘CSR and Environmental Responsibility: Motives and Pressures to Adopt Green Management Practices’, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 18 pp.11-24
• Crane, A & Peattie, K 2005, ‘Green marketing: legend, myth, farce or prophesy?’, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 8 pp. 357 – 370
• Dimitri, C & Woolverton, A 2010, ‘Green marketing: Are environmental and social objectives compatible with profit maximisation?’, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 25 pp. 90-98
• Mendleson, N & Polonsky, M 1995, ‘Using strategic alliances to develop green marketing’, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol. 12 pp. 4 – 18
• Polonsky, M 1994, ‘An Introduction To Green Marketing’, Electronic Green Journal, Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/49n325b7

Image: Sapling by scragz

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680977/alternative-futures-for-todays-popular-brands

Alternative Futures For Today’s Popular Brands

via Sustainability Marketing: Sustainability Marketing (2nd ed): 'New and Improved'.

Follow the lead of corporate marketers and focus on the market you can reach.

Wouldn’t it be great if marketing water—or green marketing in general—were easy? If so, we’d have no trouble getting people to change their behavior and conserve water, scoop dog poop, or make whatever clean-water action we wanted them to make.

We’ve operated on the assumption—for quite a long time—that any kind of green marketing is going to be hard work—that we have change our customers attitude and values to have any kind of effect on their behavior. And that takes a concerted effort over a long period of time to effect change. Or maybe not.

If we take our cue from corporate marketers, maybe we can effect change sooner. These marketers usually stay clear of awareness and education communications, preferring to target consumers who are already open to the message they are trying to deliver. The reason for this is self-evident: businesses can make a lot more money by selling to people who are ready to buy. And it takes time and money to get people to realize they need what you’re selling. Maybe we don’t have to go to great lengths to sell “our product.”

Some new marketing information suggests that we don’t have to shift our customers’ attitudes to get the behavior change that we seek. According to a study out of Denmark—although a few years old it has some useful results—conducted by Professors John Thøgersen and Folke Ölander of the Aarhus School of Business, if we give people the opportunity to engage in environmentally friendly behavior, they will. In other words, if we supply them with the products, they will use them.

For example, if we want people to conserve water, scoop dog poop, or some other equally important third thing, if we supply them with water conservation tools, pooper-scooper bags, or whatever it is that they need to perform the behavior, they will likely do it.

Of course, there are those people who aren’t going to do anything that requires effort, but for now, let’s worry about the people we can reach and take advantage of that opportunity.

We’ll continue posts about green marketing over the next several weeks. Stay tuned for more information.

via How to Green Your Brand by Ms. Victoria Fritz.

A great strap line can really make a huge impact on any marketing campaign elevating your brand above your competitors and keep your company’s name in their minds for far greater length of time.

However there is no point making for example a performance statement that your company can’t deliver on. This will just work in a negative way and you will rule the day you ever went with any strap line.

Now producing a strap line might seem easy enough thing to do but it’s far from easy especially if you are to close to the subject. It normally requires someone impartial to look at your company or product etc to see its strengths and differences, combining these positives into a one line message that is memorable and instantly hits home.

There are many different types of strap line including “performance”, “straight talking” or “enlightenment” etc which one is best depends significantly on the specific company, product or service you are promoting.

I normally formulate around twenty strap lines for the client, generally there will be one or two they love which sums up everything they wanted to express themselves but were not able to articulate into one short memorable statement.

At the end of the day you want to produce a strap line that people and your competitors will comment on in a positive manner.

So should I have a strap line the answer is a definite yes but with reservations!

Next time we will be discussing Search Engine Optimisation or SEO worth it or not?

Ramsey, N.J. – November 19, 2012 – Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta) today announces that parent company Konica Minolta Holdings, Inc. has published its annual CSR Report 2012, which details the company’s global corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and progress.

Focusing on topics of social significance and high priority to Konica Minolta, the CSR Report 2012 discusses the company’s basic philosophy, specific efforts and achievements as related to CSR and encapsulates all of the Konica Minolta Group companies worldwide.  With a focus on the Group’s newly introduced brand communication message, “Giving Shape to Ideas,” the CSR Report 2012 highlights solutions for challenges in the global environment and society through creative innovations. In addition to the recently released Environmental Report 2012, this report also includes information about the progress of the “Three Green Activities” that support the medium-term environmental plan.

The Three Green Activities include:

• The Green Products Certification System, which promotes the development of environmentally responsible products;
• The Green Factory Certification System, which allows for a comprehensive evaluation of environmental activities at production sites; and
• Green Marketing activities, designed to ensure that sales companies around the world make and execute environmental activity plans that are closely tied to their local areas.

“Konica Minolta considers CSR to be vital aspect of our management philosophy and our efforts to develop and deliver valuable products, solutions and services is always executed with the idea of making a contribution to societal issues in mind,” says Ned Umehara, president and CEO, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc.  “While constantly striving to contribute to environmental sustainability through initiatives such as Project Sunway and the ongoing efforts of the Konica Minolta Colorful Tomorrow Foundation, we remain committed not only to our customers, but also the world in which they live.”

 It’s fascinating to look back at the driving forces behind product evolution.  In almost all cases availability of resources and changing needs of our society has driven advances in technology that increases productivity, improves our lives, helps our economy, and minimizes our impact on the environment.

Sometimes it’s economics, sometimes it’s environmental concerns that drive progress, and sometimes it’s both.  Today, we focus on evolving technology of bags and packaging.  But there are many other instances that we can examine.

The evolution of air cooling and insulation evolution is a classic case.  Early air-conditioners used water as a coolant for waste heat transfer.  In 1953, my father, who studied the then state of the art air-conditioning engineering in the 1940s, designed his house so that the air conditioner pumped its waste heat transfer water onto a flat roof.  The resulting two inches of insulating water was maintained on the roof all summer, providing insulation to keep the house cool.  In the winter, snow and up to two inches of ice on the roof kept us warm.   At the time, this was a very “sustainable” design.   Over the subsequent years, both the recognition of water as a resource, and economics drove the evolution of cooling technology and better insulation.  Asbestos became commonly used for insulation, and then, when that was recognized as being environmentally dangerous, fiberglass insulation without asbestos was developed. To minimize water use, recirculation cooling towers were developed.  Next, air-conditioners were retrofitted with compressors, using sealed Freon systems rather than water for heat transfer.  Freon solved the water resource problem. Then, in the 1980s, it was discovered that Freon, when released, was causing serious damage to our environment and the Ozone layer.  Thus, in the “Clean Air Act of 1990″, it was declared that Freon needed to be replaced, mainly driven by environmental concerns.  We didn’t revert  backwards to water, however.  Through technology we developed new and improved refrigerants that made air-conditioners even more efficient. And those flat roof houses?  Now they can be covered with solar cells to generate energy from the sun.

Bags and packaging have a similar history.  Paper bags were a great invention to assist retailers and consumers transport their groceries and purchases.  When first developed, the fact that bag factories used many gallons of water and lots of energy was of little concern, as these resources were plentiful.  In the 1960s as we became aware of the environmental and economic cost of paper manufacturing, plastic bags were invented.  They had both an environmental and economic advantage, using less energy and less water to manufacture.  Over  the next 50 years, they  became the standard.  Today, we recognize that plastic bags have their own inherent problems, as they use oil and gas (scarce resources) and they can be a blight on the environment if littered.   Some people have advocated solving this by moving backwards, going back to paper bags. But paper bags use 130% more  energy, and produce 1119% more CO₂e emissions to manufacture!  Technology has again evolved a solution that both addresses the economic and environmental issues.  ECOgrade photodegradable bags solve the problems of resource use and the environmental effect of littering and waste.  They contain 46% less oil-based resin, use 19% less energy to manufacture than plastic bags (63% less than paper), and produce 17%  less CO₂e  (93% less than paper).  If littered, they  degrade to a non-toxic residue within 240 days of sunlight exposure.   Their cost?  About the same as plastic.

Freight packaging is about to undergo a similar evolution.  Styrofoam polystyrene packing was a great invention for its day.  It is light, can be custom molded, and is less expensive than wood and previous solutions.  But since it is custom molded, it generally can’t be reused, and its disposal has become an environmental nightmare.  The latest evolution  to solve that problem is ECO-R3SP suspension packaging.  Not only is it lighter, non-toxic, and reusable, but it also requires less time to pack, less energy to transport, and less space to store.  This too is a new solution that advances both economics and ecology.

As the world changes, so do priorities and the scarcity of resources.  Fortunately, we know how to use technology to keep advancing.  Moving forward beyond plastics and polystyrene, not backwards towards using wood and water, is our future.  Certainly, in the 1960s, people saw the benefits, but no one understood the environmental challenges that plastic and Styrofoam would bring us.   Today, our future is in new materials such as ECOgrade and ECO-R3SP, that will propel us forward without further risk to our planet.

If you’d like to learn more about these and other new economically viable technologies could help make your business more environmentally responsive, please contact us to learn more.

If you are a retailer and you’d like to sample ECOgrade photodegradable bags in your store, you can request one here.

-Edward Weisberg is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, GXT Green

Lower your business’ carbon footprint by buying your marketing materials locally. Not only will this require less transportation and less CO2 emissions, this will also save your company shipping costs.

Take it a step further by printing all your marketing materials on recycled paper. Pamphlets, fliers, posters, and mailings can all be printed on recycled material and is in line with Accor’s Nature pillar. Let consumers know that you’re being eco-friendly by stamping all your marketing materials with “printed on recycled materials.” You can also print a friendly reminder to consumers to recycle on the bottom or back of your documents. Instead of printing and mailing newsletters, have consumers subscribe to a monthly email newsletter.

Recycling may seem like common sense when it comes to being green, but are you offering marketing materials that encourage green behavior? Instead of handing out disposable water bottles with your name on them, opt for reusable water bottles or mugs. When giving out food or hosting events with snacks, buy from local sustainable producers. Not only does this show consumers that you are dedicated to being green, it also introduces them to ways in which they can be more green with you!

Each small initial your business utilizes adds up to a huge impact on the environment. For more tips on how to green your business, visit Accor Planet 21’s blog at http://accorplanet21.tumblr.com/.

Learn more about Planet 21: http://www.accor.com/en/sustainable-development/the-planet-21-program.html
Visit Accor’s official Website: http://www.accor.com
Join us on LinkedIn
Follow Accor Asia-Pacific on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AccorPlanet21AP

Lower your business’ carbon footprint by buying your marketing materials locally. Not only will this require less transportation and less CO2 emissions, this will also save your company shipping costs.

Take it a step further by printing all your marketing materials on recycled paper. Pamphlets, fliers, posters, and mailings can all be printed on recycled material and is in line with Accor’s Nature pillar. Let consumers know that you’re being eco-friendly by stamping all your marketing materials with “printed on recycled materials.” You can also print a friendly reminder to consumers to recycle on the bottom or back of your documents. Instead of printing and mailing newsletters, have consumers subscribe to a monthly email newsletter.

Recycling may seem like common sense when it comes to being green, but are you offering marketing materials that encourage green behavior? Instead of handing out disposable water bottles with your name on them, opt for reusable water bottles or mugs. When giving out food or hosting events with snacks, buy from local sustainable producers. Not only does this show consumers that you are dedicated to being green, it also introduces them to ways in which they can be more green with you!

Each small initial your business utilizes adds up to a huge impact on the environment. For more tips on how to green your business, visit Accor Planet 21’s blog at http://accorplanet21.tumblr.com/.

Learn more about Planet 21: http://www.accor.com/en/sustainable-development/the-planet-21-program.html
Visit Accor’s official Website: http://www.accor.com
Join us on LinkedIn
Follow Accor Asia-Pacific on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AccorPlanet21AP

Lower your business’ carbon footprint by buying your marketing materials locally. Not only will this require less transportation and less CO2 emissions, this will also save your company shipping costs.

Take it a step further by printing all your marketing materials on recycled paper. Pamphlets, fliers, posters, and mailings can all be printed on recycled material and is in line with Accor’s Nature pillar. Let consumers know that you’re being eco-friendly by stamping all your marketing materials with “printed on recycled materials.” You can also print a friendly reminder to consumers to recycle on the bottom or back of your documents. Instead of printing and mailing newsletters, have consumers subscribe to a monthly email newsletter.

Recycling may seem like common sense when it comes to being green, but are you offering marketing materials that encourage green behavior? Instead of handing out disposable water bottles with your name on them, opt for reusable water bottles or mugs. When giving out food or hosting events with snacks, buy from local sustainable producers. Not only does this show consumers that you are dedicated to being green, it also introduces them to ways in which they can be more green with you!

Each small initial your business utilizes adds up to a huge impact on the environment. For more tips on how to green your business, visit Accor Planet 21’s blog at http://accorplanet21.tumblr.com/.

Learn more about Planet 21: http://www.accor.com/en/sustainable-development/the-planet-21-program.html
Visit Accor’s official Website: http://www.accor.com
Join us on LinkedIn
Follow Accor Asia-Pacific on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AccorPlanet21AP

GUEST POST: Roselin Dey from cKinetics & a Natural Resource Management graduate from TERI

The sustainability coin has two sides: Sustainable production and  sustainable consumption. Newer compliance mandates and regulations  coupled with increased investor and client demands for responsible  business behavior have led to the onset and acceptance of more sustainable production practices. However, when it comes to promoting sustainable consumer behavior in  India, there is still a high hurdle to cross.

Even though consumer surveys show that more and more Indian upper  middle class consumers are ready to shell out extra money to buy  ‘greener products’, there is still no denying the fact that this group  constitutes only a small minority of the consumer class. One of the key  reasons for this limited uptake of responsible consumer behavior is that consumers still cannot relate to the environmental impact caused by the  products that are daily used or consumed by them. The only way to overcome this hurdle is for the brands to step forward and help  customers understand such aspects of product use, while also providing  them a wider range of more sustainable options.

Also read, Consumer push or business driven

Lately, a few forward thinking brands have come up with innovative  and ingenious methods to ensure that they influence consumer behavior  while also creating a positive brand image for themselves.

Environmentally Sustainable Retail – The Puma way

PUMA, leading sports lifestyle brand, made big news in the  sustainability circuits last year by releasing the first-of-its kind  Environmental Profit and Loss Account (E-P&L) for the company. Read the report here

PUMA’s E P&L was the first ever attempt to measure, value and  report the environmental externalities caused by a major corporation and  its entire supply chain and set a new benchmark in corporate  environmental reporting.

The firm added a new ‘green’ feather in its cap by opening the first  and only sustainable retail space in India. The store in Bangalore is  locally developed, sourced out of India, and incorporates a number of  revolutionary design elements to ensure that it meets the highest  criteria for sustainability. Poised to be the flagship store for PUMA in  India, the store is a global first for the brand.

Also read, “Don’t buy this Jacket” – And yet…

“PUMA is happy to take this pioneering step forward for the retail  industry”, said Franz Koch, CEO of PUMA. “Establishing a sustainable  PUMA Store underlines our commitment to reduce CO2 emissions, energy,  water and waste in PUMA offices, stores, warehouses and direct supplier  factories.”

“Our aim is to incorporate sustainability into every aspect – be it  in our design, use of material or packaging”, says Rajiv Mehta, Managing  Director of PUMA India..

Talking about the recent retail format initiative, Rajiv adds, “We  changed our mission statement a year ago to emphasize our commitment to  becoming the most desirable and sustainable sports lifestyle brand in  the world. We began with Clever Little Bag (a packaging solution), made  our headquarters in Germany a sustainable building and then forayed into  taking this to our most important and visible touch point – retail.”

The store, spread over an area of 5000 sq. ft., has design features  focused on enabling energy efficiency, optimal daylight usage, natural  cooling features and air insulation through earth air tunnel system. The store is also completely powered by renewable energy though solar PV  panels installed on the roof. Even the porotherm blocks used for  constructing the building shell have been made using silt from the  regional lakes which earlier ended up as waste.

Read about Roadmap to Zero, of which Puma is a part

Along with sustainable building design features, the PUMA sustainable  store would also be hosting a complete range of organic pesticide free  cotton merchandise as well as the PUMA Wilderness collection, a range  primarily sourced and produced in Africa using environmentally  sustainable materials and certified by the Aid by Trade Foundation  (AbTF). Additionally, the PUMA Store would also have an in-store  recycling program for footwear, apparel and soft accessories, called  ‘Bring Me Back’ launched in collaboration with global recycler I:CO.

Socially Sustainable Retail

Recently, fashion and lifestyle retailer, Shopper’s Stop pioneered  the entry of socially sustainable products into large-format retail. The  retail brand recently entered into partnership with Shop for Change, an  NGO collaborating with farmer groups across 5 Indian states to source  environmentally sustainable organic cotton while ensuring better  livelihoods for the farmers. Shopper’s Stop launched an exclusive range  of clothes using this fair trade cotton and also promoted it by organizing special sustainable retails sections within their stores.

Through such initiatives, leading brands as well as retailers are  clearly showing that they are ready to take the first step. Clearly long terms benefits are achievable by promoting sustainable  consumption and retail behavior as well – the key is to understanding  how to best leverage this opportunity.

This article originally appeared in Sustainability Outlook

Related articles

• Puma scales up environmental profit and loss reporting to a product level (guardian.co.uk)
• Walmart Kicks Sustainability Up Another Big Notch (sustainablebusiness.com)
• PUMA Plans to Sell Biodegradable Shoes and Clothes (news.softpedia.com)
• Puma: Leading the Way for Big Brands (urbantimes.co)

Image credit: http://www.pumalovethyplanet.com/

Entries in the Go Green Awards can include all media types assuming the messages are about green initiatives. The promotion of all organic, fair trade, recycled, natural, vegan or earth-friendly products or services are also accepted. Print, Radio, Video, TV, Websites, Point-Of-Purchase Displays, Billboards and many other media outlets are all acceptable, as long as they have been used to promote sustainability on some level.

Early deadline: November 30, 2012; Late deadline: December 14, 2012. Single entries are $50.00 each. Campaigns or ad series are $75.00 each. For more information, go to http://gogreenadawards.com. If you’ve got a green hospital and you promote your sustainable practices, this competition may be right for you! Below is the listing of categories. (Click on the image to enlarge.)