Influx Insights Tag Feed: environment

influx's evening with dawn danby of autodesk

Influx Insights — 2008-07-10T01:30:30Z

Many thanks to all who attended this evening's event, to Eric, Hillary and Josh of Method who helped make it happen and of course, to Dawn for being the star of the show.

Dawn brought to life some of the challenges of pushing sustainability in a world that doesn't quite yet understand what it is or means.

She also shared with us a fascinating project she worked on years ago in Windsor, Ontario (the gateway town to Detroit) where she empowered citizens to think about sustainable city architecture and space.

Her presentation also explored some of the perils of so called "Green Design" where designers often end up creating more clutter, rather than identifying real solutions.

She suggested designers get to know where the impacts are located and find a way to hack them. As an example- she highlighted work done by designers to help reduce the pollution from motorcycle rickshaws in urban centers in the developing world.

Thankfully, the "crowd" engaged in some interesting discussion about consumer cynicism, corporate honesty, "Greenwashing", the real need for standards and consumer incentives.

Posted by Ed Cotton

brand transparency- patagonia

Influx Insights — 2008-04-02T12:47:25Z

It might be tempting for a brand that's built a reputation for environmental concerns to rest on its laurels and continue on with the same old strategy.

However, that's not the case with Patagonia, who despite building a brand that's focused on supporting the environment, it's recently turned its attention to the eco-footprints of its products.

There's a dedicated space on its website that examines the footprints of four of its products.

While this is a very limited selection of its total SKUs, the manner and honesty in which the information is presented is refreshing for the following reasons.

1. It explores the breadth of the issue from materials to transportation

2. They acknowledge that things aren't perfect

3. They highlight the fact they want to improve

4. They encourage others to comment

5. The translate the impact into language we can all understand- the energy to produce a rain jacket is the same as leaving a regular lightbulb on constantly for 42 days!!

It would be good to see other brands follow Patagonia's lead.

Posted by Ed Cotton

the envionment: where are the standards?

Influx Insights — 2008-02-16T18:50:42Z

With the continuing momentum behind all things green and environmental, the issue of standards is becoming more and more important.

There's a growing feeling that there need to be objective measures to help people understand what's a good thing and a right thing.

In the last few years, the LEED rating for buildings was often highlighted as a great example.

However, recently the tide has turned against LEED, witness this amazing example relating to San Francisco's new Federal Building.

"Too damn ahead of its time, the systems used for environmental control in the Fed Building are so innovative that they have yet to be considered so by the overly-prescriptive commandments of Green. The Green Buildings Council, however, claim that LEED is a work-in-progress, and have consented to take the next few months to reevaluate the Federal Building. Hopefully they'll continue to update their requirements so that LEED becomes less of an pocket industry encouraging architects to "tack on" expensive third-party features and more of an impetus for carefully conceived, environmentally-integrated designs."

SF Curbed

The whole area of standards is something that needs serious thought and investment.

Is government going to lead this?

Industry associations?

It's really unclear who is going to take responsibility and the longer the wait, the more confusion and the more cynicism.

Everyone agrees that environment is the critical issue, but we need more effort to measure.

Posted by Ed Cotton

how do you measure ethical performance?

Influx Insights — 2008-01-05T23:43:03Z

It's now a given that most multinationals are paying at least some attention to their ethical performance.

With the environment becoming such a big issue, the area of corporate responsibility is going to be under the microscope even more than in the past.

The problem is that there's very little performance measurement and comparative auditing between companies.

There are surveys and polls, but it's hard to find anything else that challenges and compares company standards.

It was therefore interesting to be send a press release from Covalence in Switzerland, who have been measuring and ranking companies on the their ethical performance for the past 3 years.

The company tracks performance by examining a variety of sources including the companies themselves, news media and non-profit organizations.

Covalence has just released its performance data for 2007 and there are some interesting findings.

The company provides three rankings.

1. Best Ethical Quote Score (positive minus negative news)

2. Best Ethical Progress

3. Best Reported Performance (How the company presents itself)

It's interesting and something of a challenge for US companies to see the foreigners, Unilever, Toyota and HSBC leading the way, with HP, Alcoa and Starbucks trailing in their wake.

On a cynical note, the US companies do a rather good job at talking up their own performance with Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola emerging as the leaders in that category.

Covalence also found that in 07, the environmental impact of production, eco product innovation and anti-corruption policy were the leading areas of ethical responsibility.

In addition to the annual report, Covalence provides real-time tracking of ethical peformance.

Useful if you manage an ethical funds or work in the CSR or PR department.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, audits and quality standards are going to emerge as an important issue for the environment and corporate ethics this and its good to see someone attempting to provide some comparative data.

Posted by Ed Cotton

influx's 8 preoccupations for 2008

Influx Insights — 2007-12-29T15:35:55Z

I am not going to try and match JWT’s list of 80 things, but here are 8 things that I believe will be preoccupying our minds in 08.

1.Slowdown?

The terrible “R” word is everywhere, with Wall Street looking nervously at every seemingly contradictory figure. It’s clear there are massive issues with housing and personal debt doesn’t look so great. The impact on communication spend is obvious and it looks like its time for people to dust off all those famous papers and books about the importance of brands spending during a downturn.

2.Attention Spikes

It’s now clear that agencies are competing on something of a level playing field in the war for attention. They don’t have the luxury of just hoping to be best ad in the pod or best in the break; it’s now about the most viral idea of the moment on any medium. It's now clear that television isn't the only way to do this. This year, Fallon’s Gorilla for Cadbury and Crispin’s Whopper Freakout showed us how.

Interestingly, although the campaigns had similar goals to spike attention, they approached it in very different ways. Fallon went all out for entertainment based on the strategic premise of joy and Crispin integrated the product into the heart of the idea.

Look for more of this type of thinking in 08; more media neutral ideas, more shock, and more entertainment from brands looking for attention.

3.Brands and The Social Network

The role of brands is the big question hanging over Facebook and all its competitors. It’s clear that advertising can and will continue to exist on these platforms in the form of links and banners, but the networks are promising brands an opportunity to be a part of the conversation. Certainly, there will be opportunities for the right brand, if the product is interesting and relevant enough.

There are two viable routes currently open:

a.To build or buy an application that adds tremendous value to the community and is discretely branded
b.To create a brand page that offers content to fans that is unavailable anywhere else on the Internet.

Brands will be trying feverishly to crack the code on both these areas in 08.

4.Collaboration

Collaboration will be the word of 08, with more layers of complexity being added to communication plans everyday, collaboration has become an essential component of success. It’s no longer possible for a duo of authors to crack the code on everything. Success will come to those who turn collaboration into an art, seamlessly blending media, creative thinking, digital outside partners and clients into the mix. This is all about culture and the willingness to learn and experiment.

Black Swan thinking is required.

5.The Digital Holy Grail

With content being unleashed and re-distributed across the internet, banners seemingly becoming less effective and all the questions about pre-roll, it’s unclear exactly what options brands have on the web. The build your own big website and expect people to visit theory isn’t necessarily a winner, unless you can do something interesting with it. It’s clear that those brands that are “Attention Spiking” should have a digital component to their efforts and then there’s the whole idea of Brand Utility.

How can a brand build something that helps people out in a way that they aren’t being helped already?

This is the Holy Grail and something that requires an incredible force of thinking.

6.Environmentalism is Dead

It’s clear the issue of the environment is now mainstream, but the big question is what happens next? It’s likely that the biggest problem is going to come from separating the fact from the fiction. The more consumers and industry learn, the more complex the questions become and it’s not always clear what solutions are best or better.

The uncertainty will have a damaging impact on the issue with consumers and brands feeling paralyzed over choices.

The next phase of the environmental movement will revolve around the establishment of standards and practices that gain widespread acceptance.

We’ve already seen some of the impact things like LEED standards for buildings can have and we are starting to see carbon audits developing to a point where they can become standardized. 2008 will be a tricky year for those looking to push green credentials for all the reasons listed above.

The smartest brands will be looking to do two things this coming year:

a. Take real action-do things that are measurable and have an impact
b. Look at the issue as one of social responsibility and not just the environment

7.What the Hell Are We Measuring- ROI?

Media measurement has always been a questionable issue ever since the day it was invented. Methodologies and samples have been picked over and analyzed. This is not going away, but as more layers of media get added to the mix, you start to multiply the complexity. This issue is far from being solved and the conversation keeps changing, often to the benefit of the media owner. Surely, brands spending billions of dollars a year on communication should understand what’s working on a cross media basis? Again, this is an area where new standards and new tools are urgently needed and we are likely to see the emergence of some in 2008.

Interestingly, many of these will be proprietary, as global agencies and clients use their muscle to build their own, instead of waiting for industry bodies and research houses to get up to speed.

8. A Year for Mobile

The success of the iPhone in 07 showed everyone a new vision for the mobile device. Elegant, simple and designed with the user in mind, it gave everyone the chance to see a future where television, video, The Internet and location specific information could be used on a mobile device. 2008 will see Apple build upon this with a 3G version of the phone that offers high-speed access and GPS functionality. The race is now on to develop mobile applications for brands that benefit the user. The issue isn’t too different from the Social Network, privacy and personal space are of critical importance in the mobile environment and brands will abuse that at their peril.

Clearly, there’s massive appeal for location-specific applications that link brands to users and perhaps their social network as well. It’s likely we will see some interesting first moves in this space in 2008 from the fast food chains and the big retail brands. The iTunes, iPhone and Starbucks initiatve in 2007, is a taste of things to come.

Posted by Ed Cotton

radiohead's carbon footprint

Influx Insights — 2007-12-28T15:00:37Z

There seem to be no limits to Radiohead's cultural impact; all the headlines for the name your own price album, the upcoming New Year's concert on Current TV and Johnny Greenwood getting critical aclaim for his soundtrack to the movie of the moment, PT Anderson's "There Will Be Blood".

In additon, to all this the band has recently undertaken an audit of its touring practices with the objective of reducing the band's carbon footprint.(the audit can be downloaded here)

Here's what they found.

Fan travel and consumption made up 86% of the Theatre tour and 97% of the Amphitheatre tour.
Of the band’s touring impact – Travel and energy use accounted for 60% (Theatre tour) and ~40% (Amphitheatre tour)
International travel accounted for a further 34 – 40% of impacts.

Short of no-one coming to see us, we’d like to share with our fans some ways of reducing this – our early research suggests that how you come to our shows can significantly reduce the tour’s carbon output. To help achieve better results, we’re trying to play as many shows as possible in city centres because of their better transport links. From the Best Foot Forward report, the rough figures below give you an example of how much of a difference you can make.

It's a good example of the environment playing an important role as a cultural issue. Clearly, the band isn't going to stop touring, but they are looking at ways of reducing their impact. This makes sense if you are Radiohead or even a brand on the grocery shelves. There can be no harm in taking a look at working out your impact, the challenge is once you've measured it, to work out what you are going to do about it.

In 2008, environmental statements from brands are going to come under increasing scrutiny.

Many brands are hoping that consumer fatigue will give them the chance to do nothing, others will take the opposite view and focus on real actions as a way to demonstrate their sense of responsibility.

Measuring your carbon footprint is a good start.

Posted by Ed Cotton

coke saves bears

Influx Insights — 2007-12-05T03:33:13Z

I am sure the World Wildlife Fund welcomes Coca-Cola's financial support to save the seemingly endangered polar bear.

Obviously, Coke feels they owe the polar bear something, it’s been an icon for over 50 years and CAA made it into something big for the brand over a decade ago.

However, the more you think about it the more absurd the idea of Coca-Cola’s support becomes.

Perhaps the kindest thing Coke should be doing for the bears, is to take a thorough look at its carbon footprint especially with regard to the transportation of its products.

Thankfully, Coca-Cola is doing something, at least, according to the Corporate Responsibility section of its website, but to save the bears it might need to being doing more.

“Beverage concentrate is largely shipped to bottling operations by sea, while finished beverages are mostly transported by road to distributors and retail customers. The environmental impacts of the transportation of our product -- whether by land or by sea -- result from fuel consumption, exhaust emissions and maintenance.

We are working to conserve fuel in our fleet of approximately 200,000 diesel vehicles through the introduction of idle-reduction and biodiesel technologies, which can also help reduce emissions. We also have begun use of diesel-electric hybrid trucks in select markets.

In 2006, a two-year test run of bottling partner Coca-Cola Enterprises' (CCE) new diesel-electric hybrid truck revealed a 32 percent improvement in fuel economy. With CCE, we also put into place a way of systematically evaluating and promoting energy-saving fleet technologies for replication throughout the entire Coca-Cola system.”

Posted by Ed Cotton

being a brand from brazil

Influx Insights — 2007-12-01T15:01:29Z

A few years back, the term BRIC came to the fore as the way to describe the emerging powerhouse economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

In the last few years, China has become the dominant story with the rise of Brazil ignored by most in the mainstream media.

One of the reasons for this is that Brazil’s rise to economic power is based on its massive base of natural resources and sophisticated agricultural systems, rather than the services of Indian or the powerful industrial transformation that’s sweeping through China.

In addition, the rise of Brazilian agriculture is not without controversy, especially with the potential depletion of other natural resources, like the Amazon which is a contentious and symbolic of the powerful negative forces of globalization.

If you are a Brazilian furniture company, you have quite a lot of issues to contend with; you’ve got a lack of recognition of Brazilian design and all the environmental questions.

Brastilo is one such company that’s trying to meet these two challenges head on.

Its distinctive and unique furniture is inspired by the legacy of great Brazilian design and created by a highly talented team.

However, it’s Brastilo environmental policy that helps them to stand apart from other competitors in the space.

Its products are made from a sustainable wood called Taeda Pine produced in small batches in the North of Brazil. These sustainable forests mix native and sustainable trees and leave the wildlife uneffected. The company also encourages its employees are to get involved with recycling and tree planting.

In addition, Brastilo parent company, Irani, is one of Brazil’s most progressive on the environmental front, winning a host of local prizes for its efforts in 2007 and is only the second company in the world to receive carbon credits according to the Kyoto Protocol.

With Brazil’s rise as an economic powerhouse, we are going to see more and more of their brands make it to the US and Europe. When they export to these markets, it's going to be critical for the brands to explain and translate the idea of what it means to be “Made in Brazil and its obvious that environmental stewardship needs to be a key part of the story.

Posted by Ed Cotton

better for the environment- hummer or prius?

Influx Insights — 2007-10-31T10:41:12Z

Nathan Shedroff is a graduate of the Presidio School of Management's Sustainable MBA program.

He presented recently at the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design conference where he highlighted the problem with design and designers. His presentation highlights the massively complex challenge involved in creating products that are better for the planet, because the definition and proof of what constitutes "better" is hard to come by and hard work to generate. He does however suggest some solutions that designers should be taking and suggests that consumers may soon have the tools to understand if one product is truly "better" for the environment than another.

He uses the example of the Prius and the Hummer to illustrate his point.

The consumer is clearly looking for a simple solution and explanation to define what is better. They have no concept or understanding of "cradle to cradle" thinking and don't have the time to work it out for themselves. This makes it easy for brands to "sell" only part of the story and to convince the consumer that they're a better alternative.

Nathan suggests new ratings systems and evaluation tools might change this and make it tougher for brands to make claims they can't prove. However, these systems are currently in their infancy.

His complete presentation can be found here ::Nathan.com

Posted by Ed Cotton

influx report- many shades of green- frog design- july 26th

Influx Insights — 2007-07-27T11:38:50Z

Last night, the fine people at frog design, San Francisco hosted an interesting discussion on “The Many Shades of Green”. They assembled three very interesting individuals who explored the issue from three different perspectives. Dr Charles Ehrhart of CARE who looked at the global impact, of Kirsten Ritchie of Gensler who examined the corporate impact and of Ashley Menger of frog who talked about her personal experiences with the issue.

Some interesting themes and ideas emerged:

Dr Charles Ehrhart, Coordinator of CARE International’s Poverty and Climate Change Initiative

“Climate change is happening, we’ve got to try and stop catastrophic climate change.”

All non-profits need to make sure they are minimizing their environmental impacts and carbon footprint. This has significant implications for an organization like CARE who are shipping food supplies to people in need.

The importance of political action to try and change decisions that are being made today that will negatively impact generations for years to come- such as the decision to build more coal fired plants.

Design for a climate changed future. Don’t consider today, understand the realities of tomorrow and design for it.

Help the developing countries to grow by allowing them to do it with minimal impact on the environment.

Kirsten Ritchie, Director of Sustainable Design, Gensler

“The issue of the environment has moved from a moral imperative to an economic one.”

Branding matters with green because it’s a category created by environmental engineers, not marketers.

“It’s hard to spell Sustainability, let alone pronounce it”

EnergyStar and Leed were examples of good green branding in action.

Standards are everything. You can’t be green without the proof, so certification and standards matter. Organic labeling is an example of a system failure, but Fairtrade and Leed had got it right

Ashley Menger, Design Analyst, frog design

Ashley’s motivation was drive by her desire to making the green issue a personal one, where her experience could inform design decisions.

To do this, Ashley developed “Trash Talk” a program where "frogs" get the chance to carry their trash around with them everywhere for two weeks. Ashley talked about how this experience informed her projects and the story of her first piece of trash; a home thermostat that she later discovered contains mercury.

Trash Talk has now become a global, company-wide initiative with dozens of frog employees wanting to participate by carrying around their trash for two weeks and blogging their experiences.

Overall, the evening added some perspective to the importance, complexity and communication challenges of the green issue.

Posted by Ed Cotton

health and the environment are too big to be treated as skus

Influx Insights — 2007-07-23T12:20:45Z

Giant corporations,leaders in their respective categories often come in for their fair degree of criticism.

There’s often something about the ubiquity and success that brings out the haters, Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Starbucks, Nestle and The Gap have all found themselves targets.

However, fast-food giant McDonald’s has had a disproportionate share of lawsuits and vicious attacks. As a result, McDonald’s spends most of its days living on a PR tightrope.

In recent years, it’s been the movies that have threatened McDonald’s most, last year there was the potentially worrisome Fast Food Nation (an adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s 2001 book), but it took nothing at the box office and wasn’t a threat. Before, Fast Food Nation, there was Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me, an attack on the life threatening characteristics of fast food with a special focus on McDonald’s.

In 2002, a couple of years before the documentary’s release McDonald’s was in a slump, suffering from what many analysts considered to be a trough that Ray Kroc’s lovechild was never going to dig itself out of. With some smart insightful leadership McDonald’s did the improbable, turned itself around with a line of premium salads being the catalyst for this transformation that started in April 2003 and has continued ever since. It’s stock price has quadrupled in four years.

It’s even become very adept at managing its image, the Make Up Your Own Mind web effort in the UK, is quite simply one of the best examples of corporate transparency in recent times. On the site, users are invited to ask the company any question they like and they mean it. The company responds to everything, including allegations that its burgers contain horsemeat.

What’s fascinating about McDonald’s is how to so desperately wants to appeal to two contradictory constituencies; it’s hard-core loyalists and those occasional wannabe healthy mom visitors. It launches premium salads in 2003 and almost immediately after, the McGriddle; a syrup infused breakfast pancake.

Now, after urgings of it promised to give up on Supersize drinks and meals, in a way it has remained true to this, the recently launched oz drinks maybe aren’t called Supersize, but that’s the only difference, as the new Hugos weigh in at 42 ounces and contain 410 calories.

With ethical issues becoming more important and the environment coming to the fore as a bigger consumer issue and a money making opportunity, what’s a consumer to think about the belief system of a corporation that produces hybrids and gas guzzlers, or one that has an eco line of clothing and a non-eco line and another that challenges the morals of the beauty business while at the same time making a living from the same business?

Brands and corporations have thrived on giving consumers seemingly choices; skillions of flavors of spaghetti sauce, or washing powder of toothpaste to cater for different needs and audiences and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The new challenge is that environmental and health issues are now so big and blindingly obvious that they aren’t going to remain choices for very long, they are going to be “the choice”.

At the moment, companies are treating both issues as SKU opportunities and forcing themselves into a corner where they can easily look schizophrenic and worse, opportunistic.

The reality is that the issues of health and the environment are now so big companies are going to be forced to take a stand. In food, just look at the movement against trans-fats, a critical ingredient of many of the things we eat.

It appears we are at the cusp of a twin revolution that is going to force companies to radically overhaul their product lines, making them as environmentally responsible and as healthy as they can possibly be. As a consequence, there will be no confusion where they stand.

For all the schizophrenic corporations out there, time to start altering your mission statement.

Posted by Ed Cotton

saving the planet- what's in it for me?

Influx Insights — 2007-07-18T22:59:12Z

Judging from some recent polls in the US and UK, there’s awareness of the environmental issue, but very little consumer action.

According to Yankelovich, 37% of American consumers feel "highly concerned" about environmental issues, but only 25% feel highly knowledgeable about. And only 22% feel they can make a difference when it comes to the environment.

Some of the first-stage heavy lifting has been done, but there is little to push the individual to action- few incentives and rewards for the hard work and effort involved.

The economic trade-offs don’t make a great deal of sense; no individual is really being penalized for excess or excessive energy, gas or packaging consumption.

The thrifty might save a little, but for most people, it isn’t worth it.

Despite what many of them say, do energy companies really want to penalize people for using more?

Does the government want to tax energy and gas?

There’s little incentive for anyone to take action with the exception of big business, where being "Green" has the scale to impact the bottom line.

So for the moment, expect being "Green” to remain the calling card of the educated young and the wealthy. They recognize that it has social currency.

The biggest issue is communication, people need to not just be aware, but to understand and this requires some imagination to break-through.

French game developer, Midori are attempting to do that with its global warming game and photographer Chris Jordan have already created quite a stir with his images.

“Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books.”

However, efforts are needed that are bigger than this and simply gathering a group of old musicians to perform in concerts in different corners of the world, isn’t going to cut it.

How about the most creative minds in the ad business donating their time to create something incredible?

You can, just visit Current TV and enter the Climate Change ad contest

Posted by Ed Cotton

environmental problems a threat?...

Influx Insights — 2007-07-10T10:21:49Z

...it actually wasn't meant rhetorically in a recent survey by the Pew Center in Washington.

The conclusion was that there is a 14% increase in the proportion of Americans who say environmental problems are indeed a major global problem (23% in 2002 to 37% in 2007).

U.S. concern is low when looking at other advanced industrial countries, especially since we're seen by 34 of 37 countries surveyed as “hurting the world’s environment the most,” but the level of increase is still comparable.

Since the environment has been such a hot topic recently, perhaps the 2002 numbers tell more of a story. For example, even though China’s concern only rose 1% since 2002, 69% of Chinese people were concerned about the environment that year. This was the highest proportion of concern of any country in 2002 except for South Korea (73%), and Chinese citizens were three times more concerned than Americans that year.

There is evidence that China's leaders are catching up to the concerns of its people, even if only as a result of outside forces, but environmental initiatives are continuously canceled out by colossal economic plans.

For instance, new vehicle-emissions regulations are in the works, but they cannot match the exceptional rate of growth in the number of cars (projected to surpass the U.S. at 130 million vehicles by 2020), due to a policy to promote the domestic car industry.

So when will the U.S. approach the higher echelons of concern, if ever?
Hopefully our 14% increase signifies something bigger: that the level of concern in a country won’t always have to correspond with its level of pollution.

Posted by katie facada

influx ideas 07 and worldchanging

Influx Insights — 2007-05-20T15:53:53Z

The founder of Worldchanging, Alex Steffen, is profiled in this Sunday's New York Times magazine. Sarah Rich of Worldchanging will be one of the speakers at our Influx Ideas 07 conference on October 19th in San Francisco.

Conference information and registration details can be found here.

coming to a bar near you- eco spirits

Influx Insights — 2007-05-02T01:01:47Z

While veteran vodka brand Absolut was busy launching its latest ad campaign, upstart Vodka 360 was just coming out of the gate. Absolut might not fear 360, but this new brand is focusing single-mindedly on the environment as a platform. From the process to the packaging; 360 is trying to be squeaky "green".

360 may get its 15 minutes of fame, but ultimately the brand leaders, like Absolut, will integrate environmental values into their brand.

It's all about timing and trying to second guess the tactics of your largest competitors.

360 hopes that the brands are slow and challenged; Russian brands might have a tough time persuading anyone that they are green, but this could be easier for the Scandinavians

the center of the green conversation

Influx Insights — 2007-04-18T13:05:25Z

Pete Blackshaw in CGM writes today about the the new green conversation in response to the massive cover story by Tom Freidman in today's New York Times Magazine.

Pete shows, that there's a massive green conversation already happening, a finding contradiciting Freidman's belief, that green is still fringe.

The following chart is from a Nielsen Buzzmetrics analysis of green conversations. Terms at the center are of highest volume.

influx interview-ryan mickle-dotherighthing-part 2

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T14:07:08Z

Part 2 of our interview with Ryan Mickle of Dotherightthing.

4. How can/should companies respond to this challenge?

If a company is looking at the significant changes in the demands of consumers as a challenge, this is its first mistake. What exists today is a great opportunity.

Take Google. When Google entered the already saturated market for internet search, it earned the trust of consumers because, since its launch, it clearly marked its paid advertisements while the rest of the fast-growing industry was selling its first results. By earning the trust of consumers early, the founders were able to create passionate users and one of the most valuable brands traded on Wall Street.

The best approach companies can take is to look holistically at their core strategies and operations, in order to understand the non-financial impacts of everything they do. Most importantly, companies need to communicate with consumers to address existing concerns and work together to maximize the positive social and environmental impacts of their business relationships. By involving and communicating directly with consumers, companies will have the opportunity to build the passionate relationships with consumers that spread like wildfire.

5. What's different about what you're doing compared to a site like The Consumerist?

The Consumerist is a great site, but it is very different than dotherightthing.com. The captivating media site, owned by Gawker Media, provides readers with interesting articles on topics relating to consumer rights. As a popular niche news provider, the site provides stories about companies with slightly cynical undertones. Information on dotherightthing.com, however, comes from consumers, employees of companies, members of our communities, and representatives of companies, provides an objective resource of information about companies' impacts, and it is organized by what is relevant to members of the dotherightthing community. While news providers like Consumerist are very effective at raising awareness about companies' activities, dotherightthing "keeps track" of companies' non-financial performance, centralizing this information, which is currently scattered all over the web, and making it easier for consumers to learn which companies are working to make a positive mark on society.

6. How would you like to see the site evolve?

Our vision for the site is to make businesses that do the right things for society more successful and to create a powerful communication channel using which consumers and companies can communicate directly. While many web startups often get sidetracked by lofty aspirations of creating a website that is used by half of the world (a la creating the next MySpace), our goal is to create a passionate community of consumers and companies that set powerful examples of the great potential for creating returns by adopting a core strategy that aims to improve lives and save natural resources. To accomplish this goal, we are constantly listening to our users, both consumers and participating companies, to make dotherightthing.com even better. As the rankings of companies solidify, we envision entire brands being built atop dotherightthing rankings, by shifting the consumer demand, investor dollars, and potential employees' resumes toward companies that do the right things.

7. What other sites, blogs, authors, people inspire you?

I am inspired greatly by the brilliant members of my team, Rod Ebrahimi and Jarkko Laine, whose significant talent and passion has led to the tremendous success of dotherightthing. I also admire the world's leaders who inspire the people around them to make real impacts on the lives of people.

influx interview- ryan mickle- dotherightthing-part one

Influx Insights — 2007-06-14T14:06:43Z

Dotherighthing is a new site that allows consumers to submit stories about companies social perfornance and actions. Users get to rate the stories for impact and after a little time, the companies get a rating.

Influx got the chance to question one of the founder of Dotherightthing, Ryan Mickle, this is part one of the inteview.

1. Briefly describe your background

My background is in management consulting, a perfect fit for someone who enjoys solving problems and leading people, but I have always known that entrepreneurship was my calling. I aspired to solve big problems or, rather, create big solutions. My educational background is in economics, which I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to study at the University of California at Berkeley. What interested me most about economics, however, was not that which people commonly associate with the subject, but was instead one of its broader uses, the study of decisions and influence, in a social context.

2. Where did the idea for dotherightthing.com come from?

There are countless ways in which the financial performance of companies is measured and tracked. We have EPS, PE, FPE, quarterly earnings reports, etc., yet companies impact the world in more ways than can be reflected by measures of financial performance. Rod Ebrahimi and I set out to create a way using which the non-financial measures of performance could be tracked-a "market" for companies' social performance-in order to recognize high social-performing companies. Studies are already revealing that consumers are actively seeking out information about companies' social responsibility and environmental impacts. Yet, existing rankings of companies, based on their impacts on society, according to a recent article in The Harvard Business Review, amount to a "cacophony of self-appointed scorekeepers" that make up a "jumble of largely meaningless rankings, allowing almost any company to boast that it meets some measure of social responsibility." Dotherightthing simply puts all of this information in one place and lets consumers do the ranking of companies, using the information the community supplies.

3. Why do you think the environment is right for the idea- what is it that's placing brands and corporations under the microscope?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink wrote about the material abundance in which we live. We have countless choices in every purchase decision we make. Our basic needs can be satisfied by thousands of options. Want a t-shirt? Pick from millions of designs, colors, and materials combinations. Want a cell phone? Again, we are faced with an overwhelming array of options. In the book, Pink concludes that companies will be force to appeal to our emotional senses by pouring money into the design of their products. When we buy plungers for our toilets, according to his argument, consumers will buy the option that is most aesthetically pleasing-the plunger that matches our interior d�cor, our personal styles, etc. Pink was almost right. As people are faced with this abundance of choices, they are making purchasing decisions based on emotion. However, consumers are buying what makes them feel good, from a completely nonmaterial sense.

Secondly, consumers are more informed today than ever before. Videos can be spread virally to millions of viewers with one click. Information, music, breaking news, and anything worth spreading can be shared with a small group of people, at first, yet end up in the hands of more people than those who watch American Idol. The internet has created a near-frictionless environment in which ideas and information can spread at unthinkable speeds and it is creating transparency in businesses, whether they are ready for it or not.

Lastly, to a highly-educated, self-actualized society, it just makes sense to consider the non-financial implications of the activities of a business, as opposed to operating at the minimum required by law. It can save money-companies like Wal-Mart will save millions by installing solar panels to power their stores. It makes sense (financially and non-financially) to design efficient buildings, which leverage smarter designs to collect natural light and use energy efficiently. When Timberland switched to water-based, non-toxic glues, in an effort to create more environmentally friendly shoes, they quickly realized that employees in manufacturing lines also benefit, by getting to work unconstrained by attire and equipment required to handle the previously used toxic chemicals. By aiming to create both social and financial value, companies are creating workplaces in which employees are passionate about their work, boosting retention and earning them international recognition. Doing the right thing makes business sense.