Sustainability?

It’s starting to become more apparent that sustainability is starting to become more and more a key player in business. By being sustainable some of the biggest companies in the world are learning that they can stay ahead of the game when it comes to increasing and new regulations, market fluctuations, ethical  dilemmas and most importantly resource scarcity. However, most corporations don’t implement sustainability initiatives out of their good heart most of the time there is  clear incentive. Some of the incentives were listed above, but some of the other incentives include cost reductions and incremental sales. For the last incentive to be true however consumers need to be buying more sustainable products or services. Thus, sustainability can clearly be a point of differentiation… But companies need to figure out a way to be able to clearly and successfully be able to pass on and tell this particular story to consumers. There is a few issues/risks with pursuing sustainable marketing as we have observed in class… Many companies shy away with releasing any communication about their sustainable initiatives because in many cases they receive quite significant back fire and receive backlash from many organizations which can harm their brand image even though their intentions were good.  

As  it has been discuss in on other blogs social media has grown significantly in the past decade and now plays an important role in many peoples lives. It has enable to spread news like wild fire and share ideas or opinions with large groups of individuals in a blink of an eye. Social media is also utilized by more than a Billion individuals. This has made company crises a lot harder to manage…  In class we also discussed the necessity to be transparent, and certainly Social Media has enabled to break many brick walls and turn them into glass. It was observed in an article I had read that approximately 130 of some the most renown brands worldwide have been able to gather more than 400 million likes. To me this seem like an exceptionally large audience… Yet, very few companies communicate effectively through Facebook and sometimes I have a trouble understanding why… But I do know however that hopefully companies will take the risk to start opening up on social media discussing their initiatives, asking for feedback, gathering opinions and utilize it to be transparent! One day hopefully Sustainability will get the calling to become a major discussion on the mainstream stage.

Walk around the corner and there it is a new construction or renovation project… Humans, like animals, will nest. We all will be at one point in our life searching for that one of a kind place to call home and to come to at the end of the day. The population is growing and as there are more and more of us, there will be more housing projects across the planet. The construction industry leaves an important footprint on Mother Nature. For centuries, we have been taking over farm land, urbanizing and depleting nature for building materials. Let’s be optimistic:there is hope for improvement.

My parents are renovating, it has been 19 years and we, the kids, have moved away to university, so without the fear of us trashing the place they are giving it a more updated look. Taking down walls implies redoing the hardwood floors. While searching for the perfect match, my parents discovered a more sustainable approach to their renovation: reclaimed products.

A company in Ontario scouts out old barns in the country and salvages the woods. Then they will bring those all barn planks to your house, nail it down, refinish it and here is your one of a kind hardwood floor. One of a kind: perhaps (I’m no interior designer) But certainly is a creative way to be sustainable! It definitely has a rustic look to it and a certain price tag too. For the conscious consumer, the price differential is minimal.

Looking into the concept of sustainable construction, making something new out of the old, I came across a great project OneNest, the first one of a kind fully sustainable, green-built home constructed of Structurally Insulated Panels and reclaimed product by the GreenSpur construction team, built last year. The building team has high hope that this will not be the first and only one!

I recommend that everyone should consider reclaimed products as the way of the future in construction and take advantage of the customer solutions that are available to us.

http://onenestproject.com/about/

The number of worldwide annual airline passengers is expected to reach 3.3 billion in 2014. An increase of 32% since 2009 and another 800 million more are expected in the next 5 years. Now let’s pause for a second: what do all travelers have in common?

Their need for a luggage: small or big, hard or soft, roller bag or duffel bag, and for sure light and durable, shock resistant. All filled up and packed, weighted, thrown around on the tarmac and in the baggage hold and then on the carrousel, again and again! This is the exciting life of a luggage! Do we really care: NOPE!  Most of us will just wonder, every time we travel: will our luggage be the first one out of that dark tunnel…

I am not overly attached to my luggage. In my traveler’s life, I am already on number three. So I was not surprised to discover that the retail sales value of the travel segment worldwide is expected to generate about 13 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. For the sustainable traveler, looking beyond offsetting their carbon footprint, there is one luggage manufacturer that will help them stay true to their philosophy: Heys.

Heys has developed the world first line of eco-travel products, with hard shell pieces made from 100% recycled plastic and soft or flexible pieces made of plastic water bottles. Every flexible piece has actually a label stating how many water bottles were used to make the product. Only 6 water bottles are required for a toilet bag and 185 for a standard 3 piece set! This line of luggage  does reduce the amount of plastic headed up to the landfill but it also saves Earth resources by reusing old products to make new ones. And they are still attractive and colourful…nothing like a standard plastic water bottle. So let’s all be better consumers and let’s make all the right choices. Every little step is a step in the right direction.  I hope more companies follow the trend as the demand for such products should rise!

The more I do these posts the more evident it seems that customer solutions can be implemented with a little intuition and research.

http://shop.heys.ca/search?q=ecotex

There are 49,896 students at the UBC Vancouver campus alone this year, plus another 14,118 prof and staff. So approximately 64,000 people! Let’s imagine that they use on average 50 sheets of paper a week , or 3 reams of paper, 3 packages of 500 sheets, a year (apprximate figure). On average, a pine tree provides around 17 reams of paper. To satisfy the needs of all people on campus, we would need 11, 294 trees! A forest, the size of 24 football fields approximately. And those trees would need at least 15 years to mature.

What about that innocent sheet of paper? Not so innocent after all when we just take time to think… Well many researches have tried to find an alternate to trees for making paper. A Winnipeg based company, Prairie Pulp and Paper Inc., has developed a new straw-based paper, branded “Step Forward”. The paper is actually made of leftover agricultural products, which would probably go to waste:  80% wheat straw after it has been harvested. This idea was born 20 years ago and went through 14 years of research and development, before “Step Forward” was born. It was finally produced commercially and launched in Canada in 2012! I personally love the idea. Here we are just double dipping: the wheat is still harvested for providing food and the leftover straw is used for making paper. And our farmers will increase their revenues.

So let’s keep recycling, let’s refrain from printing when there is no need for it and let’s make the right choice. Let’s leave our trees in the forests, let’s tree purify the air we breathe and let’s use tree-free paper! It is available at all Staples! And only for about a dollar more a ream! Not even the price of a latte!

http://stepforwardpaper.com

You would expect with a budget of 51 billion dollars that this might be one of the most sustainable Olympic games and would be greatly talked about. However, yet again this has not been the case. Also among some of the big sponsoring brands are these 8 very popular brands: Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, General Electric, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Visa, Panasonic and Samsung. Only one of these brands decided to put on a great performance on one of the world’s biggest stage. Dow is shining bright but without a spotlight as its grand initiative has yet to really be advertised or published.

According to the article (found below) written by The Guardian, “The US chemical giant Dow has pledged to offset the Sochi organizing committee’s entire carbon footprint which also includes all greenhouse gas emissions from operating the games’ venues. They will also be offsetting travel and lodging for all athletes, staff and volunteers as well as the carbon footprint of all spectators and media attending the games.” This carbon footprint is estimated to be approximately  520,000 tones. Offsetting such a footprint would be equivalent to removing 102,000 cars off the roads or neutralizing the annual emissions associated with 10,800 homes.

Dow is expected to be able to accomplish this feat through many various company initiatives worldwide. Some of these initiatives includes infrastructure improvements, new farming methods as well as capturing and recycling methane gas from a dump in Georgia in the US. This surprising feat is a first for all Olympics and hopefully not the last.

You would think with climate change and with degrading conditions of winter recreational fields worldwide that sustainability would play a great role in hosting and executing the winter Olympics. Yet there is very little to any signs of this being the case. Olympic games are suppose to be motivational and inspiring and great sustainable feats are made to be place in the same picture frame. Dow should be acknowledge of their feat and inspiring other large corporations to follow in their footsteps to make all the following games the best possible in all aspects.

To me it is somewhat disappointing that many big brands as well the Russian Nation failed to appropriately perform at these games and try to avoid warmer winters tomorrow and ensuring that this is not the last winter Olympics ever.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/feb/04/sochi-winter-olympics-missed-opportunity-sustainability

Sustainable marketing and sustainable initiatives are starting to become more and more popular and more and more common. However there is a great amount of uncovered territory, new ideas and possibilities. With new ways of thinking also comes criticism. One of the examples we discussed in class was Patagonia’s marketing initiative which states “Don’t buy this jacket” however this initiative put in place to develop conversation around the idea of consumerism has taken a lot of heat which in part has been due to the increase of sales experienced by the brand thanks to this particular initiative. But lets take a step back for a moment.

Every long journey begins with one small step. Think about the first steps you took as a child. They were quite awkward wobbly all over the place and you had your share of falls but as your journey continued each step you took was better than your last. Thus, should we criticize an organization for trying to make the world a better place and communicating to the world population responsibilities they have undertaken to preserve some of the resources of the world? Now yes, many initiatives have their faults and can be improve. Did you sink your first bucket or roof your first shot on net or were you able to perfect your first parallel park?

Now, we may think that by criticizing we are keeping the big corporations on their toes and letting them know that we aren’t easily fooled, but this can be counterproductive. It can lead to creating an environment where advancing and trying to become more sustainable may be deemed too risky, and thus corporations will all default to more traditional campaigns featuring celebrities and athletes.

Brands that are prepared to advertise/communicate their initiatives and sustainable practices should be congratulated, not criticize, for doing so. Individuals and large corporations are more likely to do the right thing and get better at doing so if they are encouraged, congratulated and receive greater positive attention from the world’s population for the steps and effort they have taken to better not only their organization but also the world we all live in. We can not fully expect things to be perfect, fail proof or flawless right from the get go. The more businesses  are convinced that their brands and sales are stronger after they uncover such sustainable initiatives the more they are likely to continue to pursue such initiatives and become better at doing so. So next time think twice before you say something and perhaps a nice friendly pat on the back may be more appropriate.   

Coca-Cola is one of the most recognized brands worldwide.

Market share driven, global food and soft drink companies have been expanding their market to third world countries and exploiting their poor and uneducated population living often on $2 a day as affluent western markets have become saturated. In these countries, a kilo of fresh vegetables often costs more than a 2 litter bottle of coke. Like other multinational companies, Coca-Cola has been criticized for its negative impact on the young market in those countries. It is often associated with affecting eating habits and leading to a loss of local cultures. It is imposing its own culture: the American dream! It sells the idea of a land of opportunity where everyone is equal and everything is possible, through slogan like: America’s Real Choice, Life Tastes Good…

But as we know these large corporations are able to make a positive impact in the world. We all know Coca-Cola’s engagement in saving the polar bears from global warming. Well, the Coca-Cola Company has also partnered in 2012 with Deka R&D to address clean water issues in developing nations. The goal is to offset 100 percent of the water it uses in the production of its beverages in those countries by 2020. Impressive and ambitious, you would say! How is it going to achieve its goal? Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway scooter, has invented a vapor –compression distillation system, Slingshot. It boils and evaporates any dirty water such as river water, ocean water or sewage water. With one kilowatt of electricity the Slingshot can creates 10 gallons of water. It can also run on renewable energy. In 2011, the system has already been tested in 5 schools in Ghana, providing clean drinking water to 1,500 school children!

A nice gesture or another marketing strategy? It is still a step in the right direction for many developing or third world countries where fresh clean water is already a luxury!

In class we discussed wether there should only be sustainable products available to consumers. Well, what if instead of having only a regulation on the products that are available on the market what about restricting the amount that consumers can consume? Is it necessary for a new product to be created every 3 minutes somewhere in the world? It is a fact that we live beyond our means, and it is also a fact that this world is made up of finite resources. The world’s population is also growing. This is what I call a horrible equation because it can only be equal to infinity. Is there anything in this world that is infinite? Thus, it is a fact that we will run out of these resources if we continue to live and consume as we currently are. Now imagine a world with these resources available only to a few. Who should be able to access these resources? The highest bidder?

The point I’m trying to get across is yes perhaps companies should do their best to be sustainable but companies aren’t the source of the problem. The source of the problem are the consumers that are consuming, in other words the human psyche. As every year goes by, new inventions are created to make our lives easier or render us more efficient. Things we never thought we would need. Objects we actually could live without. I won’t lie, I wish I was a billionaire, with five personal cellphones, a massive yacht, have new clothes for every day of my life and have more cars than relatives. I am what’s wrong with the world. I have too much greed and I want more than I actually need, luckily however I’m pretty sure I’ll be dead before the results of my actions will directly affect any of my descendants. This is why sustainable marketing really should only involve changing consumer behaviour to live within his means because anything else would actually be unsustainable. At least until we are able to create infinite resources. Companies should have adopted cradle to cradle a hundred years ago. Will we ever be able to reach a sustainable planet? We certainly don’t currently live on a sustainable planet…

“Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed.” (Mahatma Ghandi)