Month: February 2012

Golden Globe nominated actress, Jessica Alba, together with Christopher Gavigan recently co-founded a company catered to baby’s needs called, the Honest Company. The Honest Company offers a monthly subscription service at Honest.com, with an initial product line of diapers, wipes, bath/skin care, and household cleaning products made from non-toxic ingredients and packaged in attractive, modern designs. The products are placed into personalized bundles that are automatically shipped every month. Diapers are priced at less than $20 a week, and a monthly supply of the body care and home cleaning products is roughly $9 a week.

In the past few years, it has been quite common for celebrities, who are seen as aspirational models, to partner up with charity organizations or support any causes happening in our world today. However, what struck me the most with what Jessica Alba is doing with the Honest Company is that she seems extremely passionate about this cause. Given that she is the mother of two daughters, she easily relates to the cause of providing a clean and safe environment for her children to live and grow up in. This may sound like a simple initiative, but I believe that small steps go a long way.

I’ve also read through the company’s principles, social efforts, and health & sustainability standards. So far, I am impressed and I can tell that they are a “real” company dedicated to providing eco-friendly products to babies and earning profit comes second on their list of priorities. They also live up to their company name by making sure that there is transparency of information between the company and their customers. Not seeing that living for this cause is enough, the Honest Company plays an active part in being socially responsible to our community. This year, they partnered with Baby2Baby, a non-profit organization, who supplies families in need of baby essentials. As this company continues to grow, they further plan to partner with more non-profit organizations in terms of donating some of the profit they have earned.

Lastly, the Honest company is very dedicated in living up to being a sustainable and eco-friendly company. They have a clear vision on how they want to achieve sustainability in their company and they also set a list of goals that they want to achieve throughout their business life. Most of their business practices are sustainable, even with their packaging and day-to-day operations. For example, they only source natural, organic, sustainably harvested, renewable, pure raw materials for their products. This company acts as stewards of our environment and strongly believes in creating amazing products that are non-toxic and healthy as possible. It may be a challenge, but they strongly believe that they can. I highly suggest you read through their Health and Sustainability Standards as you will be amazed at what they do.

For more information, here are the two co-founders, Jessica and Christopher, telling you what this company is all about.

Universal Pictures will be releasing a new movie, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, in March 2012. Initially, I thought this was another typical heartwarming and family oriented type of movie, but based on this article I read, the movie holds an even more significant and underlying meaning.

On Earth Day 2008, Conservation International, Dr. Seuss Enterprises and Random House launched the Lorax Project. This project aims to engage individuals of all ages to do their part to conserve the places and species that are critical to the future of our planet, such as the Brown Bar-ba-loots and Humming-Fish. I found this very appealing because they aim to capture a larger market in terms of spreading the message of being sustainable and conservative when consuming resources. Particularly related to this movie, The Lorax, it shows that they are targeting families, specifically children, to create awareness among them of the planet’s current situation and at the same time, hope that they will be able to influence these children with their actions.

Not only that, one of the leading sustainable brands in North America, Seventh Generation, has created marketing partnership with this movie in order to further spread their message. Through this famous quote by the Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”, John Replogle, CEO of Seventh Generation, thinks this ties in exactly into their company mission. He also thinks this is a one-time opportunity for them to spread their environmental message to a new market and one that they would normally find it difficult to reach. Looking at the green marketing grid, I’d say that Seventh Generation is under “tribal brands” as it ties/partners itself with a cause. This shows that they have an opportunity to strengthen their message, especially with the help of this movie that will be released worldwide, increasing the likeliness of capturing a large demographic. It also says that Seventh Generation will have the Lorax logo and message printed on their products for a couple of months. This would easily attract children when they are out grocery shopping with their moms (example).

Just to reiterate the purpose of this famous quote, it’s trying to say that in order to make a difference, people would have to care first. Both Seventh Generation and The Lorax are trying to invoke its target market to support their cause. I also like how The Lorax has a full section dedicated to their environmental project in the Lorax movie website. It’s also presented in a kid-friendly way, which can easily attract their attention. They have also posted easy to follow tips to follow on how to lower your own carbon footprint.

I think companies should start targeting a larger demographic as well, specifically children, since they are the next generation who will take care of our planet. There is a good chance that if they receive this message, they might influence their parents into thinking the same thing as well, which is to find ways on preserving our environment.

Last class, we talked about how consumers identify their needs and determine what level of needs they have satisfied through the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’ve used and studied this framework for a number of times already, but it’s only this term that I have looked at it in a different way, which is having it related to sustainability.

Being the food adventurer/guru that I am, I’m easily fascinated with the food services/companies that take a unique approach in what they provide to their customers. In other words, if I see a food company that uses wholesome and organic ingredients or if they partake in corporate social responsibility, they will usually have won me to their side already. It is very common that companies these days just “greenwash” their customers into thinking that they are eco-friendly, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt to these food companies.

One food service company that I think that’s doing a splendid job on being sustainable is One Planet Catering. Another exciting fact about this food catering service is that it’s Vancouver-based, which continually to amazes me on how Vancouver is adapting to the sustainability trend.

Going back to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, One Planet Catering satisfies the physiological needs by recognizing that in order to enjoy the benefits our natural resources provides for us, there is a strong need to constantly sustain these environmental systems if we wish to continuously consume them. Their website opens with a quote from John Seed saying, “May we grow into true understanding – a deep understanding that inspires us to protect the tree on which we bloom, and the water, soil and atmosphere without which we have no existence.” This embodies their whole understanding of how to preserve out environmental systems in order to satisfy our physiological needs.

Aside from using only organic and natural ingredients when making their food, One Planet Catering has set up a solid vision and mission statement, plus a list of goals as well. They are focused on creating awareness among their customers by informing them of the list of ingredients and nutritional values in the food they serve, which will help them be inspired to make positive choices regarding their own health and the environment. In relation to the quote by John Weed, One Planet Catering enjoys giving back to different communities. They have made it a goal to donate 2% of their earnings for a specific social or environmental cause. Currently, they are pursuing a lunch program with Quest Outreach that feeds the hungry in Vancouver, especially children. As they expand, they will seek to partner with more non-profit organizations to further expand the meaning of their cause.

I honestly look up to this company as they try to differentiate themselves from other competitors by being fully sustainable in their day-to-day operations. As mentioned in the video (see below), Michael Kraus (owner of the company) said that there are companies out there that only want to work with sustainable companies. I think this gives One Planet Catering a competitive edge as they are considered one of those sustainable companies in the industry, which will help them stand out.

To know more about this company, here’s a video of Michael Kraus talking about the company’s philosophy and more: