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Ever wanted to peel back a building and understand what goes on behind the walls?

Ever wondered what went into something like the NEST?

This weekend I had the opportunity to speak with the man who put the curves, the swerves and the showcase structures in the NEST. His name is Micheal Kingsmill and here are some of things he wanted to point out to any student looking a the sustainable design in the NEST.

Did you know that the NEST:

• Is LEED Platinum Certification (the highest Green Building rating in North America).
• Has passive climate control systems that cover the 250,000 square foot
• Able to collect its own rainwater  and has a top of the line grey water managment solution
• Has internal composting systems
• Low Carbon and sustainable material like FSC sourced wood, Portland limestone cement (which reduced CO2 emissions) and 85% – 90% recycled steel
• Able to have remarkably thin insulated walls via a innovative thermal layering!

He outlined the relationship between initial sustainable vision developed by the AMS and the end product that is the NEST.  Furthermore he highlighted the extreme importance of organizational and institutional buy in as he gave a few examples of other projects he worked on that were on the launchpad so to speak but didn’t get the final go ahead for liftoff.

This is especially relevant to other sustainability projects run by organizations such as the redesign of recycling stations to decrease unfiltered waste or supply chain optimization, all of these projects must take into account the stakeholder networks and decision making chains that affect the successful implementation of their projects.

However another key point he addressed was that institutional pushback can lead to creative design changes. For example the iconic floating hall was a by product of land use restrictions which forced the building to grow vertically.

As always,

 

Thanks for Reading and For All Your Time!

Warmest Regards,

Yajur Sondhi

My post yesterday looked at the way marketers and medical researchers sourced insights and sentiments from larger consumer group and used it to improve the service the provided whether it be the prescription or the types of messages being shown. This essentially is a B2C model of using data to improve outcomes by optimizing service delivery based on large scale market research.

This raises the question of how do sustainability marketers and professionals in other fields influence leaders in other organizations? This B2B context also includes internal efforts to sell decision makers into a decision.

But how many other types of professionals are focused on reducing costs, waste, increasing efficiency and have a goal of zero?

The safety professionals at WorkSafeBC.

Like any good sustainability marketer, professionals at WorkSafeBC are able to communicate a wider variety of information targeted at an incredibly diverse audience on decision makers.  There audience of decision maker leaders includes everyone because anyone can make a difference in making a workplace safer.

For example one can look at the way both groups promote their case

Furthermore a lot of thought goes into message delivery. If I want to promote workplace safety on a personal level one would create: Relevant infographics, guidance videos and online training platforms.

If I want to promote workplace sustainability on a personal level one would create: Relevant infographics, guidance videos and online training platforms.

These parallels continue to the industry level with firms forming boards to note their efforts to measure, benchmark and improve safety and sustainability.

One could always make the case that safety and sustainability are part and parcel of an organization’s enterprise risk planning as shown by McKinsey & Co.

They outline that a change maker must convince multiple parties that their interests are aligned, that the ROI is clear and that the actions required can be done; only then can they begin a credible push for change.

Getting buy from across the organization and making the changes required measurable, tangible and actionable are the most essential steps a change making marketer must do. If there is no buy in there no action, no action, no getting to zero.

As always I hope you had a great time reading this!

Cheers,

Yajur

Hey everyone I’m trying something new and wanted to see if you find this format interesting!

It is a post that involves the story of how big data used consumer search data to create targeted research questions that generated results that are changing the way doctors prescribe medication to improve.

Furthermore I make the comparison to the way marketers use digital marketing, programmatic advertising and marketing mix engagement analysis to create more effective ads.

Cheers,

Yajur

 

  

Consumers are more health sensitive and more company sensitive than ever before, the are more willing to research and change their consumption patterns based on perceived and real issues with a product due to the risks it carries.   These risks include the risk to one’s health and image. This of course raises how consumer view a corporation’s front end and product. So how would an informed consumer view and rate a corporation like PepsiCo ?

When evaluating a companies sustainability and health claims one has to look at their record of innovating on and improving the product. In PepsiCo’s case take the examples of their drive to improve the nutrition of the and reduce the salt content of their chips lines.

So it seems like PepsiCo is putting in the work. But how do you get that information across to a concerned consumer?

How do you prevent messages like these becoming top of mind?

The simplest way is via the website, but for a large and lucrative company like PepsiCo they may want to consider a more active strategy like McDonalds Our Food, Your Questions campaign.

This was an extremely successful campaign as it moved from a 4P strategy to a 4C’s of sustainability marketing strategy as it moved from a push to a pull in via 24/7 conversational engagement that was both persuasive and transparent.  In many ways it served as a model for what successful consumer engagement looks like in the 21st century.

As a marketer, part of our job is to clearly communicate the value proposition of the service or product. Part of that is crafting messages that address the needs and resonate with the values of the target audience, but more important is getting in the right place to get that message to the top of mind.

This is just a bunch of photos I gathered that I was going to use for a Green and Gray matters post that was took a different direction.

 

If you been at UBC for enough time you’ve probably had an issue come up, what trash can do I throw my trash in?

Placing an item in the wrong area leads to waste. Waste that ends up in landfills and at the end of the day is very expensive.

In fact a UBC waste audit estimated that only 9.3% of UBC’s waste was non recyclable! UBC then began to implement it Zero waste plan.

The plan puts forward the following milestones and targets:

• Implement multi-stream recycling stations and communications across campus by end of 2015, targeting food scraps collection by mid-2015.
• Increase overall diversion rates to 70 per cent diversion by 2016, and 80 per cent diversion by 2020

Luckily there have been a number of things that have help people make better decisions by increasing awareness (such as through posts like this!) and making the decision easier to make at the point of disposal.

On the decision making side UBC has reduced the number of waste streams by eliminating single type waste bins whose unsorted contents would go straight to landfill. It is also trying to make the signage clearer. In fact several faculties and building have taken this a step further like Sauder and Liu institute. However I learned that there are bin branding guidelines that faculties must follow and many of these modifications are off guide.

On one hand I understand that Sustain UBC wants to have a consistent bin look across campus but much of their own web content is often out of date (look at the 2nd paragraph). In fact the model of general guidance from the top and local ability to experiment could be based on a Green Labs style of faculty specific modifications/experiments. The key to this model is that information what works and what doesn’t is shared and used to further the goals of the program  like a postmortem conference/FailCon (2011 – Uber Case Study).

This is all very interesting because as sustainability marketers we are using behavioral psychology, design and communication to promote a noticeable change in behavior. Furthermore we use A/B/Z and iterative testing to make our impact better targeted and more effective.

Either way it looks like UBC is on its way to reach many of its sustainability goals like the Zero Waste Plan (Oct 3, 2014)!

 

 

 

 

 

Grey and Green Matters will be a series of posts exploring rapidly growing and green segments including those within the CPG, beverage and client services industries.

Each post will be a 2-3 part posts exploring the intersections of consumers demanding sustainable outputs and companies that are meeting those needs using green marketing tools

The first industry I will take a critical insight to is the alternative milk  category that includes milk substitutes, soy milk, and non-dairy drinks.

You’ve probably more familiar with these packages

 

Its a category that is rapidly expanding for a number of reasons such as changing consumer tastes and rising lactose intolerance and is worth billions of dollars.

 

 

There several issues that companies do face in this market.

The first is that consumer information on a per product basis is very low due to the huge number of product types (cashew, almond and coconut) and sub types such as different flavors. This creates an uphill battle for individual brands and companies to better differentiate a product in a sea of on shelf competitors. It also means that the relative cost of retail roll-out of product line extensions is also costly due to market over saturation.

The second point is the rise of store brand competitors. This is happening relatively slowly due to the segment’s multi niche product diversity but it is coming. Blaine McPeak, president of the Americas foods and beverages segment, said on the conference call that private-label market share in the plant-based business in the Americas is running about 13%, and the company expects “modest increases over time.

 

In my next post I shall be taking a look at one company in the space, Veggemo, a  veggie based non-dairy beverage created by BC based, Global Gardens group and how they are overcoming these difficulties.

 

If you want to lean more about this segment take a look at these graphs: