Marketplace

On green one-upmanship at the DNC and RNC

Both the Democrats and Republicans appear to be scrambling in a game of one-upmanship to host “the greenest national convention ever.” While that’s commendable, I’m a heck of a lot more interested in seeing some thoughtful green policies.

The green building movement really led the charge in greening conferences, but it was dictated by the conference content. Organizations like the American Solar Energy Society, the U.S. Green Building Council, and Southface Energy Institute have been challenging conference venues to green their operations for years, even choosing cities based on their green initiatives.

With the political parties, the lion’s share of their environmental footprint is their policies, not the food they serve at these once-every-four-years events. When I see the RNC providing bicycles to conference attendees while promoting ‘clean coal’ (brought to you by the manufacturers of ‘jumbo shrimp’) and expanded drilling, I call it greenwash. It’s like the GMC Suburban-driving shopper with re-usable grocery bags. Nice gesture, but the Suburban’s the elephant in the room (so to speak).

Thankfully, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer’s speech last night to the DNC assuaged my cynicism slightly:

“…we face a great new challenge, a world energy crisis that threatens our economy, our security, our climate and our way of life. … America consumes 25 percent of the world’s oil, but has less than 3 percent of the reserves. You don’t need a $2 calculator to figure that one out. There just isn’t enough oil in America, on land or offshore, to meet America’s full energy needs. … Invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in clean, renewable energy technology. This will create up to 5 million new, green jobs and fuel long-term growth and prosperity.”

Let’s see some green policy one-upmanship!

• August 27, 2008 by Jim Nicolow
• 8 comments

• tags: conferences Democrats DNC policy Republicans RNC

Taking the temperature on Olympics greenwash

This Olympics has been a special one. The accomplishments of Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Yang Wei & co. show us all what the human body can do when dedicated focus and positive spirit are applied. Great examples of sportsmanship have shone in Shawn Johnson’s support for her roommate, friend and competitor Nastia Liukin for the all-around gymnastics gold medal. The USA “Redeem Team” basketball players show respect for their opponents even as they win by huge margins. And a crucial theme emphasized at the opening ceremony in Beijing was stewardship of our natural world.

Advertisements — a cultural thermometer — have been encouraging to me too. Many ads from GE and others are emphasizing environmental responsibility. Obama’s key ad in the first week focused on the potential of US manufacturers to solve the current energy price escalation by ushering in the next generation of efficiency and renewable technology. Automobile ads from Chevy and VW concentrate on fuel economy — perhaps the single most important advance for American transportation in the years ahead.

There are still silly ads pretending McCain will “take on big oil” even though a centerpiece of his energy policy is opening up more areas offshore and elsewhere to oil producers. But the most encouraging development to me was from Yao Ming. China’s top basketball star made his billion-plus fans proud by helping his team to the medal round, and became the first “UN Environmental Champion.” I believe such star endorsements are critical to help catalyze cultural change. With China recently becoming the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, it’s important for our Earth that environmental values help steer the nation’s pollution levels from quick growth to stabilization and then reduction.

The constant question on this forum is whether talking the talk will translate into walking the walk. I’m inspired by the cultural shifts occurring, as they’re a prerequisite for positive action by the public and private sector leaders in the position to face the environmental challenges of our generation.

Now is the time for us to hold companies and politicians to their word. What ideas do you have to hold them accountable?

• August 19, 2008 by Dennis Markatos
• 0 comments

• tags: advertising green values Olympics Yao Ming

Will Congress block the Michael Phelps of American energy?

All federal leaders these days like to give lip service to a secure and sustainable energy future for our country. But unless they renew a version of the renewables Production Tax Credit (PTC) over the next couple months, I call greenwash.

Renewable electricity is like the Michael Phelps of our energy system. While coal, natural gas and nuclear grow at rates between 0 and 6.5% per year, wind and solar regularly clock speeds of 35-45% growth! Some may claim that this quick growth will moderate and is all due to the small base they are growing from. But these last couple of years pose a serious challenge to that assertion. Solar continues to be a small contributor to the energy pie providing less than .2% of US electricity. However, many analysts predict its cost is about to drop more than 30% over the next two and a half years due largely to a catch-up in the supply of modules’ key feedstock, polysilicon. If that happens, solar can quickly accelerate its rise toward the ranks of major energy sources.

Wind is already beginning to join the club due to the last few years of phenomenal growth. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) just announced that the US overtook Germany as the largest wind power producer in the world during the second quarter. Even though its nameplate capacity is currently lower than Germany’s (though may not be by the end of this year), the greater strength of our wind means that our turbines generate more electricity. I thought it would be tough for wind to follow its record-breaking growth of 2007 when its capacity shot up 5.24 GW or 45%. But this year, the current list of 9 GW waiting to be installed on top of the 2.7 GW installed during the first half of the year makes AWEA project another 45% growth (or ~7.5 GW!) is about to take place. After being a miniscule player for years, wind has now unseated oil as the fifth-largest source of US electricity and will pass 1.5% by the end of the year. This is an astonishing feat, moving us close to the time when we will be able to call on clean power to provide all of our new energy demand.

That is, as long as we don’t block our Olympic hopeful from its potential. A crucial ingredient to wind’s successful rise has been the federal PTC of ~2 cents per kWh. There were three years during this decade when the PTC was not renewed, resulting in a 73-93% drop in installations from the previous year. If federal leaders turn their back on wind power and other renewables at a time when our country needs its jobs and its energy more than ever, then they are failing us and the planet. If they decide to lower the PTC now that wind is more competitive with other sources of electricity, that is understandable. But to not renew it would be to abandon one of our key tools to mitigate the energy and climate challenges ahead. Congress (including Presidential candidates), will you step up?

• August 14, 2008 by Dennis Markatos
• 0 comments

• tags: Congress Michael Phelps of energy production tax credit wind power

How bad is greenwash? Well, it depends.

Siegelbaum: The debate between Joel Makower of GreenBiz.com and Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation on the magnitude of greenwashing has been fascinating, although a tad touchy.

It illustrates some compelling contrasts:

• Privately held companies enjoy relative freedom to pursue sustainability, while public companies suffer from a psychotic drive to deliver unreasonable short-term profits.
• There's a big difference between whole-company and singular product assessments.
• Products are often the only face of a company for most people. And as they "green," companies often miss an opportunity to to showcase their environmental efforts: putting an 800-number on their newly-minted green products that would connect consumers with R&D or the sustainability group. Instead, they often make make isolated, environmental product claims without any context for the company as a whole.
• Activist and non-activist bloggers as well as government agencies and non-profits employ a range of approaches to help "course correct" misleading statements and develop third-party standards and definitions that everyone can play by.

Without going into the particular examples Hollender uses (and yes, advertising a product that's not for sale is pure cowpie, please!), companies in the throes of sustainability change would fare much better against the greenwashing pundits if they:

• Connected PR and marketing firms and in-house branding with their sustainability and R&D folks to avoid hyperbole in green marketing claims;
  
• Aligned their lobbying efforts with their sustainability progress --it's almost impossible to take a company's sustainability work seriously when its lobbying mimics that of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and underscores the relentless pursuit of that ill-conceived notion that inefficiency will make the US more competitive; and
  
• Worked with NGOs and government agencies like EPA's Design for Environment program and the Environmental Working Group to collaborate on US chemical policy reform (often at the core of many product greenwashing claims in consumer products).

Consumers are confused and greenwashing does cause harm: to companies in the process of change that do deserve to be supported in that continuum of change, and to consumers whose quests to green their lives are strangled by cynicism when they find out the product didn't live up to its fuzzy marketing hyperbole. Greenwashing is also a distraction at some level from the fundamental, core things that must change to save our collective cabooses.

For a nostalgic example, check out this Saturn VUE ad from way back in 2002: (Credit: CorpWATCH)

For anyone who read Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society, by the peripatetic Peter Senge and his colleagues, we are being faced by the indisputable limitations of an earth that will get her way.

This urgency and the true magnitude of what's at stake will require much more than a 20-year roll-out of greener products and carbon accounting. It will require fundamentally changing the values (opens PDF) upon which companies operate, including the role of financial institutions, NGOs, and other stakeholders.

It will require understanding how to market (opens PDF) with context and balance and, though we know it's difficult, opening up boardroom conversations to the people and communities with interests at stake. It may require the company of the future.

"It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.'You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary." -- Winston Churchill

Nicolow: With environmental concerns firmly entering the mainstream, the growing demand for environmentally responsible products has most conventional companies scrambling to demonstrate that they're green. It's quicker and easier to change a message than to change business processes, so we'll inevitably see some pretty egregious greenwash in the lag before these companies (hopefully) begin to make real changes.

Some in the marketing industry envision a coming change, not just toward more environmentally responsible consumer products, but away from the rampant consumerism that defined the past two decades. In an interesting July 30th post on Off-Grid.net, Alex Benady repots that "advanced industrial countries like the US and UK are moving toward a post-consumer era -- less materialist and more spiritual."

Benady quotes Sir Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP Group (the world's largest communications services group) in his view that "conspicuous consumption is not productive, and should be discouraged." Sorrell chastises companies like Apple for "fostering a mindset of super-consumption, where expensive items made at a vast cost to the earth's resources quickly become unfashionable and are expected not to last."

Benady cites John Grant, author of the "Green Marketing Manifesto," who contends that consumers will not just shift their spending to "low-energy goods," such as local foods, but also fundamentally re-define the concept of "ownership." Grant foresees 'fractional ownership' where products are shared (like Zip Car), and 'treasuring' with a return to the higher-quality products that are repaired and maintained.

Grant sees these changes coming in the next five to ten years, in which case the "advertising industry just cannot exist in its current form."

Interesting times.

• August 6, 2008 by Marketplace staff
• 2 comments

• tags: Greenbiz Hollender Makower Seventh Generation

"Location, location, location" - a message lost on Warm Springs Tribes

Planners at The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs don't seem to be familiar with the well-known marketing mantra: location, location, location.

The Tribes are embroiled in a highly controversial proposal to build a 603,000 square foot off-reservation mega-casino (roughly three times the size of a Wal-Mart super store) in tiny little Cascade Locks, Oregon, adjacent to,and some would argue -- in the very heart of -- one of this region's spectacular gems, the Columbia River Gorge.

Its proponents argue that it will be built to LEED standards and apparently carbon offsets would be used after construction starts, "possibly by planting trees." And where will these trees be planted or by whom?

It makes sense to evaluate siting decisions by looking at context, scale, site characteristics and little niggling things like greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

The Columbia River Gorge, 80 miles long and up to 4,000 feet deep, was designated as a National Scenic Area in 1986. The area generates millions of dollars each year in nature-based tourism revenue and is home to threatened salmon, bald eagle and old growth forests.

To my eyes, this is yet another lipstick-on-a-pig story:

• Round trip travel from the Warm Springs Reservation to the proposed casino site is a whopping 220 miles (the Interior Department in a recent memo (link to PDF on page) stated it would give greater scrutiny to tribal benefits as the distance increases between the acquisition -- here the industrial site in Cascade Locks -- and the tribe's reservation.)

• The site -- in addition to 603,000 square feet worth of buildings -- will include 25 acres and an additional 35 acres of pure unforgiving parking lot, utilities and other hard surfaces. 20 acres of parking lot = 413,000 gallons of polluted runoff from one, one-inch rain event (and if you know the area, rain is a regular companion out there)

• The casino would draw 3 million visitors annually and would require an expansion of Interstate 84 over a salmon bearing stream, including "de-watering" the stream. Last time I checked, fish don't drive. Can anyone say traffic, climate change and poor air quality? The Forest Service is already plagued by poor air quality in the Gorge, where visibility is impaired 90% of the time.

LEED standards don't address contextual siting, scale, community opposition or adjacency issues so although it's admirable to build to LEED standards, it alone is a poor indicator of a project's environmental sustainability. The community of Cascade Locks is equally divided and its local government very boldly denounces its opposition. In a list of 20 hyperlinked documents, oddly the only one not working was the link to the Environmental Impact Statement. How coincidental...

Similar to the issues raised by mega mansions scattered across the nation, enraging neighbors and creating visual discordance (ugly is bad enough, huge-ugly is insufferable), scale, location and climate change are deal breakers when dealing with complex smart growth and sustainable development issues.

• July 27, 2008 by Heidi Siegelbaum
• 3 comments

• tags: casinos LEED siting Warm Springs

Is KB Home commiting a "random act of greenness"?

Joel Makower reflects upon the evolving definition of greenwash in a recent post titled, "How Bad is Greenwashing, Really?" He explains how greenwash in the late 80's and early 90's referred to "deliberate and cynical attempts by companies to mislead the public."

Fast forward to 2008, and corporate America has moved beyond abject denial and cover up to a phenomenon Makower calls "Random Acts of Greenness." They recognize that the public is demanding environmental responsibility, and are taking steps to do better (often motivated by the good PR that follows). Now the concern is that 'sustainability' is such a new concept among the general public that we have trouble evaluating the significance of these corporate green claims.

Case in point: KB Home recently announced a company-wide commitment that all communities opening in 2009 will meet "Energy Star" certification.

Is this greenwash?

The cynic in me wants to shake a tsk-tsk finger at them and say, "Great, green suburban single-family home development on green field sites. Big deal. That's like a 'green' 12-mile-per-gallon Hummer with recycled carpet and bamboo trim." It's their urban sprawl development pattern that is unsustainable.

However, this does represent a significant commitment on their part. Energy Star is not the norm. And they're only able to make the commitment because they see a market of consumers asking for green homes. For a business to stay in business, there must be a market for their product. They could commit to only building carbon-neutral, net-zero energy homes on urban infill sites, but they would soon be out of business. The American public isn't asking for that product...yet. Maybe this effort will even drive demand.

I'm inclined to restrain my cynicism and say, "Bravo HB Homes, well done."

• July 25, 2008 by Jim Nicolow
• 5 comments

• tags: Energy Star greenwash KB Home

"Up to 70% recycled content"

Thanks to Corporate Climate Response News, I learned that the FTC is still on the trail of greenwashing, and heard about a stellar example of greenwashing from Vice President Frank Hurd of the Carpet and Rug Institute, which certifies Green Label and Green Label Plus carpets.

He described one carpet manufacturer (not a CRI member) who advertised their carpet as including “Up to 70 percent recycled content.” Of course, that label is technically and legally accurate on carpet that has recycled content anywhere between zero percent and 70 percent. A good marketing department will make sure that the “up to” is in very tiny type, and “70 percent recycled content” is very large… and all but the most careful consumer will give them credit for 70.

Brigadiers weighed in before the first of the FTC workshops which addressed carbon offsetting.

Now the FTC workshops are complete, and they say there will be new Green Guides, probably in 2009.

I’m anxious to find out whether they will be meaningful and what they will address. I hope they’ll be published before Americans are tired of “green” in all its untrustworthy forms and shift interest to something else.

Tell us your thoughts: What aspects of green marketing most need FTC guidance? Carbon offsets? Green building? Corporate sustainability reporting? What sorts of guidelines would be most useful?

• July 24, 2008 by Janne K. Flisrand
• 1 comments

• tags: marketing standards watchdogs

An oil man who gets the energy big picture

Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens is helping to spur the renewable energy revolution our country and the world need.

You’ve probably seen his PickensPlan.com advertisements running over the last few days. I am one observer who is ecstatic that he is putting his resources toward such an initiative.

T. Boone Pickens is promoting a 10-year plan that would help lower US emissions and focuses on reducing our dependence on foreign oil. He has made hundreds of millions betting on the recent rise in the price of oil and gas, and firmly believes that our world is in an oil crisis as supply stagnates while demand climbs higher. He sees our current oil import bill of almost $700 billion per year as economically crippling and wants to replace oil with wind power. By increasing wind power from its current 20 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts over the next 10 years (a 35% growth rate similar to the rate of the last ten years), the plan would free up enough natural gas to run a quarter of US vehicles and lower our oil import bill by $200-plus billion per year by 2018.

Pickens is running advertisements throughout the country to get Presidential candidates to take oil scarcity seriously and make sound energy policy a top priority in their Administrative agenda. For a swift-boat veteran funder in 2004, I think his election efforts will do a lot more good this time around. Though in addition to wind, I would recommend 20 gigawatts of solar power (a similar growth rate to wind’s) to provide for new energy needs as fossil fuels increase in price.

Some complain that he has an interest in wind power succeeding, so he is just being self-serving. But I think his plans to build the world’s biggest wind farm in west Texas at 4 gigawatts shows he is putting his money where his mouth is. It gives his goals legitimacy. And Texas’ recent approval to support 18.5 GW of transmission lines to send wind power from rural west Texas to the cities in the central and eastern part of the state makes the Pickens Plan that much more reasonable. I may not agree with Pickens on many political issues but when it comes to energy, I appreciate his contributions toward helping our country move from laggard to leader in the renewable energy revolution. His strong investments, by ordering the first GW of wind turbines for his record-breaking wind farm, shows he is not just a green talker — but also a green walker.

• July 19, 2008 by Dennis Markatos
• 4 comments

• tags: oil Pickens wind

Update: Shh - don't tell anyone - these apartments are green!

About a week after this post, I received an e-mail from the marketing
firm working on Blue: We "immediately realized that you are right. The info on what makes Blue so green was definitely hidden on the site. We moved that up to the homepage for everyone to see."

Excellent!

Their language on what makes Blue so green could use some more specifics and be more comprehensible to consumers. What does it mean to save 5,000 gallons of water per year? Is that a 1% improvement or a 30% improvement over what's normal? They could also avoid stating the obvious ("higher levels of insulation") and highlighting tiny things like "Locally Quarried Granite in some units." But they're trying and getting close.

The e-mail also included an invitation for coffee to "make sure we are speaking the right language." And a tour of Blue.

We met, and I'm happy to report that while Blue isn't perfect, they are doing a good job. They have an interesting underground parking construction method that they didn't highlight on the info sheet and great stormwater management - again not on the sheet. They're also doing education with prospective and new tenants.

I'd live there.

• July 11, 2008 by Janne K. Flisrand
• 1 comments

• tags: green building marketing

Roadside greenwash reminders from coal country

Riding through Pennsylvania on my way home from a lovely family wedding a few days ago, I had a glimpse into why greenwash detectors like our blog are extremely important for society to continue its march toward sustainability. Interstate 76 was lined with billboards by Families Organized to Represent the Coal Economy, lauding coal as "clean & green" and saying that without coal, many of the state's cities would be in the dark.

While coal's current importance in our country (we generate almost half our electricity from the fuel) is clear, the statement "clean & green" is certainly a stretch. The group did include a caveat that said "with new technologies" but the new technology of carbon capture and storage is completely untested in the world marketplace. Their claim seems like calling a Hummer "clean & green" because it is conceivable that consumers would purchase plug-in hybrid Hummers because plug-in hybrid is largely understood (though none are on the market yet).

In such times when green is chic and PR executives claim their clients to be so, consumers need two essential elements to cut through the noise:

The first is the establishment of transparent standards that can compare business practices within sectors (and potentially across sectors). Some of the best ones include LEED standards for green building and an emerging tool called STARS being put together by AASHE to weigh green cred between college campuses. We need to keep improving and expanding user-friendly standards for folks to gauge the greenness of different companies and their goods.

The second vital element is the public voice of watchdogs: whether they be Bill Moyers-types in the media, institutions in the nonprofit sector and academia, and even bloggers like us -- as long as our notes are read by a wide enough audience.

I hope green continues to stay chic and that more greenwash-vigilant entities rise up to empower consumers and citizens with verifiable knowledge that the products and services we buy live up to our values. Props to Marketplace for their efforts, and here's hoping we can make more progress in the months and years ahead!

• July 9, 2008 by Dennis Markatos
• 0 comments

• tags: coal standards watchdogs