Ecoinomy

Incentives that champion frugality, save business money and rewards employees for the process? What's not to like about that? Via John Grant.

All the water in the world

All the water in the world (or 1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. (left). all the air in the atmosphere (or 5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density (right). both shown on the same scale as the Earth.

Via Information Aesthetics

Walmart And China

The figures for Walmart and China are colossal. The United States' ability to voraciously consume, coupled with China's unsurpassed capability to produce has led to the fastest input output game in history with considerable impact on the planet's resources. There are still many people who would rather ignore the moral impact of our work without knowing that there are ways to square the circle, but it takes some thinking, and some conviction otherwise there really is no point just gushing 'awe' at cute babies and bunnies and things because that's just programming on your amygdala which you can overcome with your selfish gene and get on with the business of senseless consumption.

John Grant has done a much more courageous job of showing the way forward with his excellent book The Green Marketing Manifesto and also his blog Greenormal which is a must-read for those who like the communications business and dig frugality dictated by the brutal logic of finite resources.

Some time back, we talked on his blog if Walmart or M&S would insist on environmental standards in the distribution and supply chain, it would have an impact on both China and the rest of the world. If you're not sure how this works, it's enough to know that Walmart single handedly pushed the world into using barcodes when insisting on its suppliers using them.

The same applies for pretty much anything else they put their mind to.

Now Walmart are famous for being miserly with suppliers and parsimonious at best with employees but there is a strong Christian ethic that runs through the organisation and its values, which when misguided are unpleasant but when constructive can be a force for good.

Following on their news last year to become the largest purchaser of solar panels ever, thus creating economies of scale for others, I read today in the essential China Digital Times that they are making a push in October for all their Chinese suppliers to follow environmental and sustainability guidelines. This will likely be a future trend for China and its suppliers, but if embraced can drive wealth creation that is not at the expense of the planet and is surely the single largest opportunity for making money in our lifetimes by rewiring the economy for sustainability. Anything else is just loose change isn't it?

"The good news is we're running out of oil. The bad news is there's a lot of coal" - Yvon Chouinard

flower_bee

The mountains above are in Patagonia, Argentina and the picture was uploaded last Saturday from Argentina. I do think immediacy isn't everything but in this case it is. You can almost smell the mountain air unless VW Eos haven't branded it as theirs with advertising. Patagonia is the same name as the clothing label run by Yvon Chouinard who is the real deal when it comes to, we are what we do, and living an 'examined life'. I'd never heard of him before a few weeks ago but happen to stumble across a podcast on the often slightly worthy Social Innovation Conversations. Around about the 38th minute into the podcast he says everything you need to know about putting sustainability back into the wealth creation business model with simple but brilliant marketing values. In this case its for an oil company but it applies to all business. This audience with Yves is the sort of podcast I recommend for a Sunday while prepping the vegetables for the Sunday roast. and getting a good pot of tea on the go. It doesn't need full on attention and its not a blow away grab you by the nuts Mr Motivator podcast. Instead its a conversation that to paraphrase the robust words of Paul Coleman gives "just a continuous unshakable feeling" that this guy knows how to make money, do the right thing, treat people right, sell responsible products and live an examined life. Its fun, interesting and I can't recommend it enough.

PSFK - Mind The Gap

The picture above is one I took while strolling one Sunday along Wimbledon Common a few weeks back. The guy was taking macro photography pictures of new appearances in insect life that hadn't been previously recorded and were appearing due to the changes in the British climate disrupting the ecosystem. Specifically, he was capturing a wasp like creature killing a dung-beetle like insect. Most people welcome a bit of warmer weather in the UK but the reality is that if we blindly continue with the current consumption is king economy, based on infinite growth, we can look forward to less acceptable changes in British flora and fauna. In my experience of the tropics its the snakes, large spiders and golf ball sized hornets that flip most people out.

One of the less obvious dimensions about the business of saving our own skins as the planet warms up is that a shed load of money is to be made in reshaping the existing wealth creation business model. The PSFK conference last Friday held a panel to discuss the topic with Karen Fraser from The Ethical Index chairing the discussion with John Grant (Greenormal), Diana Verde Nieto (Clown Fish) and Tamara Giltsoff (Ozolab). Not so long back I took some time out to study a bit about propaganda because it seemed obvious to me that there was no way that after the failure of Kyoto and the growth of China and India that the neoliberal capitalist model was going to rein in the excesses of marketing communications credo of sell more despite it 'getting hot in here' (so take off all your clothes). Actually I was pretty much floored by the release of the Stern Review Report on climate change which I had no expectation to see in my lifetime. If the human race can make a global business out of something like World Wrestling, Hello Magazine and Blue Tooth Headgear for anyone other than taxi drivers then I'm sure we can make a buck from shifting something not from A to B, but say from A to C. It really is as simple as that.

John Grant kicked off and although we've met in firstlife and talked bundles on his greenormal blog I only realised at the PSFK gig why he really does kick ass. John talks coherently in compelling joined up paragraphs and really could use an hour or two on his own to take us through a journey from sinners-in-denial to messianic converts. I think he's a national asset and at some point the British should collectively chip in to give him our spare carbon points because we need him out on the road and 'representing' for the U.K. around the globe since he practices what he preaches and only flies when only absolutely necessary. John opened with some breaking market research that aviation brands are the new dirty word. Can we anticipate a renaissance for the great British seaside holiday and the rise of the guest house again? Flying seemed to lose its sex appeal around about the time Pan Am were shot out of the sky in 1991, but its official now; only losers and drink drivers fly unnecessarily.

I urge you to buy John's about to be published book The Green Marketing Manifesto when it comes out, for all the juicy bits about how to do green marketing. He did talk about how the green (sustainable living) movement is in its early stages right now like digital was in 1995, and that there's a real opportunity for all marketing folk to get into this and start changing the senseless waste of that indulgent age 'The Consumer Society' and make good money out of it. Money and Green are not incommensurate, and one idea I liked was the movement to get children walking to school with a kagoul brand perhaps getting involved. However if you do check out one website to wet the whistle and that John has championed before, take a look at freecycle. Because sharing and recycling is the new Sexy black as I mentioned back here.

Tamara Giltsoff also chimed in with a similarly reasoned argument that a new sustainable business model is emerging and that its a front end change that we should be putting our marketing brain cells to, not short sharp shock. She also championed the need to put marketing and corporate responsibility (C.R.) together. We need to urgently be speaking to each other because doing good is actually something that sets products and services apart. Its not exactly rocket science is it? I did like the way that Tamara implied that SUV's were now approaching the social pariah status of something like a Chavmobile.

Diane Verde Nieto of Clownfish made a great observation for those in attendance, that modern communications professionals should be able to handle the schizophrenia of leading two agendas. One to sell our clients products and services and the other to build sustainability into the way they work. Again they are not incommensurate but it takes a twin track mind to handle the conflict in the transition stage. She also drew our attention to London's aim to be a sustainable city by 2020 which was something I wasn't aware of and will surely be a terrific motivator for business to reshape and retool. In addition Diane pointed out the Ariel low temperature wash cycle campaign(30 degrees) and that the internet is a heavy user of electricity impacting on the environment through huge data centers that are sprouting up around the world, as well as the costly running of computers and servers. Water, she alerted us, is going to be the next big challenge after carbon footprint responsibility takes hold. This makes complete sense for those who follow geopolitics around the globe and is a timely reminder for Sci-fi fans to reread Dune. Lastly Diane used a bleak euphemism for the business of carbon offset trading described as the equivalent for the environment of the morning after pill.