Green Options

While the U.S. Congress and President Obama attempt to jump-start the economy (the destructive “growth” one, not the nature-based, restoration ECOnomy) by spending hundreds of billions of dollars they don’t even have, many ecopreneurs and the green businesses they manage continue to prosper in the restoration ECOnomy.

True, some of the proposed Federal spending will be devoted to the “green economy,” providing a boost to renewable energy production, energy efficient construction and more fuel efficient transportation.  But the ecopreneurs my wife and I interviewed for our ECOpreneuring book have discovered that the “triple bottom line” approach to running an enterprise is more resilient to economic (or ecological) shocks — like the ones occurring around the world at an accelerating pace.

For example, take Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, or SPUD for short, founded by ecopreneur David Van Seters.  Already North America’s largest online organic home grocer, SPUD merged with Organic Express and Westside Organics in 2008. With the amalgamation, SPUD now serves four major U.S. west coast markets: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland.

In these times of change and challenges, we need success stories.  Here’s the story of SPUD founder David Van Seters, adapted from ECOpreneuring:

Small Potatoes Urban Delivery, or SPUD, is no ordinary delivery service. First, they promote organic food with free home delivery. Second, they sell food grown or produced by local or regional farmers, whenever possible. Their business model intersects the double-digit growth in organic food and the buy-local movement, while reducing carbon emissions and urban congestion through their resource-efficient delivery service. Topping it off, SPUD harnesses the Internet to offer customers the opportunity to customize their orders with a guarantee of satisfaction.

In a chilling precedent for economics bloggers around the globe, a South Korean economics blogger was arrested and charged with “Spreading false economic information on the internet.”, and if convicted could face 5 years in jail.

Unlike the typical video conferencing tool, holding a virtual conference ‘Second Life’ can include all the elements of a real-world event with none of the travel-related emissions.

I don’t mess around in the virtual world of Second Life. I have enough trouble keeping up with my first. That said, you should really check out this Second Life tour of the United Nations COP14 global climate talks going on right now in Poznan, Poland.

I’ve been spending a lot of time these days working with clients interested in establishing a presence in social media. If you’re not considering doing that for your business, you might heed the words of Wayne Kurtzman from Media Bullseye.

Companies who miss the importance of the social media ship may actually risk the same fate as companies who thought the Internet was a fad. That sounds extreme, but over half the nation is already on a social network. They upload photos and videos or share shopping reviews. Customers are changing how they want companies to interact with them. The more that happens, the more companies will be left in the dust.

Since many if not most companies only have a hazy idea of how social media works and why in the world they should jump into the fray, some are slow to take the plunge. This is perhaps less true of new and old media companies. You can find Ecopreneurist and Green Options on Twitter, along with the New York Times, CNN and The BBC.

Besides Twitter, there are of course a whole host of ways to reach out to your customers and engage them on a one-to-one basis. There is Facebook and Myspace as well as a fast growing selection of newer sites. There are blogs and blogger networks, as well as, shopping social networking sites. There are community forums for a variety of topics and there are media sharing sites like Flickr and Youtube.

All of these should be considered for a social media campaign, but not all should be used. Why? This depends a lot on the company and product.

For example, as a social media marketing consultant, I focus on green products and on women’s products. I know the Mommy and female blogger and The Mommy and female social media market. I know the green market. What tools they use and where one can find green consumers. I recommend tools that make sense for my clients. Not all of the tools that Liz Strauss or Jeff Pulver suggest do that, though I follow and admire them both, but they often serve different markets.

One thing on which we all agree, though is Twitter. Though less than 2 years old, Twitter is rapidly becoming the go to place for both questions and answers. Have a question on organic food? Direct message @WholeFoods, an early and excellent user of social media. Follow Seventh Generation and find updates answers on a variety of green topics.

A professor in Brazil is helping to bring solar powered wireless internet to communities in need. The low-cost “access point in a box” he has created needs no internet connection, electricity, or assembly to function. It is being tested on lamp posts in a number of locations. Innovations such as these are becoming more common around the world, and are leveling the economic playing field and creating countless benefits for people who could otherwise not pay for the internet.

Being sticklers for detail, the British are crying foul that internet cartographers are making unmarked ruins of UK historical sites that landmarks such as Stonehenge have taken direct hits from internet and satellite navigation systems.

Their beefs is that they cannot be found on online maps.

Apart from the fact, as stated by Mary Spence, president of the British Cartographic Society, that online maps missed out on important or key points of interest such as centuries old cathedrals, royal castles and other stately homes, they were also effectively diminishing from national consciousness the British sense of nationhood.

You see, monuments that describe the British pride like Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 kilometers west of Amesbury and 13 kilometers north of Salisbury, should be found on any serious map. But it is not referenced on Google Map for instance.

So you’re starting a green business. Congratulations! Now that you have a dream, a business name, and a plan, how do you go from the initial idea to making that first sale? If you’ve done your homework, you probably have a marketing plan for your business (it’s wise to make it part of your business plan). One of the most important pieces of your marketing plan should be your company web site. Your web site will be the first impression many of your clients and customers have of your business, so it’s important to invest the time and money necessary to create a well-designed, informative, easy to use, and sustainable web site.

Not only does your web site offer you a chance to market your company, it’s also an opportunity to exercise your commitment to sustainability. One way to green your marketing is to make the web your primary advertising focus. Through e-mail newsletters, online ads, and promoting your domain name on all company correspondence, you can drive traffic to your web site and cover a lot of marketing ground without having to waste paper. Focusing your advertising efforts on the internet means less printed advertising, which means less paper waste and fewer pollutants released (the printing process and ink pigments create a lot of them).

I admit it, I am addicted to the internet. However, this addiction isn’t all bad -  my hard earned internet savvy has paid off time and time again in the form of referrals and new clients. Without even having to overtly advertise, I have gotten many inquiries about my services and quite a few good clients from my online activities. I’ve also made a lot of friends in my field and networked with other designers that I can bounce ideas off of and partner with on creative pursuits, all online. Yes, the internet is a glorious thing.

One of my favorite things about using the internet to promote my business is that it’s green and inexpensive (if not free). So online marketing and social networking is a great way to get your name out there without using any paper or creating any trash. A good way to start your foray into the world of online marketing is to first establish a web site for your business. This will often be your potential customers’ first impression of your company, so it will be an important investment in both time and money. Once you have a web site, networking through social media sites is a great way to promote it and drive traffic to your site. Online marketing is a strategy that’s becoming more and more popular among entrepreneurs, and thankfully it is one with minimal impact on the planet.

Despite being banned by the government of Burma (also Myanmar), Google has said that it will donate up to $1 million USD to assist victims of Cyclone Nargis.

Google has offered to match donations made to UNICEF and Direct Relief International for all donations made at Google’s Support disaster relief in Myanmar page, up to one million dollars.

Internet users in Burma reported that access to Google and Gmail had been blocked by the strict military junta governing the country in the summer of 2006. By this time, Yahoo and Hotmail had already made the censored IT blacklist.

If you think the virtual, online world helps reduce energy consumption in the real world (a topic we’ve touched on before here at Green Options Media), think again: a new study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company provides scary insights into how Internet computing is devouring more and more power and spewing out more and more greenhouse gases.

Based on data from the Uptime Institute, a technology consulting company based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the McKinsey report finds that, between 2000 and 2006, the amount of energy needed to power data centers doubled, and that consumption is likely to double again by 2012. In the U.S. alone, we would need to build 10 new power plants by 2010 just to meet the growing energy needs of this country’s data centers.