Green Options

Some people say you eat with our eyes. At Passionfish restaurant in Pacific Grove, California, you do so with your heart — at a place where the local is celebrated, showcased, and conserved. Sometimes, savoring a meal can nurture our body while helping preserve or restore the planet.  One day, every meal will be consumed this way.

While my family and I make every effort to eat local and lower on the food chain – mostly vegetarian – when we travel, we occasionally become “flexitarians” and enjoy a seafood dish or two when we’re at the edge of a vast ocean, perhaps with a wharf at the end of the street. At Passionfish, a restaurant nestled in the scenic Monterey Peninsula just a mile from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we connected with the Pacific Ocean by both its salty breeze and through the food we savored.

Opening in 1997, Passionfish is the brainchild of Chef Ted Walter and his wife Cindy Walter. Besides being restaurateurs, the Walters’ might as well be called “marine activists.”  This dynamic duo have ambitions of changing the world by educating people about what they eat, especially if what they eat comes from the sea. Using their restaurant as the alluring (and delicious) platform, the couple promotes sustainable seafood as well as locally sourced, fresh, organic vegetables and fruits. Even their meat products are pasture-raised.

I’ve written a lot in these posts about print vs. electronic media and the sustainability issues faced by both (yes, both! electronic media aren’t as green as people think). Now you can investigate more deeply for yourself. On November 17, Target Marketing and Printing Impressions will offer a webinar titled “Paper or Electronic? The Impact of Choices.”

Speakers will be:

Don Carli
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Sustainable Communications

Brian Kozlowski
Director, Sustainable Development
NewPage Corp.

This free webinar will discuss the tools, processes, and success stories that exist to help direct marketers determine not only which media best fit the job at hand but also how to improve the carbon footprint of all channels.

Topics to be discussed include:

A resilient city has 1) a green action plan and 2) a green economic plan. He sees cities as a productive point of convergence, “In cities, people can talk common sense to each other,” said Miller.

What is the current state of the consumer on the issue of green products? Grail Research, which recently conducted a survey of 500 consumers on issues related to the purchase of green products, refers to green as mainstream and sticky, but not deep.

According to the study, “The Green Revolution” (September 2009),

• 84% of consumers say that either some or most of the products they purchase are green (mainstream)
• Only 1% say that they used to buy green products but no longer do (sticky)
• Only 8% of consumers make green the primary factor in their purchase decisions (not deep)

The number one reason people are deterred from buying green products? They are perceived as being too expensive, with 69% of respondents giving this answer. Forty percent view green products as not offering enough variety and choice.

What is the difference between the moderately interested (light green consumers) and the very committed (dark green consumers)?

Did you notice something different on the back pages of The Order of the Phoenix? If you live in the Canadian market, you might. The fifth book in the Harry Potter series has something unusual on its back pages. It’s an environmental audit.

The audit, produced using New Leaf Paper’s Eco Audit Calculator, uses New Leaf EcoBook paper, which uses 100% postconsumer waste. This is something new in the book market, which is normally so sensitive to price.

While the paper does cost more than virgin, these costs are offset by the extreme environmental benefits of switching to paper made with 100% postconsumer fiber. Because virgin paper costs less than recycled papers, the book industry has traditionally gone almost exclusively with virgin stocks. But Scholastic decided to make an environmental statement — a big one.

According to the audit, on the 950,000 print run, this simple switch resulted in a savings of 29,600 trees, 12.4 million gallons of water, 20,300 BTUs of energy, 1.4 million pounds of solid waste, and 2.7 million pounds of greenhouse gases. That’s more than just a drop in the bucket.

Ah, it feels good to have the BSR conference back in San Francisco. Even though the economy has gone to hell, it is good see that probably close to 1000 attendees hit the conference so the sour economy has not killed the whole notion of notion of sustainability and companies.

Good start — as we walked in and registered the staff handed me a recyclable, biodegradable, compostable lanyard.

The theme for this year’s conference - Sustainability in a Reset World

After admiring our lanyards and breakfast we jumped into packed conversation with Pamela Passman of Microsoft. Of course we considered today’s launch of Windows 7.

The discussion centered on the sustainability of Microsoft. Now, most people will admit that the technology business isn’t the least sustainable or “dirtiest” business. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t press a heavy carbon footprint. Passman discussed that companies need software to track their own carbon footprint.Microsoft may have many ideas for other comanies but they need to look in the mirror as well.

She admitted the two most pressing issues that Microsoft needs to improve in so far as reducing their carbon footprint that includes:

1- Traveling (lots of it)

2 – Data centers — The data centers continue to be electric and water intensive.
Microsoft claims to be attempting reduce the footprint of these data centers.

Today’s business climate is more competitive than ever.  Several highly qualified MBA grads are vying for fewer and fewer corporate jobs.  According to a 2008-2009 survey by the MBA Career Services Council, business schools have experienced a drop in corporate recruiting of more than 10 percent affecting more than half of the 94 top-ranked business schools in the United States, Canada and Europe.  Scary, isn’t it…especially if you’re one of the many contemplating a return to graduate school.  So what would set you apart or give you the competitive edge to land that corporate gig?  Corporate Social Responsibility

The Aspen Institute just released the 2009-2010 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of full-time MBA programs that integrate issues of social and environmental stewardship into curricula and research.  Did your school make the list?

I’ve blogged a lot about how the printing industry is far greener than people give it credit for. The presses are more efficient. Paper often has high recycled content. Marketing strategies emphasize smart use of data over volume production. There are many ways that printing is green — greener, many argue, than electronic media. But what about individual printers? To what extent are they consciously pursuing a green strategy? It can be a significant investment, after all. Are their customers making it worth their while?

Last year, the commercial printing industry information portal What They Think released a report on the status of green in the printing industry. This month, in Printing Continues to Go Green, WTT updated the report with fresh data, comparing the numbers year over year.

In the June 2009 survey, WTT researchers found the following year-over-year changes:

• Printers are far more likely to identify themselves in their marketing and promotional materials as environmentally sensitive businesses — 33%, up from 26% last year
• They are slightly more likely to justify new equipment purchases because of their more favorable environmental impact — 22%, up from 20%
• They are more likely to have special “green” certifications from independent organizations (Forest Stewardship Council, Green Seal) — 22%, up from 15%
• They are slightly more likely to say that promoting their green efforts helps their business image — 39%, up from 35%.

But it’s not all good news. Commercial printers don’t see a lot of customer gratitude for their efforts. In the June 2009 survey, they were noticeably less likely to say that it was essential to their customers and more likely to say that it was a major expense without a major business benefit. Only 2% said it was critically important to their customers.

This is a real problem. Why?

An increasing number of marketers are turning to toner- or inkjet-based printing in order to green their print marketing programs. It’s not that offset presses are inherently ungreen. On the contrary, printing as a whole is a whole lot greener than many people give it credit for. But digital printing has some compelling green benefits.

• Lower start-up waste
• Smaller, more targeted production volumes
• Presses with a higher percentage of recycled (or recyclable) parts
• Lower

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This week Newsweek’s cover story promotes an exclusive ranking of “The Greenest Big Companies in America”.

Many marketers are pushing their customers toward electronic statements, e-newsletters, bills, and transactional statements as a “green” move, but in reality, it has more to do with economics. It’s cheaper for businesses to send electronic communications than print. But while pushing e-communications as greener, has anyone bothered to ask what customers how they feel about it?

InfoPrint Solutions Company did. A joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, InfoPrint conducted a a survey that found three out of four respondents would consider opting for traditional mail delivery if they were informed it had less of a negative environmental impact than email.

In addition, 50% of consumers indicated that they still prefer to receive marketing information about new products or services via traditional mail rather than email. Only 44% would rather receive marketing via email.

Do preferences convert into action? Yes! Not only do customers prefer print mail, but they are more likely to open it, even if both communications come from a bank.