Demographics Are Gross   Lumping people together according to their age, household income, or education level was fine in the heyday of mass marketing. But demographics aren’t a fine-enough filter in our multi-channel media-saturated world. It’s not enough to know, in the broadest of terms, who your target audience is. Now you need to know how they are and, most importantly, why they buy. And if you don’t know, you may be watching your competitors eat your market share for lunch.

Technology Converged    Personal computer plus Internet plus social networks plus mobile phones equals a convergence of technologies into one massive, uncontrolled, 24/7, global communications platform. At least two things happened: it empowered consumers to talk (or talk back) to brands. And it created new inter-connected means for brands and consumers to connect.  Five years ago, we didn’t have to consider how our big branding ad was going to play out as a streamed Internet video linking to a geo-targeted 2-fer coupon accessible via smart phone! The accelerating number of possibilities is enough to keep any savvy marketer awake nights.

Mad Men Meet Joe YouTube   You gotta love Don Draper. After a night of drinking, smoking and fooling around, he can show up for a major campaign presentation, pull a single concept out of his fedora, and have the client eating out of his hand. From the 60s to the 90s, big splashy ad campaigns reigned. Did they work? Sure, many did, especially when advertisers threw a ton of money behind them. Especially the funny ones. But then along came YouTube. Now any bloke with a slightly warped sense of humor, a flip camera and a log-in can generate as much buzz as a multi-million dollar Super Bowl ad. That can give marketers heartburn as they re-think how to allocate their budgets.

Consumers Rule   Marketing used to be easier. You created a product, you advertised, it you sold it. Back then, it didn’t matter much who bought it as long as enough bought it. It didn’t matter how it was made as long as it didn’t break before it got home. It didn’t matter if the means to the end were sustainable as long as the bottom line was. But in today’s world, consumers’ peer-to-peer influence on your top line is unprecedented.  What they don’t like, they don’t buy and they don’t hesitate to yelp their reasons why. And, by the way, most of those consumers controlling the cash are women. Well, three-quarters of it anyway, even when spending is down.

What Now?

The future is now and you can’t afford to wait. Visionary companies are searching for new ways to step up their marketing and engage new consumers using new technology. Here are five things you should consider.    

Consumer Centricity   Make your business revolve around the consumer not the other way around. Your product is not the centerpiece of your brand. Your customer using your product is.

Know Your Consumer Inside and Out   To build your marketing around your consumers, you need reliable, actionable intel. Research tools like Roberts Worldview Assessment, for example, provide psychological insights into various consumers’ values and behaviors and direction on how to engage them.

Total Consumer Engagement   Every consumer touch point becomes part of the brand. From the product itself to the ways the consumer can learn about it and interact with it to the retail or etail service experience.  Your internal and external support teams need to understand that entire experience and make sure every part of it delivers your brand effectively.

Brand Response    Before the Internet, tracking results was a bit sketchy. But with online analytics, the guessing is over. That’s why all advertising roads need to lead to the Internet. We call it Brand Response, the blend of brand ads to get attention, direct response to drive the action and online interactivity to make the sale. Great advertising and accountability ARE possible.

Change the House Rules   Look at your corporate culture. Are there any fresh marketing ideas being generated? If not, a more holistic process and a less silo’d organization can help. Sharing best practices to engage consumers should be a full team effort. 

LAGUNA BEACH, CA – “FORTUNE Brainstorm Green” is probably the number one environmental business conference in the world. A host of top CEOs, heads of NGOs, and a variety of consultants, private equity investors, venture capitalists and journalists descend upon the spectacular Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel each April — this was my third annual event — to examine the state of green biz.

There was still optimism in the room on April 4-6, but with a strong dash of reality check. As in, many of these guys are not making the returns they expected by now, and a lot of them have tens if not hundreds of millions invested in “Greentech” companies. That said, they still seem confident that their investments will ultimately pan out, even without federal energy legislation.

Many of the firms represented are major, well-established corporations who seem to be making sincere and in many cases effective efforts to operate sustainably. It is impressive that more and more major companies are adding the title “Chief Sustainability Officer” to the C-Suite, as CSOs from dozens of firms were on the attendee roster.

Not surprisingly, a dominant underlying theme was that unless they’re good business, sustainable policies won’t pass muster with management or shareholders. “The key is cheaper. Sustainability is nice but it’s not the driver,” observed Bill Joy, a founder of Sun Microsystems, now a partner and leading greentech investor with the ubiquitous Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins. This sentiment was echoed throughout the conference by various speakers in sessions ranging from “The Future of Climate Policy,” with Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp and James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy; to “Sustainable Seafood, It’s Not A Fish Story” featuring Greenpeace USA Executive Director Phil Radford and Bumble Bee Foods CEO Chris Lischewski, among many more over two and a half days of speeches, round table discussions, networking and even entertainment.

None other than the Allman Brothers and Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell performed with his band, although he was not just the musical interlude. Leavell has written no less than four significant books about the environment, his latest being Growing A Better America, which examines how we can balance population and business growth with the need to offer everybody clean air, water, plentiful food and adequate natural, open land.

A session of particular interest to me was “Urban Green,” which aired out the tremendous population explosion expected in major cities by 2050 and what we can do to keep some semblance of green in the face of crowding and gridlock. “We expect 80 percent of the world’s population to be city dwellers by 2050,” said legendary architect, urban planner and sustainability expert William McDonough. “Beijing will double in size within five years from 20 to 40 million. How do we provide sewage plants? How do we give everyone the basics of clean air, fresh water and adequate food?”

Laura Turner Seydel, Trustee of the Turner Foundation and yes, daughter of Ted, said Atlanta has become a model of the sustainable city. “It takes a concerted effort from government, business and non-profits. Atlanta received matching funds from Coca-Cola and the Turner Foundation, got Atlanta airport to recycle, now the whole city recycles.” This was echoed by Cindy Ortega, Senior Vice President of Energy and Environmental Services for MGM Resorts, developer of Las Vegas’ City Center, the country’s largest LEED-certified development. “Green is being embraced by corporate America, because waste of natural resources is not good for the bottom line.” The overall thrust was that with skyrocketing urban population growth, only a true partnership of city government, NGOs and local corporations will be able to maintain a sustainable way of life.

Security was tight at this green conference, and rightly so, as luminaries such as Richard Branson, former Siebel Systems founder/CEO Tom Siebel (who is now doing a green startup, C3), Wal-Mart EVP Leslie Dach and NRDC President Frances Beinecke, among many others, appeared as speakers and panelists. Even Theodore Roosevelt IV (yes he does look like his great great grandfather) was on hand, he is Chairman of Barclays Capital Cleantech Initiative.

The conference closed with motivational words from pro surfer, fitness expert and all-around-athlete Laird Hamilton, who is otherwise known as the “Force of Nature,” also the title of his book, which chronicles the way to a truly healthy lifestyle (no you won’t look like Laird even if you follow the diet and exercise plan). When asked how the average person can follow his program and achieve true fitness, Hamilton reminded us that the old tenet, “no pain, no gain” is really the answer. “My food often tastes like crap, the workouts are hard, they hurt. But you have to push yourself to the next level if you want to improve your results. Potato chips in, potato chips out … you need to eat jet fuel to do these workouts.”

Indeed, our path to a truly sustainable future will also follow his edict: no pain, no gain. It won’t be easy, it won’t be cheap, and it will take sacrifice on everyone’s part. The conference left me with a feeling that we do have the talent, capital, entrepreneurship, science and dedication necessary to make our society — and the developing world — a sustainable environment with adequate natural resources and energy to meet the needs of all citizens.

Here’s hoping I’m right…

My company has been firmly planted in the green space since our birth in 2003.  We were not first, but we were pretty early.  A lot has changed.

We have made our way through the rapid change by studying the culture.  We produce content that is relevant to the various sustainability movements (there are multiple) taking shape around us.  Here are some examples of the type of content we produce to understand it all:

• Biennial Green Language Survey of 100 Print Ads
• Pop-Culture Lens studies exploring the meaning of sustainability in our culture
• Our soaplabs design, test and prove innovative strategies with very trusting clients
• An upcoming report that breaks emerging marketing trends into 6 narratives

Our latest green language study will be available (for free) later this month (if you’d like an advance copy, let us know here).  As a sneak peak, here is one of the findings: 

Green is no longer a driving element in print ads.

As we write the report, I’m reminded of a talk I gave at the LOHAS Forum in 2007.  The talk was called A Beautiful Ambiguity: Language, LOHAS and the Mainstream (If you’d like to download the nostalgic pdf, go here).  I remember saying to the crowd, "once green is mainstream our competitive advantage is gone."  My point was that we were all hyper focused on green as THE thing.  And at the time it was THE thing.  But at some point the rest of the market was going to catch up with us, and we would need to evolve.  That time has come.

I used pop-culture to illustrate the point and show how trends evolve.  For example, when bubblegum pop music starts using hardcore street language (or gang signs), the street must change how it represents itself – it’s no longer dangerous. It pushes it further.  When the skinny suburban kid steals your language, urban kids don’t want it back.  Or, more contemporarily, when your mom comes home in skinny jeans, things must change.  This is the way culture evolves – change happens in the margins, mainstream absorbs and the margin pushes it further. 

Fringe – Margin – New Fringe – New Margin – New New Fringe – New New Margin…and so on.

And throughout this continuous cycle of cultural evolution, the entire system becomes more and more complex.  It’s not unlike energy efficiency. The first 40% of efficiency (perhaps sustainability in general) was the easiest.  But by now we have changed the light bulbs and weatherized the house.  The next 40% will get progressively more complex and challenging.  It will require new technologies, processes, innovations and ways to measure impact. 

Similarly, sustainability marketing  programs need to engage consumers in new ways.  They need to be measured in new ways.  They must push the dialog further.  The programs that companies design to embody LOHAS are growing in complexity out of necessity.  I think this is a good thing.  It is part of cultural evolution.  One of the projects that graduated our soaplabs was More Than Promote - a strategy that measures marketing by its corporate, civic and cultural impact. 

If we’re not innovative in how we fundamentally approach marketing, we end up looking like a modern version of Vanilla Ice sampling Vanilla Ice sampling Queen. 

By John "Ice Ice Baby" Rooks

Spending over $300+ billion dollars annually, the demographic called LOHAS, continues to change the way marketers conceptualize the 4 P's of marketing. LOHAS is Lifestyles of health and sustainability. The consumer group identifying themselves with LOHAS are a megatrend not to be overlooked or taken for granted. Consumers have traditionally expected governments to take the lead in protecting the environment, but now they are looking more to the corporate world to take action, rather than individuals. Increasingly, Asians want economic growth but believe it should be achieved through greener industry Market research conducted in 2010 revealed an untapped multi-billion dollar demand from households with significant purchasing power that relates to exactly this. THE LOHAS Asia and NMI research on China, for example, questioned 1,000 consumers across the five cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Dalian, Guangzhou and Shanghai. Results showed that 88% agreed that it is important for companies to be mindful of their impact on society. With China having overtaken Japan as the world’s second-biggest economy, the LOHAS consumer demand is on the rise month by month and there is an urgency for the market to respond. Asia isn’t regarded as a pioneer on the CSR front, but in recent years, action on CSR is growing amongst Asian firms. In Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, and more recently Singapore and Thailand, stock exchanges are playing an increasing role in raising the visibility of businesses and encouraging reporting on sustainability. However, despite years of education on the issue, businesses across Asia still carry the common misperceptions of CSR being equivalent to philanthropy, which is what you do with your profits while CSR is what how you go about making those profits. Given the real concern from knowledgeable consumers, this also means companies have to deliver more than just lip-service and stand true to what they claim. Governments are also helping to develop CSR practices, such as in Singapore with the Green Mark Scheme for buildings as a key initiative to promote sustainability in the building sector. The Singapore Government is also pursuing sustainable fashion as another sector, and launching new subsidies for industry training.
 
Results of LOHAS Market Research 2010
In January 2010 LOHAS Asia partnered with The Natural Marketing Institute in pioneering LOHAS Consumer Research in Asia-Pacific, conducting an online survey across 10 countries. More than 18,000 consumers were surveyed, to provide in-depth research on the LOHAS consumer and marketplace across the following countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Some of the highlights show very real desire for sustainably-made products in Asia, with Indonesia, China and India leading the way. As always, we have to look closely at China and India as the biggest market opportunities, and here we have high numbers seeking sustainably-manufactured products. This is a clear message and opportunity to manufacturers but even more encouraging, they will buy them if they are more available and most are willing to pay a 20% price premium for them. By contrast, there are significantly fewer consumers willing to pay a 20% premium in Korea, Singapore and Australia. But, these are rich economies, so the market opportunity per share point is higher and worth chasing. In one of the clearest messages from this research, consumers in Asia-Pacific are prepared to boycott brands they feel are over-packaged. This behaviour contrasts with experience in other markets in the West, where the likelihood of over-packaging actually damaging purchases is low. This is an area where the biggest markets show the most extreme reaction to the question, with China, Indonesia and India leading the way with a strong likelihood to boycott over-packaged brands.

In April 2010, LOHAS Asia Pte. Ltd launched The HUB, a business network for companies and service providers in tune with LOHASian values to network, market and collaborate in new opportunities and joint-ventures.

Contributed by Liz Smailes, Communications Director, Asia Pacific LOHAS

Just what the world needs – another design award.  

The More Than Promote® MashUp Awards give sustainability-minded graphic designers and green marketing experts a chance to take on their favorite (or least favorite) brands and give them a More Than Promote makeover.  Its a graphic and strategic design challange for green marketers.

More Than Promote campaigns are designed to have the following metrics:

Corporate Value – Classic ROI for ad campaigns - like sales, traffic, brand recall.  Exsisting campaigns likely already have this (or better), but you can change them.

Civic Value – Add a positive benefit that the promotion itself offers to the community or the planet in general.  Pick up garbage, paints bike lanes, financial literacy, cures cancer.  Make sure the Civic impact in on brand, or at least moves the brand forward.

Cultural Value – Add a progressive positive dialogue through the promotion that moves our culture forward.  What culture change is needed to sustain the brand and the planet?

Here's the task:  Pick a brand campaign and mash it up with the values created through More Than Promote.  Have fun with it.  What MORE can promotion do?

Here are a few MashedUp examples to get your started:

NetFlix uses their two-way envelopes allowing soldiers and their family's to communicate for free with positive messages of support and pride.

Corporate: Branding

Civic: Free communication for troops and families.

Cultural: Positive messages of support.

DunkinDonuts launches a promotion to promote and support home composting. Pick up your bag of used coffee grounds at your local DD's.

Corporate: Store foot traffic, less waste disposal.

Civic: Increase composting, waste steam reduction.

Cultural: Introduce composting language and action to target demo.

Now it’s your turn.  Submit your own promotion image(s) and strategy MashUps for the 2011 MTP Mashup Awards.  Winners will be announced at this year's LOHAS Conference in June in Boulder Colorado.

You can find more about the strategy, the rules and submission guides right here.

Think of the Gulf oil spill only a couple thousand miles longer.  A loosely formed mass of plastic paraphernalia stretches from the beaches of Santa Monica, all the way across the Pacific Ocean, the other end of this unwieldy but deadly man made monster reaching the eastern Chinese coast.  Thus the subject of a one-day conference at the Annenberg House entitled "The TED Great Pacific Garbage Patch" put on by the folks at the Plastic Pollution Coalition. 

You may have heard of the TED conference, as in, Technology Entertainment and Design.  This was an offshoot of the main TED event, limited to only 80 participants but available free online, as thousands of visitors watched at least part of the proceedings.

A variety of speakers and presentations were all geared around answering the critical question, "how can we live the same lives of convenience without plastics?"  Makes you think of the old joke from <em>The Graduate</em> when Mrs. Robinson's husband is counseling Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) about his future.  "Plastics my boy" was at the time a visionary recommendation.  And how the worldwide manufacturing industry has embraced those words:  over four decades of plastics addiction has caused a true unnatural disaster in our oceans.  That's what this conference tried to address. 

Suja Lowenthal, vice mayor of Long Beach, allocates millions of dollars annually to clear junk -- mostly plastic -- from the city's beaches.  She also documented the tens of millions that must be spent annually by Long Beach and Los Angeles to just pick up the plastic trash discarded by citizens.  Loventhal thinks plastics abuse is indicative of a deeper societal problem.   "We have convinced emerging societies that a sign of wealth, progress and their becoming truly middle class is usage of disposables, bottles, utensils and packaging."   We need to teach the masses to be eco-responsible, not just consumers.  Obvious perhaps, but a challenge that will probably take decades to achieve.

Monica Wilson wants to end the use of incinerators to dispose of trash.  When you think about it, incinerators seem on the surface to be a good idea as a huge pile of waste is reduced to a handful of ash.  Unfortunately, the process releases dioxins, PCBs and other chemicals into the air.  Just think about melting all that plastic, surely there are dangerous fumes released in the process.  Wilson's Global Alliance for Incineration Alternatives is trying to spread the word about the dangers of incineration worldwide.

Ken Cook heads Environmental Working Group,  which believes that plastic pollution begins in the womb.  They found BPA in nine of ten newborns tested per year, among other birth defects they claim are affected by the plastics waste we passively ingest.

Andy Keller is otherwise known as The Plastic Bag Monster. His company, ChicoBag, creates sustainable bags you can carry in your pocket.  He also showed up in costume to spoof the pervasiveness of plastic bags in our daily life.  The point was made:  we can get by without, and the only way to do so will be to end single-use plastics.

<img alt="2010-11-10-BagMonsterTedx.jpg" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2010-11-10-BagMonsterTedx.jpg" width="333" height="500" />
Photo taken by Nels Israelson November 4-7 2010

To that end, a sea change (if I may use a bad pun) will never happen without getting business on board.  Patrick McKenney has a plan for this:  bioplastics, which use biopolymers instead of polymers.  Industrial composting is another idea that needs critical mass to make an impact.  "Plastic product owners don't want to invest in R&D to retool their manufacturing," explained McKenney. The only way we can make this happen is consumer pull-through, which will occur only if end use customers complain about plastic packaging and products and vote with their pocketbooks.  Andy Behar is also encouraging business to move away from plastics through his "As You Sow" organization, which consults with corporations to increase their accountability.  They serve as a policing body to ensure companies are in compliance with water and toxins regulations.  They also use shareholder advocacy and the financial markets to catalyze positive change within publicly held companies.

To incentivize all this, TED XPrize honcho Ferris Thompson proposed a $10 million prize to the inventor who creates a commercial solution to cleaning up plastic polymer pollution and basically reinvents plastic as we know it.  Although the TED XPrize qualifications are extensive, this appears to be a working model to spur innovation.

Van Jones, former environmental adviser to the Obama administration, suggests this is more of a socio-economic problem than we'd like to admit.  "Higher income levels allow choices," he explained.  "Cheaper products are often the most dangerous.  Poor people suffer the most both in production and usage of plastic packaging and products."

<img alt="2010-11-10-VanJones.jpg" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2010-11-10-VanJones.jpg" width="500" height="375" />
Photo taken by Nels Israelson November 4-7 2010

Indeed, one of the best goody bags ever included non-plastic lip balm from Organic Essence; a resuable bamboo utensils set that can replace plastic ones from To-Go Ware;  a reusable sandwich bag from Graze Organic, and a glass straw from Glass Dharma.  All packaged in a very handy lightweight fold-up shopping bag/backpack provided by ChicoBag.   I call out the names of these products for a reason:  we need to buy them to support the plastics reduction concept.  If we don't go out of our way to eliminate unnecessary plastics from our daily lives, we sure can't expect the general public to do so. Also noteworthy is a new juice vending kiosk machine by Ecowell.  I  guzzled some super healthy, stunningly tasty fruit juice from this totally sustainable, no-waste system.  Even Ecowell's press kit is made from all recycled material.

We heard from David de Rothschild, who built the Plastiki, an ocean-going boat made from plastic water bottles and spent four months sailing it across the Pacific.  He did this to raise awareness about the plastic pollution problem, quite effectively I might add.

Beth Terry is one of the most genuine "do not only as I say, but as I do" activists out there.  She is living a life without plastic, and going to extreme lengths to do so.  She literally laid out all of her plastics for the year on stage.   This included mostly items for her cat, packaging from a gift, and prescription bottles.    As an ex-accountant, when she mentioned she quantified her plastic consumption on a spreadsheet, it struck a chord.  If we all took these extreme measures, maybe we'd understand just how much plastic we go through annually.   Check out this all-important resource at <a href="http://www.fakeplasticfish.com" target="_hplink">www.fakeplasticfish.com</a> to gain insight on plastic alternatives.
 
Other important speakers too numerous to mention all gave moving accounts of their work to help save the Pacific Ocean.  Also noteworthy were performances by artists and musicians, tied into the subject matter.  Several photographers and mixed media artists have done great works including photography of sea debris entitled "Drifters" by Georgia State professor Pam Longobardi  -- dedicated to cleaning up the plastic waste in our oceans.
 
Any negatives about The TED Great Pacific Garbage Patch?  Only that sometimes I feel we are preaching to a large choir.  I have seen the pilgrims and they are us.  That's well and good, but somehow we have to sell the general public on what we are doing.  Otherwise, even if all of the participants in this conference never use a shred of plastic for the remainder of their lives, not much will be gained to clean up the Pacific Ocean.  We've got to get the trickle-down effect to make this all worthwhile.

The Outdoor Industry Association (OIA, home to such brands as Adidas, Levi’s, and Nike), recently launched its benchmarking Eco Index worldwide, hoping to cement it (and itself) as the leading sustainability measurement tool for apparel and more. In fact, this group clearly has its sights set on taking this tool beyond its own industry boundaries to others seeking better understanding of a green marketing strategy.

Although the site is gaining momentum while still in beta, it is not moving fast enough for some. The folks at Timberland have a competing rating system called the Green Index they launched in 2007, complete with a snazzy website and social media-friendly branding. Getting end purchasers to recognize and use the index is crucial. I discussed this with Tom De Blasis, Global Design Director for Nike Soccer, while he was on a road trip recently. He observed ”the third party nature of the Eco Index can cut through the corporate noise and terminology clutter that has lead to consumer confusion.”

The products within the OIA are diverse, from footwear to filters for water, all aimed at getting us out from behind our desks and into the great outdoors. But when you dig deeper into this toolset, you can see how it could be applied to a number of different industries.

I asked Kim Coupounas about it. She’s the Chief Sustainability Officer of GoLite, past chairman of the OIA board, and a current member of OIA’s Eco Working Group, which launched the tool. Coupounas explained “the Eco Index is completely open-source and available for use by all companies, not just those in the outdoor industry. While it’s rooted in the outdoor industry, it has the ability to be applied within most other industries and sectors.”

While companies can score points for fairly dubious “improvements” – Levi’s gets points for telling me to wash my jeans in cold water to save energy (duh) – the majority of the categories for scoring points are environmentally solid. For many companies, the Eco Index will become a serious motivational tool, applicable to everyone from the CEO to the unpaid intern. Dan Marriner, a designer for Element Skateboards, commented, “for companies that have been performing well in terms of environmental sustainability, the Eco Index is a positive motivation to continue fine tuning the way products are made. For others it is a kick in the pants that will either motivate them, or separate them from an increasingly conscious market.”

But the version 1.0 of the Eco Index falls short is one major area, when looking at the human rights aspect of our supply chains. As we all know, you measure what you want to improve. The Eco Index is the best collaborative effort I’ve seen to date that measures eco-related areas ranging from land use intensity to how the chemistry of the products interacts with human beings. But it falls short of measuring additional impacts on the humans involved in the production process.

If one defines true sustainability as having components related to profit, planet, and people, then the Eco Index is well on its way. For the next version of the Eco Index, I’d love to see the human rights impact better measured, perhaps by marrying it to an existing system such as Transfair USA’s Fair Trade certification or an updated version of OIA’s own Fair Labor measurement system. Then we could truly call this index “sustainable” for the profit, planet, and people.

How do you define “sustainability” in your industry?

In my time at LOHAS I have been to a lot of green events. A few years ago there were only a handful of events to choose from and it was a bit of a close circle. However now it seems that green and sustainably oriented events are popping up everywhere. How does one know which are solid and which are just flashes in the pan? I am putting together my travel schedule and like you have to be selective as to where to put my energy and travel budget.

Here is a list of events I have either been to or have heard about that make my list and are organized by month:

September

The International Ecotourism Conference (Sept 8-10 Portland, OR)
The event for the ecoutourism industry that brings a global attendee base.  Eventhough the ecotourism industry is a small section of the overall tourism industry, it is an excellent place to learn what is happening in the space and who’s who. I have not been to this event and have always wanted to and this year is my chance. I look forward to it. Yours truly will be speaking on the future of sustainability trends and the ROI of green travel. Should be fun!

Opportunity Green  (Sept 22-24th Los Angeles Center Studios, CA) – This is their 3rd event and is very green business and design oriented. The speakers are primarily big business with some cutting edge entrepreneurs in the mix. Design conversations range from buildings to automobiles to fashion and the blend of people here is good. The event is really the only national oriented event I know of in LA that is green oriented and it has the LA look and feel. I feel you need to come to this event with a bit of a strategic game plan and set up some meetings to make the most of this event. You can also hear some interesting speakers and chat them up at the cocktail receptions and meals which are quite nice.

West Coast Green (Sept 30-Oct 2nd, San Francisco, CA)
The green building conference for the west coast featuring speakers such as Bill McDonough and an exhibit area of 300. I have not been to the event but I hear great things and if you are in the green building and design market you should go to this or Greenbuild (see below). 

October

Green Spa Network (Oct 3-7, Avon CO)
The Green Spa Network has come from those in the spa industry that are seeking to reclaim the world of wellness from the clutches of pampering and luxury. GSN is a membership organization and looking to get those in the spa world to recognize sustainable product creation and spa properties. This will be their second year convening and are still in infancy but are moving fast and furious to make headway into the spa world. Those in the spa world who truly want to engage green practices should definitely attend this event. 

SoCap (Oct 4-6th, San Francisco, CA)
Honestly, I have not been to SoCap yet and am looking forward to my inauguration to the event this year. I have only heard good things about this event. It appears to have a Silicon Valley type vibe from those that attend from its free form programming and type of people who are there. A great event for start ups and investors looking to match values in socially responsible businesses.

Expo East (Oct 13-16th Boston, MA) 
These are great to get a pulse of the natural products industry. Expo East in the fall is on the east coast (hence the name) and is much smaller than the mega sized Expo West held in the spring (and in Anaheim)  I like Expo East because it is smaller and you can walk the floor without the onslaught of people that Expo West has. You can have conversations in depth at Expo East that are a bit more challenging at West.  Typically the executive teams are at the shows the first few days so if you want to meet top brass you need to schedule meetings or come by booths at the beginning of the shows.  There is also no need to buy meals as only a quick stroll through the exhibit spaces can fill a stomach. Be careful about trying everything you see as sometimes food mixing may not agree with you. I found that out the hard way. Urp!

Bioneers (Oct 14-18 San Rafael, CA)
Bioneers is the gathering of what seems like all the activists, free spirits and dark greenies of California who want to learn about ecology, social justice and indigenous wisdom. It is a public/consumer event so expect to encounter some interesting characters. The general speakers are quite remarkable as they come from all over the globe and the audience can get pretty fired up on issues. They do talk about some of the more difficult issues society faces but I really like this event because the speakers challenge us to question things and help understand some of the issues people don't see in conventional media. If you can't get to the main event there are a few locations that have smaller gatherings and live video feeds into the larger event but they do not capture the energy and the other activities that happen there. As you walk through the crowded parking lot try counting how many hybrids you see or the bumper sticker slogans that have some activist slogan. I don't know which is the larger of the two.

Green Biz Innovation Forum (Oct 19-20th San Francisco, CA)
I have not been to this event but anything that Joel Makeower and his Greener World Media team does I back. They always seem to have the ability to get top speakers and relevant content that makes the event special. I have heard great things from those that have attended and really like the format.  Joel always seems to be on the cutting edge of what’s what in the green business world.

Social Venture Network (Oct 21-24th, Long Branch, NJ)
SVN is a membership organization and has an open door conference in the fall and a members only event in the spring. The members are successful social entrepreneurs such as Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s, Jeffrey Hollander of Seventh Generation and Priya Haji of World of Good. I really like this event as it brings a lot of good and experienced minds together. The matra of this event is bonding and there are men’s and women’s circle meetings to promote this. Expect a lot of hugs and soul sharing which is a good thing to do for us all. Because of the intimacy some of the members feel among peers and get heated in conversations they feel important to them that I see more often here than other events. It is refreshing  especially after seeing many other events that stick to the talking heads format.  The event provides plenty of times to have conversations with members and provide opportunities for mentorship for start ups. Some of these conversations have resulted in future board members and even investment for startups. 

Greenfestivals (Oct 23-24th DC / Nov 6-7 San Francisco, CA)
The Green America Green Festivals as some of the most well attended green consumer events I have attended. Each has a very local focus for the vendors but make sure you go to the speaker sessions because they have outstanding speakers from all over to come and grace the audience with their perspectives. Big hitters such as Deepak Chopra, Dr. Weil, Paul Stamets and a few other TED talk types present and you cant beat the ticket price for a front row seat. I have not been to the DC Greenfest and hear that each of the events reflect the vibe and culture of each city. The SF Greenfest rocks and is packed with all kinds of great booths and events. If you go get ready to be emersed in the dark green side of San Fran - free hugs, poetry, dreadlock and all. Green America is not doing their Green Business Conference this year that typically is right before their San Francisco Greenfest. Instead they have developed a green business pavilion within the San Fran Greenfest that will have business oriented talks. If you have not been to a Greenfestival I highly recommend them as they embody a variety of aspects that LOHAS does – organics, alternative therapies, personal development and social justice elements.

Net Impact (Oct 28-30th, Ann Arbor, MI)
Another event I have heard great things about but have never attended. It is primarily focused on CSR and brings together students and large corporations to openly discuss issues. It is also a great recruiting ground for companies seeking new green talent from recent graduates. The event brings together over 2500 people and has workshops and discussion groups to get down and dirty on complex issues. Their keynote speakers are solid with Majora Carter, Jeffery Hollander and Bill McDonough.

SRI In the Rockies (Nov 18-21 San Antonio, TX)
Anyone who is a financial planner or interested in socially responsible investment nitty gritty must put this event on their calendar. This is a blend of financial jargon and social justice and clean tech orientation. About 800 people attend the event from all over the world and is typically in a mountain setting. Being in San Antonio this year is a stretch.  it is a packed schedule for the most part but they do make time for long networking hikes and excursions . I have seen speakers ranging from Jane Goodall and David Bornstein to Calvert and Domini fund managers at the event. It is a great place to understand how to unravel the complexities of financial issues and know what mutual funds are actually doing as they relate to socially responsible investing. They throw a great evening party and many are not afraid to show off their dance moves.
 
Greenbuild (Nov 17-19th Chicago, IL)
The mother of green building products and originated from the USGBC this is the event for anyone interested or involved in the green building sector. The exhibit area is about 1000 booths and attracts about 25-30,000 attendees from all over the world. The green building industry has really picked up and does not look likely to slow down. I like this event a lot because of the creative energy efficiency exhibits and speakers.

Investors’ Circle (Nov 10-12th Washington, DC)
A membership organization of over 150 angel investors who are looking for solid socially responsible companies to invest in as a group. They have funnelled over $134M into 200 companies addressing social and environmental issues. A great place for LOHAS oriented start ups to present who are seeking seed capital. There is an application process with an extensive screening but nothing too overloading.  The event focuses on vetting good seed capital candidates for an investor audience and mixes in some good quality speakers sucha as Acumen and Ashoka. If you are an investor or seeking funding from a good values base source check out Investor’s Circle.

ISPA Conference & Expo  (Nov 15-18, Washington, DC)
The spa association where everyone in the spa world congregates - green and conventional. If you attend you can see there is a strong emphasis from many about sustainability than ever before but there are still those brands that have their share of green washing along those who just don’t care. Regardless, anyone who is interested in the spa world and creating spa products should attend to understand the trends in the industry. LOHAS has a strong foothold in the wellness and beauty industry and it is a good place to learn macro trends and spa operation techniques. This is probably the most well groomed attendee base I have seen which I have no trouble surrounding myself with.

Spring/Summer

LOHAS Regional Events (April TBD, NYC, LA, Atlanta, Minneapolis)
Taking the LOHAS conference on a bit of a roadshow and working to get some momentum build in these areas. Its tough to go to all these events so we have decided to try to make it easier by providing single day events. Stay tuned for more details!

BALLE (June 15-17th Bellingham, WA)
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies celebrates local businesses and local orientation. There are a lot of local loyalists at the event and mostly smaller and mid size companies, non profits and academia. But the conversations are lively and some really interesting networking. A lot of cross over with speakers from the Greenfests and SVN groups. I like the workshops and the networking here. The production of the event is low key as the focus is on the content and type of people who attend which is really nice.

LOHAS (June 22-24th Boulder, CO)
Of course I have to put this one on the calendar as I think EVERYONE should consider this one. Well...maybe not everyone. We have about 5-600 people attend who are business executives, thought leaders, academia and enterpreneurs. As much as many equate LOHAS with the converted dark greens of the world the event is set up to not be an 'Us' and 'Them' atmosphere. Rather we welcome all who are interested in understanding LOHAS and how it applies the them personally and professionally. We set up plenty of networking opportunities and workshops to provide tangible takeaways. To see some of the videos from previous LOHAS sessions visit our LOHAS YouTube page. We work hard to get a solid program together with a great attendee base. If you have any recommendations or tweaks I'd love to hear from you.

These are only a few of the many that are out there and more to come. I truly feel that any conference you attend is what you make of it and how you prepare ahead of time setting up meetings, scheduling and follow up. With that said, good luck with your planning and hope to see you at one of these events. If you have other events you feel should be added I would love to hear about them. Please share!


 

While companies have always engaged in philanthropy, when American Express began raising money for the Statue of Liberty restoration 25 years ago, engaging consumers directly in the fundraising process through a transactional connection was unique. Since then, cause branding has become increasingly prevalent though the benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are sometimes difficult to quantify. One way companies derive Calculated Intangible Value (CIV) is by comparing their three year profits to that of competitors with similar tangible assets.

For Paul Herman of HIP (Human Impact + Profit) Investor, there are more precise measures, and many examples of companies that solve problems and serve human needs experiencing better revenue and tax positions, and lower costs of operation, raising capital and issuing stock. Examples include Toyota’s assent to number one automaker by capitalizing on a new market with the highly profitable Prius, Liberty Property Trust spending 2% more on LEED conpliance reaping 30 – 40% operating cost decreases, Walgreens tax breaks and lower operating costs from installing solar panels on 100 stores, and Burt’s Bees acquisition by Clorox for almost $1 billion. Finally, Herman points to Interface Flor’s re-branding around sustainability resulting in a billion dollar market cap and higher PE ratio than competitors.

Concurrently, companies like Mattel, once profitable based on what Herman calls “the China price”, are seeing their sales and stock plummet while “HIP price” products are increasingly popular and profitable. The furniture company Herman Miller, for example, charges premium prices while investing in sourcing sustainable materials, leading to enviable profit margins.

Nike views corporate responsibility as a catalyst for growth and innovation, concentrating efforts on improving conditions in factories, designing for a better world, achieving climate neutrality and unleashing potential through sports. They call the return on these integrated CSR programs “ROI2”. Youth focused community efforts using sports to inspire social change have obvious benefits for Nike by creating future loyal consumers. Nike has also reduced manufacturing waste by 45% since 1998, in part through closed-loop systems, with vendors receiving back waste materials from the shoe-making process to recycle into new materials for Nike.

PR Week and the marketing firm Barkley released a survey quantifying the positive effects of corporate philanthropic activities. According to their results, 72% of consumers have purchased a brand because it supports a cause they believe in. Corporations report positive PR (65.3%), an increase in sales (26.7%) and an enhanced relationship with target demographics (52%) as a result of cause marketing. 56% of companies also report heightened staff morale and retention and 14.7% cite improved recruitment of quality candidates.

According to Barkley CEO, Mike Swenson, program effectiveness is measurable through cause marketing sales (events with product sales involved), cause event visibility (runs, walks, etc.), and cause branding traction (programs that define the company). In 1995, Barkley’s own client Lee jeans, looking to take advantage of trends toward casual Fridays and more casual workplace dress codes, and improve perception of the Lee brand among 24- 49 year-old women, started Lee National Denim Day benefiting breast cancer research. Brand tracking studies report 60% of women have a more favorable impression of Lee and 33% are more likely to purchase the brand based on its sponsorship of Lee National Denim Day. Further, women aware of the sponsorship are more likely to view Lee as a fashionable brand. Swenson also points to the Dove Self Esteem campaign repositioning a commodity product into a brand with a clear point of differentiation.

Other companies, World of Good for example, successfully established entire brands around CSR practices. The 3 ½ year-old company sells international, fair-trade style sourced hand crafts online and through strong partnerships with retailers like Whole Foods. With 300% annual growth, World of Good appeals to traditional venture capitalists and serves as an example of marrying positive impact with bottom line profitability.

According to another Barkely survey, growing evidence shows that cause branding also positively effects Generation X and Y stock purchases. For companies courting consumers and investors in their 20’s and 30’s, CSR is now an important decision point. At the same time, employees looking to find more meaning in their work are demanding that companies get more involved in problem solving and have a positive social, environmental or health impact.

No longer just something a company has to do for PR purposes, corporate social responsibility has become a significant differentiator for consumers, employees, investors and shareholders. CSR companies are simultaneously investing in the greater good and their own good, resulting in an increase in multiple bottom lines.
 

by Terrie Lupberger

Having attended the LOHAS conference, I was inspired by the varied interest groups from many fields and disciplines– business, finance, filmmaking, academia, etc., - who share a common purpose.  The aim of this group is no less than to be change agents for sustainable living and a healthier planet.

I, too, share this vision, and am particularly interested in what the holders of this vision will need in order to bring the vision to reality.

Do we have the competencies needed to bring this vision to a tipping point?  What do we need to learn in order to be successful?  And, how do we develop the needed competencies when traditional learning is not responding to the demands of our times.  In fact, what and how we are learning, as individuals and as organizations, is part of the problem, not the solution.

The same way that many in our Western Culture believe that more material possessions will make us happy, many believe that more information will bring us wisdom.  Traditional learning practices as modeled in our public education systems and corporate training programs have developed in a frantic pursuit for more information, relating with the world as if all we can do is to explain it in order to use it, in a gruesomely utilitarian fashion. 

I believe that what is needed for us to make our vision a reality are learning practices that include and transcend our concern for conceptual knowledge and effective action while also illuminating the paths toward wisdom and effective living. 

For lack of a better phrase at the moment, let’s call this path towards wisdom Personal Transformation.  And, while that word has been around since the ‘70s and somehow abused, misunderstood and perhaps now trivialized, what it aims for is a shift in the way an individual or organization sees and therefore takes action in their world. 

Transformational learning is a shift in our coherence that allows the emergence of a new observer, one who is able to design new solutions to old problems, who embraces the mystery of life, aware of the power and limits of conceptual learning, and capable of foreseeing new actions and producing unprecedented results, while caring equally for personal and collective concerns. 

LOHAS leaders and visionaries need learning practices that increase our capacity to successfully navigate the complexities of our times and transcend the traditions of thinking that have not only shaped our present commonsense, but that also have a powerful hold on our current approaches to business, education, politics, economics, the environment, etc.

Economist Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate, once said:  “So the question is, do corporate executives, providing they stay within the law, have responsibilities . . . other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible?  And my answer is, no, they do not.”

 How do leaders for a more sustainable world address this kind of thinking? 

The Dalai Lama writes in the foreword of the book, Essential Spirituality, by Roger Walsh, “In our increasing materialistic world, we are driven by a seemingly insatiable desire for power and possessions.  Yet in this vain striving, we wander ever further from inner peace and mental happiness.  Despite our pleasant material surroundings, many people today experience dissatisfaction, fear, anxiety, and a sense of insecurity.  There seems to be something lacking within our hearts.”

How do leaders for a more sustainable world deal with the fear and anxiety…in themselves and also with those they lead?

William Greider presents in his book, The Soul of Capitalism, another consequence of the traditional knowing and learning:  “Think of the paradox as enormous and without precedent in history:  a fabulously wealthy nation in which plentiful abundance may also impoverish our lives.”  And he adds, “Our situation is unique—learning how to live amid endless plenty and, ironically, how to live well in spite of it.”

 How does the LOHAS leader listen and speak to their marketplace to inspire them towards the same vision of sustainability?

I do not believe the answers to these and other important questions will be found in our traditional learning or commonsense. I believe the answers partly lie in our ability to take the Hero’s Journey as Joseph Campbell wrote about.  We have to be willing to go through our own ‘dark night of the soul’ - to examine the limitations of our own thinking and the consequences thereof.  We need to honestly look at our own incompetencies, presuppositions, and beliefs and assess how they limit our ability to take action.  We need to build awareness of our ‘own awareness’ and be willing to throw out that which is no longer serving us. 

The task for the LOHAS leader then is to acknowledge and embrace the difficulties we face, to build our emotional competencies so we can live our passion and ambitions and fears and resignations with honesty, openness, courage and acceptance.  We must build our capacity to live with uncertainty and determination.  We must develop our ability to listen and speak to those who do not share our vision without superiority or condemnation.  We must develop our capacity to deal with the complexity of moving our vision forward in a world with differing agendas, values, ethics, awareness, etc.   Our call is no less than to engage in transformational learning to develop both the wisdom and courage to build alternative, successful models for sustainability in all domains of life – starting with ourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Terrie Lupberger is a partner in the Newfield Network which offers worldwide learning programs to individuals and organizations that integrate, strengthen, uplift and transform the human experience.  To contact the author, please visit www.newfieldnetwork.com.

A year ago, our media and marketing firm planted a company garden to deepen our understanding of the challenges facing our clients who produce organic food.

The concept was simple. Our employees worked the soil, split the bounty and shared with people in need; we foot the bill for seeds, land use and wages for others to help tend the garden when we were away. Within months of planting 70 hills of potatoes, we’d experienced the spectrum of gardening, from crop failure (one small bowl of peas) to abundance (400 pounds of tomatoes).

We’re not alone. Gardens in many forms are sprouting up and grabbing attention nationwide at such companies as Aveda, Google, PepsiCo, Kohl’s, Toyota and Best Buy – a trend the New York Times recently dubbed “The Rise of Company Gardens.” The Wall Street Journal called company veggie plots morale builders. HR Executive named our garden among the “Best HR Ideas for 2010.”

The reasons behind the gardens range from the practical (healthy food for the cafeteria) to the philanthropic (donations for food shelves) to advocacy (educating a new generation of locavores). Our garden quickly became one of or most popular benefits, leading us to believe that if more workers nationwide had access to healthy food grown at work, we could all reap reduced healthcare costs.

Ditch your pinstripes and don some gardening gloves today. Join us and other companies with gardens planted at the convergence of food, health and corporate social responsibility. If we can do it, so can you. All you need to start your own employer garden are seeds, dirt and some gumption.

Not a bad deal, lets go through it again.

Earn $40,000.

Pay taxes on all $40,000.

Put $5000 into Roth IRA, after tax.

$5000 grows to $75,000 over your lifetime.

Take original $5000 out – taxes were paid when that money was earned. Take $70,000 tax-free. Nothing due on earnings.

In a regular IRA you put $5000, before taxes, from earnings into same investments in IRA, grows to same $75,000 over time. Then pay taxes on all $75,000 when taking it out of IRA.

Pay taxes now on $5,000 and nothing later,

$70,000 distribution – tax-free.

Or,

Pay no taxes now on $5000 and pay taxes on full $75,000 taxable distribution.

Seems fairly straight forward, especially if you think taxes will be the same or possibly higher when you retire.

Here is where it gets interesting.

A Roth IRA has earnings limitations. If you earn over $120,000 as a

single person, or over $177,000 as a married person, you can not make a Roth contribution. Tough luck.

But wait……..

Making an employee contribution into a Roth ‘bucket’ in your 401(k) has no earnings limitation. You can put full employee contribution into the Roth ‘bucket’ not just $5,000.

If you earn $200,000, are over age 50, you can put $22,000 into the Roth 401(k) at work.

In 25 years that $22,000, earning 6% grows to $94421.16. The $22,000 had taxes paid when earned, but the growth $72,421.16 is never subject to taxes.

I’d call that the best kept secret out there. Whether you run a sustainable green business, green health spa, yoga business or are just interested in corporate sustainability, a Roth option in your 401(k) will probably make sense.

This is an example and anyone interested in further information should contact a registered financial advisor, or ask about a Social(k) 401(k) /  403(b) at work.