Category Archives: sustainability

Google Search on Sustainability: What’s It All About, Alfie?

For more than a couple of years now I have been keeping very close watch on the results using the search engine, Google, and the search term, sustainability. My project, EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability is designed to be right up there (not yet though) along with Wikipediad on the term, a kind of educational videopedia just for sustainability. My objective is to make sure that on that first page of organic search results it isn’t a who’s who of corporate America with no options to learn about sustainability from the experts, business and civic thought leaders, citizens, teachers, kids. Granted wikipedia is educational, but it is also written by unknown sources and is, as such, heavily processed information, like white bread.

Up to now the biggest organization, other than Wikipedia, showing up on the first page of results was the E.P.A. and the rest were smaller, research and consulting companies, mostly all business to business (BtoB) companies, not consumer (BtoC) companies. That was until this week when Walmart showed up.

Sustainability Defined

I have also been tracking using Google Insights on what they call “rising searches” related to sustainability. Worldwide, since 2004, walmart sustainability is no. 1 in rising search with wikipedia in the no. 2 spot. No other large corporations are on this list. Do the same query for 2009 and the rising searches include SAP (no. 1), Microsoft (no. 4), both beating out environmental sustainability, with Walmart coming in 8th.

Walmart is in middle of pack

For 2009 in the U.S. the “Walmart Sustainability Index” is no. 1 on rising search with the highest number of searches coming from Oregon, Vermont, and Hawaii. It won’t be long before SAP, Microsoft, SAS and other large corporations are what you will see on the first page of Google search. Why is that a problem? Because the single net impression will be that corporations define sustainability and the issues associated with it such as environmental sustainability. They will own the term, sustainability, worldwide. And yes, research shows the kids don’t go beyond that first page and neither do many of us adults. It will contribute heavily to what I called out in my previous blog as valueswashing.

But wait. While keeping my eyes on the big picture something else started to happen this last week. Out of the blue Portland-based sustainability organizations suddenly appeared.

How is that I asked? I emailed several friends in San Francisco and asked them to do a search. Similar results to mine, but no Portland. How about Berkeley?

One can put in to any search a geo parameter, e.g. Portland or a zip code, but in this case no such geo parameter was added. So how did the search engine know I’m Portland and my friend is San Francisco? I cleaned by cache, removed Google cookies. I have recently removed my city from my Google profile. No change so far. My money, though, is on the profile information in Google.

Factoring in your geo location into search is a boon to retailers and other local businesses. I’m just now sure how it’s working and I’m not sure I like a search having a parameter that I don’t choose. But then I’m a librarian at heart (and by education) so this makes me nervous, directing access to a body of information based on profile information.

Does this bother anyone else out there?

In summary, there is a horse race on to own the search term sustainability using organic search. At the same time, search results are starting to vary depending upon the geo you are searching from without you stipulating a geo search parameter. Stay tuned.

Values-washing Sustainability

Yesterday I wrote a long piece on the JustMeans site, where Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) folks hang out, about the ethical implications of a recent publication of the “2010 Best Corporate Citizens” by a group called the CRO*. To give you a taste of the list’s value, Exxon is number 11 in the CRO rankings. (correction it is 51, HP, Intel and General Mills are 1,2 and 3 in the 2010 list, it was no. 11 in the 2009 list)

But CRO is just one of many list makers.

JustMeans member, Madeline Ravich, did an excellent comparison of these lists that are proliferating (the CRO one was not included as it was just published but will be in her next review) to include 2009 Best Corporate Citizens, 2009 Most Ethical Companies, 2009 Newsweek Green Rankings (top 100 companies), 2010 Global 100 by Corporate Knights, and the 2010 Global ESG 100 by RiskMetrics Group. She notes: “It turns out, however, that there is, in fact, NO COMPLETE CONSENSUS. Upon double-checking my work, I figured out that the one company that I had thought made all five lists was, in fact, not mentioned in the Most Ethical Citizens.”

So why is this list making and shaking so important? Well, two reasons, both of them related to what I am calling values-washing.

First, very large corporations know the messaging of social responsibility has become very valuable because customers, especially younger ones, are showing preferences for buying from companies with sustainability related values – environmental and social – as well as those companies with green products. Advertising products as green when they are not is called greenwashing. What I am talking about I will call values-washing. These lists establish credibility for those practicing both green and values-washing.

The lists and buzz that surrounds them create confusion in the marketplace among consumers, as do the many conferences and consortiums targeting the professional class that are themed around sustainability, corporate responsibility and good citizenship.

Recent research from the New Scientist shows that there is a huge gulf (their word) between perception and reality on the part of consumers. They cite as one example the media firm Discovery Communications: its environmental impact, per dollar earned, is almost indistinguishable from TV and movie giant Viacom. Yet Discovery has a stellar green reputation that Viacom does not enjoy – which could be due to Discovery’s content, which includes Animal Planet TV and websites such as TreeHugger. Why does this not surprise me?

It was obvious to me a few months down the road of building EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability, that the sponsors of the site had to be drawn from credible, and as I later discovered, certified ‘for benefit organizations’, or become, unwittingly, a values-washing site.

Secondly, there is the Supreme Court decision that will allow Corporations to throw even more money at creating sustainability shell organizations, and here again lists, conference sponsorships, and awards are all very important to establishing credibility for sustainability-related claims and statements. Organizations representing “high powered boards” are already using the Internet very effectively to steer our citizens searching for information to networks of professionals such as the CRO one above, but also carefully embedded elsewhere in Facebook, even in citizen actions sites such as Care2.

Seeding the Web with free speech

This AMA notice suddenly appeared when I was about to sign a petition for reducing antibiotics in our farm animals on the Care2 site. Note it is not the AMA’s Patient Action Network.

Part of seeding includes establishing groups on magazines such as Ode and Eons, not to mention social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn. There is blogging on Salon.com et. al with quality content coming from the growing ranks of “journalists-turned-PR-Pros.” Seeding the Web is easy and not as expensive as TV or print campaigns and one can be less transparent. How do I know this? Because I have been seeding the Web for EarthSayers.tv and know first hand how easy it is. Because I have years of online marketing experience and know the importance of search. Because research shows the top results or page one of organic results is generally only what we see. This is especially true for children. And because organic listing are more trusted than paid ones. Page one of Google Search Results is the single net impression for sustainability.

We have made placing EarthSayers in the top three results of a search on sustainability our number one objective. We are now in the top for ‘voices of sustainability’ and working towards top ranking on the term, sustainability. We are blogging, twittering, creating groups, and have gone all organic.

Here is the search playing field.

Look at trends for sustainability search, 2009, and you see environmental sustainability and sustainable are top ranked.

But note “rising searches” in the same period finds conferences and consortiums easing out environmental with Walmart in no. 5 position. Worldwide it’s SAP in no. 2 position with Walmart nearly edging out environmental sustainability. Search results on the term, sustainability used to be primarily Wikipedia, the EPA and a variety of B2B research and consulting companies.

As my dad would have said, it’s a horse race. What do you see today? This ranking has appeared only beginning this week:

Perfection

What I hear all the time about our quest for sustainable lifestyles at home and in our work is that “no one is perfect.” But that obscures the fact that individuals at work and in their homes should act ethically. What should be placed front and center on the Web is not perfection, but ethics and the core values that earn our respect and business. Values-washing is easy and it’s not ethical.

This is not to say that the companies referenced above or in the myriad of lists or at business conferences do not have green products or sustainability initiatives. What I am saying is that the landscape of sustainability should not be defined solely by large Corporations or by the folks who remain anonymous on the much-referenced Wikipedia. It is this belief that fueled our investment in EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability, to show value and not be the storyteller, but the medium for the sustainability stories. The Web supports hearing directly from the thought leaders representing all sectors of our economy as well as citizens from all walks of life, but it is a horse race and we need sponsors to keep in the running. For our part at EarthSayers.tv, we are seeking sponsorship from companies that are certified as “for benefit.” We do not want to compromise our values, as our reputation is what “brand” is all about.

Let’s hope I am successful at gaining the financial support of the companies and individuals out there who are true sustainability advocates and sponsor EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability.

Note:

CRO is “Led by its high-powered 16-member Board of Governors and in partnership with the 6,900-company NYSE Euronext, the fast-growing Corporate Responsibility Officers Association…” and unlike the site, Business Ethics, the Magazine of Corporate Responsibility, is not affiliated with any organization offering credibility such as Open MIC which values “diversity and competition, creativity and innovation, openness and transparency.”

Portland: the Most Sustainability Conscious U.S. City

Portland is #1

Since 2004 the growth of the search term on sustainability has been slow and bumpy, but UP. And the state with the highest volume of search? Oregon with Vermont close behind and in 2009 close to closing the gap. And while Eugene outpaces Portland if you look at the period 2004 to the present, Portland outpaces all U.S. cities in 2009. Denver is close behind. It would be a good thing for the cities lagging behind to benefit from the expertise here in Portland from the leaders among all economic sectors. Starting from the bottom of the top ten, cities such as Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Diego, Minneapolis & St. Paul, Seattle-Tacoma, Raleigh-Durham, Boston, and Phoenix would benefit from a transfer of skills and expertise. This is part of the reason EarthSayers.tv has started the Portland Sustainability Leadership Channel (PSLC). We collect already available videos from around YouTube that feature Portland’s leaders. Aggregating the content increases the likelihood of finding Portland’s leader from among the YouTube sea. Its search function is extremely limited. The PSLC is then linked to EarthSayers.tv giving them national and international exposure. We twitter and tweet as well. Both YouTube (#4 on search volume) and twitter (no. 1 on fastest rising by 1250%) are heavily searched terms on Google and, as such, are busy places to reach an audience. While EarthSayers is new and growing, over the last two months there have been over 6,000 visits, with 2,000 of them being unique as visitors return 3x. We also create original content (thanks to filmmaker Barry Heidt) by interviewing leaders. The folks we have interviewed so far include Rob Bennett of the Portland Sustainability Institute, Marcelo Bonta of the Center for Diversity and the Environment, Dennis Wilde of Gerding Edlen Development Company, Mary Vogel, urban designer, of PlanGreen, Willem and Evan of Where Are Your Keys, Peter Bauer of Urban Scout Rewilidng, Lindsey Newkirk of Elysium Events, Kristy Alberty of the National Indian Child Welfare Association, Carl Grimm of Metro, and Kate Miller, consultant, sustainable Lighting.

Sustainability, Climate Change, and Global Warming Trends

What other steps could be taken to promote Portland’s planning and urban design professionals, green building experts, and business owners who have worked hard at the business and civic levels and contributed to Portland’s sustainability reputation? They have helped Portland “turnaround” from the un-development following World War II that Michael Mehaffy has written left Portland “a hollow shell bisected by freeways, invaded by trendy but lifeless buildings and deserted by families heading for the suburbs.” Transformation was in order. Portland attracts people and jobs in a large part because of its sustainability reputation or brand. Now would be a good time to help the many consultants and professionals here in Portland export their skills and expertise to help other communities and in the process rebuild their own businesses clobbered by an economic collapse. We will continue to grow the Portland Sustainability Leadership Channel and seek support from the business community to fund our efforts (Chelsea Peil is the curator of the Channel and is extending invitations to companies with high integrity and a sustainability track record to be channel sponsors at a very modest rate for the branding- chelsea@earthsayers.com), but this is not enough. Let’s put our heads together and come up with more ideas for marketing the talent and brains of sustainability from right here in Portland.

Confessions of a Ms. Twitter

It started when I turned 22.

I graduated from San Francisco State and moved to New York to experience big city lights and the skating rink in Central Park. Because I had worked in a library my junior and senior year, I found a job in less than a week with the General Motors Company in the public relations library. A big part of my job was to read the major newspapers and industry, trade, and business magazines for articles of interest to the company and to the executives on the floor above us. I clipped the most interesting ones and filed them in cabinets that took up an entire room and held a clipping collection going back to the 1930’s. My tweeting history officially started with my clipping job.

But then it was during the Vietnam war and GM made tanks, so I only stayed a short time and moved to Washington, D.C. for work with the National Association for Community Development. I did not have any formal clipping responsibilities, but it had become a habit so I often hand delivered articles to my colleagues. If we could find anyone from back then I’m sure they could be made to remember my clipping habit.

Now it’s the 1980’s and clipping gets easier, more technical, hipper. I’m sure you can see how email became my medium of choice as I continued throughout the years to “clip” and because I worked for high tech companies I was an early emailer, using a peer-to-peer system in 1981 to not only “email” but publish a magazine based on articles submitted electronically. I took my clipping habit to a new level.

In the early 1990’s I hailed the invention of the hyperlink and today rarely send out an email without at least two links as background. This brings me to my twitter habit and why I think I should be nominated as Ms. Twitter but not for having thousands of followers – I’m in the quality not quantity school – or for being one of the first persons to use it – I was fogged in by the limited text thing – or for having millions of tweets, but because I am the most an experienced twitterer and see it as a highly effective educational channel and an antidote to the over-commercialization of the Web.

However, I’m writing less in my blog because of my twittering. I’ve communicated more in 225 tweets then in a multitude of blog articles. I realize that in the blog world it’s all about me: my opinion and my experience mixed with knowledge gleaned from the whitepapers, research, articles and books I am always reading. With my tweets I’m bringing to my audience other voices, the voices of sustainability from our EarthSayers collection of over 400 video programs highlighting the voices of sustainability experts, business and civic leaders, teachers, and citizens from all walks of life. I saw Twitter could be an educational channel, a way to take earthsayers to followers who are interested in and can use the information in their work. I call attention to at least five videos each week. Instead of a book review, I’m tweeting the release of interesting book titles I receive related to sustainability such as the Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest by Ray Troll (Illustrator) and Amy Gulick (Photographer) or TRUE GREEN LIFE IN 100 EVERYDAY WAYS, a National Geographic Book.

I get press releases because of this blog, but it makes more sense to put the news out over Twitter. I’m thinking of posting a new books roundup as part of my blog, but haven’t figured out how to manage the information in a way that makes this easy and timely.

Then there are the new products in categories ranging from cars to health and wellness products and services. Here’s one:
Elm Grove, WI — February 16th, 2010 — Valentin Technologies has given the public its first glimpse of its 170 MPG IngoCar, currently in the stage of development. This release of three teaser sketches shows the five-seat, four door sportwagen, brimming with innovation. Doesn’t it make you feel better that there is someone out there working on 170 MPG. It may be too late given the recent projections on climate change and peak oil, but it is something positive to talk about.

And possibly the most interesting information for the marketing folks are the notices about research that ask important questions such as:

Do the corporations that benefit from environmentally-conscious purchasing and investment choices deserve their green halo?

Last week New Scientist reported on their study finding evidence suggesting that US consumers have little idea about companies’ relative environmental performance, across a wide sweep of businesses. They went on to note there were also some dramatic mismatches between performance and perceptions: Fresh Del Monte Produce, for instance, is one of the greenest companies around in the eyes of the U.S. public. But according to Trucost’s analysis, it has the biggest environmental impact ratio of all the companies in our sample.

Other key findings: (I am taking the time out from the Twitter theme because this is really important information)

·         In general, consumers fail to recognize the large environmental impacts of food and beverage production
·         Some companies are benefiting from underserved “green” reputations – and could be vulnerable to a consumer and investor backlash
·         Others, such as The Coca Cola Company, are getting little public credit for some fairly impressive efforts to protect the environment
·         Greater disclosure of companies’ environmental impacts will help investors and consumers to make choices that promote a green economy
·         Green marketing can work – as our results for General Electric reveal
·         In our sample, Whole Foods Market has the highest consumer “green” perception; Google and eBay the lowest actual environmental impact

It’s hard to get in the twitter flow because it’s a lot like taking on a bird as a pet. Certain equipment is needed to make things comfortable for yourself and the bird, but most troublesome is the daily feeding requirement. Fortunately there are tools out there to manage and schedule tweets so it turns out to be less trouble than a bird because you don’t really have to do it every day. And, because people use searches and alerts to find those on Twitter by subject matter, in my case, sustainability, you add followers at a regular pace and amass people and organizations with mutual interests from around the world.

So, yes, I am a twitterer and have been for years. I highly recommend it to educate and inform like minded people. Next I’ll talk a little bit about why I want to go for the Ms. Google title and THAT goes back to 1975 when….

@earthsayer

Qualities of Sustainability Leaders: The Short List

A short list of five qualities I have found in sustainability leaders and now “findable” in abundance at EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability.

Now that I live and work in a community where there is much more support for sustainability I don’t have to spend as much time doing missionary work on the relevancy of it, but I do talk more about leaders and why sustainability leaders need to ban together and become much more visible, not just on EarthSayers.tv, but, locally in their communities.

At the same time I have been listening to leadership experts who generally don’t reference sustainability (more missionary work needed here), but who have been talking about the qualities of leadership that are lacking and, as Bill George of Harvard and a member of the Board of Exxon Mobile and Goldman Sachs observes; it is a”failure of leadership” that has put our country at risk. Of course it’s not just our country is it? Back to Professor George in a minute.

Based on what two leadership experts are talking about and my own experience reviewing hundreds of speeches and interviews, here is a short list of the qualities I have found in sustainability leaders:

(1) Givers not takers.

Sustainability leaders don’t fit the old model of leadership as detailed in a speech to the Google folks by leadership expert Bill George of Harvard University. On what basis have we been choosing our leaders? “More for charisma, than character, more for style than substance, more for their image than their integrity. Not very authentic people, smart, but not committed, takers rather than givers.” Just give a listen to B Corporation members, there are over 200 of them, as the “B” is “for benefit.” Here are three on EarthSayers, including the cofounder of B Corps, Jay Gilbert.

Jay Coen Gilbert, B Corporation; Jeffrey Hollender, Seventh Generation; Miranda Magagnini, IceStone.

(2) Motivators

Again from Bill George: “Economists told us for many years that people only interested in money. Not motivating people. Today we want to find meaning and significance in our work.

Over 90% of the voices on EarthSayers.tv have motivated me to continue with my work and many in different ways emphasize the significance of taking the first step. I don’ think anyone says this better and more simply than Kip Ward, owner of a completely recycled motel in the beach community of Lincoln City, Oregon. Give a listen to what Kip has to say and my thanks to both Kip and filmmaker, producer Barry Heidt of Lincoln City, Oregon who understand the significance of Earthsayers.tv and produced this for EarthSayers.

(3) Different and Humble

According to Blair Sheppard, dean of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, company recruiters are saying they need a “different kind of person. (They) need a person who is more of a leader, but humble.” I think the collection of leaders on EarthSayers demonstrates how different the sustainability leadership is, you can hear and see it for yourself. Experts and leaders such as the head of Common Cause, Bob Edgar, all say the same thing: “We are all called to be leaders.”

(4) Multi-cultured

Here’s Dean Sheppard. “If you think about the structure of the problems businesses are grappling with today, more and more of it requires that people work effectively with other people, often times from different civilizations from their own. “ It’s not just businesses is it?

Organizations such as the Ecotrust recognize the most innovative indigenous leaders for their efforts to improve conditions in their communities through award programs and public events. There is Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund For Women and then there is the The Goldman Environmental Prize, world’s largest award for grassroots environmentalists.

That’s my short list for now. It will grow as we add more and more sustainability leaders to EarthSayers.tv. Oh wait, I forgot the last one.

(5) Visible.

With the help of Chelsea Peil, community developer, and Barry Heitd we are establishing local offshoots of EarthSayers starting with the Portland Sustainability Leadership Channel and the SeaStar Sustainability Leadership Channel, an ecotourism-focused channel for Lincoln City, Oregon. This is a simple, easy- to- put- into- action model for bringing a focus on the leaders in local communities using YouTube channels and, internationally, through connection to the EarthSayers network. Robert Seireeni in his book, The Gort Cloud, references “The Invisible Force powering today’s most visible Green Brands.” Well, it’s time to get visible.

Green and Unsustainable?

Newsweek Green Rankings Newsweek released its Green Rankings for 2009. It’s important you take a look before you delve into the processed information about the rankings, including mine. So, did you look?

I’m starting to question whether the focus on green, coming as it does from our (U.S.) intense consumer orientation rather than on sustainability and sustainable development, may contribute in a failure to address and make systemic changes, quick enough. Health and economic systems are two examples that our in our face at the moment. Are we rearranging the deck chairs to make everyone comfortable or to save money while it’s business as usual for companies with core products and services that are unsustainable?

Now that you have familiarized yourself with list, here is a summary of the process for coming up with the rankings and the three companies who played key roles. Take the time to check each of them as they may be important resources to gaining a better understanding of the sustainability landscape.

The Newsweek list of environmental rankings is based on three components: environmental impact, Green Policies Score, and reputation score. The scores were derived by three research companies. They are important to know about and to follow if you are a sustainability advocate and earthsayer.

*The ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT SCORE, based on data compiled by Trucost, is a comprehensive and standardized quantitative performance measurement that captures the total cost of all environmental impacts of a corporation’s global operations. Over 700 variables are summarized in the EIS. This figure is normalized against a company’s annual revenues, so that companies of all sizes and industries can be compared. greenhouse gas emissions (including nine gases in total, with carbon dioxide the most important in many cases), water use (including direct, purchased and cooling), solid waste disposed, and acid rain emissions (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ammonia), all normalized by revenue.

*The GREEN POLICIES SCORE, derived from data collected by KLD, reflects an analytical assessment of a company’s environmental policies and performance. Its scoring model captures best-in-class policies, programs and initiatives, as well as regulatory infractions, lawsuits and community impacts, among other indicators. The main elements are: climate change policies and performance, pollution policies and performance, product impacts, environmental stewardship and environmental management.

*The REPUTATION SCORE is based on an opinion survey of corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals, academics and other environmental experts who subscribe to CorporateRegister.com. CEOs or high-ranking officials in all companies on the Newsweek 500 list were also invited to participate. This score was derived from a survey and “score your peers” process.

Sustainability Advocate

Ruth Ann Barrett of EarthSayers.tv, Voices of Sustainability