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A public interest nonprofit released a study implicating the company for using a carcinogenic compound in its dish liquid. Although Seventh Generation had spent years working with its suppliers to eliminate the compound and had reduced it to increasingly lower levels, it never told consumers or stakeholder about its efforts.
"If we had done that and we had been completely transparent about that particular situation, there would have been no story because we would have already communicated that," Hollender said Thursday. "It was a painful lesson to learn. And the fact that we did it right 99 percent of the time doesn't mean that you don't pay the price for the one time you did it wrong."
Hollender joined a group of business leaders last week to talk about transparency and the state of green advertising at a time when charges of greenwash are on the rise and the corporate community is feeling gun-shy over when they should communicate their efforts to walk the green walk.
GreenBiz.com Executive Editor Joel Makower moderated the panel discussion, held during the annual Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) conference in New York last week, and posed the question: How good do companies have to be before they can start a dialogue with the marketplace, even when their efforts can still be considered a work in progress?
"When we think about how we're doing from a sustainability perspective, the answer is lousy," Hollender said. "To be completely honest, when we look at our company, despite the many wonderful things we could talk about, what concerns me the most is almost all of our energy goes into being less bad than other people, rather than being truly good."
Hollender advocated the need for brutal honesty with consumers and stakeholders, even if companies believe they won't care about the information.
Companies must also manage expectations of stakeholders and consumers, keep an open dialogue and try to give them the information they want. For example, Starbucks analyzed its carbon footprint, learned that energy use is responsible for its largest impacts and committed to sourcing a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources, according to Colleen Chapman, a panelist and director of external affairs at the company.
"Actually, we recently doubled our commitment to 50 percent by 2010 but what you'll hear from customers is 'Well, I saw that barista put that milk jug in the trash. Why didn't it go into the recycling bin?'" Chapman said. "I don't know how familiar you are with the complexities of recycling at the municipal level but it's a pretty sticky wicket. At the end of the day, the impact we have on electricity and energy use is so much greater that what we have on recycling, but what the customer sees is recycling."
Context is another tool to help prevent the g-word from entering the conversation. "Green communication is only as good as the context in which it's presented," Makower said.
That goes back to transparency. "If you want to talk about what you're doing good, you've got to be willing to talk about what you're also not doing good," Hollender said. "It's just that simple."
Lucy Shea of Futerra Sustainability Communications was on hand to offer some advice to companies to avoid the greenwash trap. Futerra is working with BSR on a greenwash guide for the U.S. market that examines the top 10 signs of greenwash based on interviews, codes and international guidance.
Here's a preview of the top five signs:
1. Fluffy language, such as words or terms with no clear meaning
2. Green products vs. dirty company, such as efficient light bulbs made in a polluting factory
3. Suggestive pictures, including green images suggesting a (un-justified) green impact, such as flowers blooming from exhaust pipes
4. Irrelevant claims, such as emphasizing a small green attribute when the rest isn't green
5. Best in class, but the rest of the class stinks
The report is scheduled for publication in early 2009. Stay tuned.
And relatively few companies
And relatively few companies seem comfortable talking about all this, preferring to lay low, adopting a strategy of "Let them catch us being good." Those with robust PR machines -- and there are many -- tend to oversimplify ("It isn't easy being green!") or geek out on a lot of enviro-speak that may have little resonance with the typical buyer of, say, laundry detergent.I've attempted to sort through these issues and proffer some paths forward, telling stories of companies that have tried, with varying degrees of success, to traverse these paths. (Faithful readers of this blog will find several familiar tales.) There are nearly 40 short chapters, ideal of those of us with increasingly short attention spans. The book also benefits from the research and analysis of my colleague Cara Pike, one of world’s top social change marketers. At the end of the book is an appendix with insights from the landmark Ecological Roadmap, wholesale lingerie a research project she directed based on the American Values Survey in 2005 and 2007. It provides insight into the consumer mindset that can be helpful in crafting and executing a green economy strategy
Why I stick to Green(er)
I appreciate where Shea is coming from with the five signs. But I have some concerns.
"Best in class, but the rest of the class stinks"
And should a company be labeled a greenwasher for doing their best to green their own product or practice? This is the type of mentality that causes an entire industry to throw their hands in the air and give up.
"Fluffy language, such as words or terms with no clear meaning"
Oh, that's greenwashing? I thought it was called marketing!
And as far as flowers blooming out of a tailpipe? Well, what if that tailpipe is exhausting water? Then it's pretty relevant, isn't it?
Again, I appreciate the efforts to watchdog some of the more misleading green labeling that is out there. But I also think some of these claims are unfair and foster that "greener than thou" attitude which discourages many from ever taking a leap into the fields of green.
If I let myself fall prey to this type of preaching, I might never had made the first step to try to encourage best practices for my totally offensive industry. But, because I made some noise and tried to do my part to make tangible changes, now manufacturers, transporters and other industry suppliers are taking notice!
We just have to be careful about being too oppressive with these types of guidelines. I do agree that in some cases poor labeling and misleading verbiage is unfair to consumers and competitors. But I believe it's best to evaluate the individual business and industry on a case by case basis.
Midori Connolly
http://www.pulsestaging.com
HAVE PETROLUEM COMPANIES GONE GREEN?
HAVE PETROLUEM COMPANIES GONE GREEN?
By Jay Hitz
There are a small number of petroleum producers that are beginning to look at renewable energy/biofuels as a way of both committing to environmentalism but also as a hedge against a changing economic and political landscape. The company that is most visible in this regard has been BP [Ticker: BP]. BP has built quite a profile for themselves as a greener, if not totally green company. While some have called what is being done by the company as “greenwashing” most analysts paint a different picture.
Shell [Ticker: RDS] has also made an equally large investment into biofuels, along with BP, the companies have each committed $1 Billion. Shell’s Chief, Jeroen van der Veer, told Reuters in a March 19 interview that Shell was building the green energy businesses for the long term, and dismissed concerns about the short-term value of the operations to share prices.”It’s more basic than that … 50 years from now, we think about one third (of total energy use) will be from renewables,” he said. “You only build big businesses if you expect the profitability there.”
With Shell’s purely R&D cost/benefit focus and the amount of both companies’ investments it certainly gives lie to the idea that BP is simply indulging in a publicity stunt. In a 2006 interview with German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, BP Chief Lord Browne addressed this assertion directly,
SPIEGEL: BP earns its money primarily from the sale of fossil fuels, which are then burned and pollute the environment. But your advertising refers to BP almost exclusively as “Beyond Petroleum” — to cleaner energy sources beyond petroleum. How can such a company portray itself as an environmentally conscious business?
Browne: Because we simply are. This is a fact, not a ploy. We have put a great deal of store in being environmentally conscious for some time now. We have managed to reduce our internal CO2 consumption, we are investing in alternative energy sources like solar and wind, and we are very active in the development of biofuels.
SPIEGEL: Some see this public emphasis on the green side of BP as a way of diverting attention from a dirty reality.
Browne: I vehemently disagree! You can’t say that you either want oil and gas or a clean environment. There has to be a balance between both sides. Fossil fuels will continue to be a large part of the energy mix in the future, that’s the reality. It will take some time before technologies are available that reduce the importance of oil and gas. This is why the question we must ask is: Can we find an energy mix that affects the environment in a positive way while at the same time guaranteeing a reliable supply? I think we’re doing a great deal to make this happen.
Both companies have shown that their investments are more a pragmatic strategy than a public relations ploy. For many though biofuels and renewable power investment has been thought to be a long-term and speculative with few short-term profitable applications. Small firms that have moved into this sector are often seen as experimental startups that might not move into the black for a decade or more. With oil and gas becoming ever more scarce, a few smaller firms are looking at a greener approach to energy that can find profits in the current market.
One of these companies is Titan Oil and Gas, Inc. [Ticker: TNOG]. The company’s President, Brandon Toth has been looking at alternative energy sources as a way of offsetting a portion of the company’s carbon footprint as well as building in a bulwark for inevitable changes of energy supply and demand. In a phone interview he had some provocative perspectives on the topic. “I think that the narrow-minded way of thinking in regard to energy is getting in the way of innovation. Previous management were following a plan that had worked for companies for years, go and drill a hole and pray that you hit oil. Well in a few instances they hit so much water at the same time that the cost to extract was just prohibitive.
“We took a page out of the Budweiser playbook, in the eighties as aluminum prices were beginning to creep up they started one of the largest recycling companies in the world. BUD was not only saving money on their aluminum bill but also contributing to a cleaner environment. What is it that is on the bumper sticker, Recycle, Reuse and Reduce? We see our way of recovering oil and gas in the same way, in a way we step in others footprints to reduce Titan’s. We see reworking and recompletion as the oil and gas version of those original three R’s. Sure we looked at the BP approach and it looks great for a company of their size. From our point of view though, a small company with no research and development budget, we need something with cash value now, that will can also grow with each year. That’s how we have to approach environmentalism as a country too. I think, theories and a dime won’t buy you a cup of coffee.”
Toth continued, ”I see some advantages in getting involved in leasing not only the mineral rights under the land for energy production but the air above it too. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to put a wind turbine above every pumpjack in the country? If they are on producing food crop farms then they have to be plowed around right now anyway. Why not leverage that for higher profits? Put the turbine right next to the pumpjack and let the thing offset the wells carbon footprint and generate power to be sold into the grid as well.”
“We have leases in Kern County, California; the land in that area is desolate right now but for the pumpjacks. Kern does have sun and wind though, so why not throw solar and wind into the mix, Forbes magazine just named Kern County the number 1 place in the country to build solar. There is money to be made in building a greener company. You know the first 100% wind powered community in the country is in Missouri, not a place thought of as teaming with treehuggers. You think the good folks of Rock Port, Missouri moved to wind power because it was an economic loser?”
The Titan President went on to describe how BP has been using jatropha and camelina, plants that cultivate in poor soil conditions, because of their high oil content and their ability to be grown in arid climates. “These two crops can be grown in places that you just couldn’t grow food crops so the concern about biofuels spiking food prices is not an issue with them. What if we were to put these in on our Kern properties, right now we don’t have the rights to do this, but what if? The land is just sitting there now but it could be used to get us off of foreign oil as well. America needs to be thinking like this.”
Regarding some of the news about T. Boone Pickens’ Plan, “It is good to see someone like T. Boone Pickens say this because it will open people’s eyes a lot more than if I say it. His plan to redirect natural gas for transportation use and making up the difference with wind and solar is a good one. You put that together with using non petroleum fertilizers like biosolids that can grow biofuel crops like camelina or even corn with a much smaller carbon footprint than we are currently doing and you start to see some light at the end of the tunnel. We could use the biosolids in areas like Kern to grow these crops at the same time we are pumping oil and/or gas and generating electricity with wind, solar or both. The crops may not be as profitable as the oil, gas, wind or solar but it makes some money and that contributes to the bottom line. Then as the margins get better we are there first with the supply chain and the sales outlets.”
“Don’t get me wrong we want to make some money off of oil and gas and we will for a long time to come, but we don’t want to be holding the bag when demand drops significantly in a couple decades. Its like this, Nike is the most successful active wear company in the world but as their brand matured they understood that it was important to branch out. Now they own Cole Haan [a high end dress and leisure shoe brand] and Bauer [a hockey equipment company] and they are selling golf clubs too, it’s all the same business in a way and it gives their stockholders value. That is all we are doing is looking at giving our stockholders more for their hard earned money.”
For more information about BP Global log into http://www.bp.com and for more information about Titan Oil and Gas, Inc. log into http://www.titanoilandgas.com and for more information about Shell Global log into http://www.shell.com.