The Beyond 2020 Sustainability Unconference returns for its 3rd edition! Please mark your calendar:

• Thursday, May 6th, 5 to 8 pm
• KEEN, 926 NW 13th Ave. #210, Portland, Oregon

We thank KEEN for their generosity as hosts and sponsors of the 3rd Beyond 2020 Sustainability Unconference. Beth Meredith and Eric Storm of CreateTheGoodLife.org will hold the space again, walking us through the event. Semiosis Communications and Rose City Mortgage Specialists remain the principal sponsors of Beyond 2020 (with myself and Renee Spears the principal organizers).

Principal sponsors

As at previous iterations of Beyond 2020, we’ll create the agenda at the beginning of the event. We do need help setting the theme for this 3rd Beyond 2020. What specific problem should we discuss solving? Share your thoughts at PortlandBeyond2020.com (Comments section). We’ll post the event theme and registration in the next few days.

Of course, in addition to lots of great company and conversation, we’ll have nibbles, beer, and wine for you, the participant.

We look forward to keeping you up to date in the run-up to the event. Subscribe to updates from PortlandBeyond2020.com, follow Beyond 2020 on Twitter, or join the Beyond 2020 mailing list. In the meantime, please visit PortlandBeyond2020.com for more information about the unconference and its past editions. And, let your friends and colleagues know about the unconference.

See you on May 6th

Sincerely,

Peter Korchnak and Renee Spears

Rainy days like today make me pensive. This Theodore Roosevelt quote keeps bouncing around my mind:

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

And they don’t care what you know until they know what you care about.

It’s the difference between what you do and who you are. The difference between the what and the how, and the why.

It’s the difference between the expert and the thought leader. The difference between calling yourself any of these (or a guru), and showing what issues you wish to solve or what causes you support.

It’s the difference between marketing copy and human conversation. Between telling and showing. Between saying and doing. A tweet and a handshake.

It’s the difference between touting your accomplishments and accomplishing. (Christine Arena reported in The High-Purpose Company that the most responsible companies spend more time doing good than promoting how good they were.)

I’m still learning. What about you?

What do you care about?

I spent part of last weekend catching up on my eco-labels. Several articles and a virtual conference nicely cleared up a cloudy Sunday afternoon and, at least partly, my persistent doubts about marketing with eco-labels.

Do eco-labels matter?

Yes and no.

It’s no news there are too many eco-labels polluting the market landscape, leading many consumers to question their validity or altogether give up on them in confusion. Particularly corporate labels seem to proliferate, even though they’re the least credible.

At the same time, eco-labels seem to work: a Fast Company blog post recently reported on an EPA study, which found that “a green label encourages people to shift their purchases toward environmentally-friendly products”. Many companies use eco-labels with success.

Independent or accredited third-party labels, particularly ones issued by government or nonprofit agencies, appear to be most effective and trusted (think Energy Star, USDA Organic, or LEED). In general, the longer a label has been around and the greater its reach, the better.

Where, then, is the line? What works? What doesn’t? What’s an eco-labeling company to do? I turned for answers to Sustainable Life Media’s virtual conference “Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash”, which took place on January 14th and is now available on demand.*

Eco-labels are for “Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash”

If you wish to tout your company’s or your product’s environmental horn, you will face a number of issues. The biggest one: consumers’ growing interest in green(er) products coupled with deep mistrust in green claims resulting from the revelations of greenwashing (by your competitors, of course).

High-level regulation to help guide your efforts does exist, albeit only in the form of guidelines:

1. Green Guides by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission
2. ISO 14063 by the International Organization for Standardization
3. “Framework for Responsible Environmental Marketing Communications” by the International Chamber of Commerce

Eco-labels offer a communication shortcut. Leaving aside the confusion alluded to above, if you wish to use eco-labels you need to ask the following into consideration:

• What does the label claim? Make only specific claims that you can substantiate with verifiable data. In addition, only use labels that relate to the product’s primary benefits and its value proposition. Less is more.

• Whose label is it? First, note that only a few product categories boast labels with significant market share: food, cleaning products, paper/forest products, appliances, and cosmetics/personal care products. Though you can certainly explore a number of alternatives, your best bet is to use a label that comes from an independent third party your customers recognize and can trust. EcoLabelling.org is a good place to start your research.

• What are your customers looking for? Different people prefer different green attributes and focus on different impacts. Know who wants to hear what and say it (adhering to the previous two points, of course). As with any message, however, “green is what customers say it is”.

In its 9 presentations, “Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash” went into much greater detail than the quick summary I have offered here. If you’re interested in going more in depth, check it out – all the sessions are available on demand.

What’s your experience with eco-labels? Are you using them now or considering using them in the future? Why / why not?

***

Image credits: coffee bee and A Hermida

* Disclosure: Sustainable Life Media granted me a free press pass for the “Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash” event – regular registration for the online seminar series was $295.

While this website is my online base, I maintain outposts on three other social media sites: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. I invite you to connect with me on any or all of these sites to share the online experience.

LinkedIn

The better LinkedIn gets, the more I get out of it. Though progress has been slow, I particularly appreciate the relatively recent improvements in the site search function.

I ask and more frequently answer questions in the Answers or Groups sections. I also use LinkedIn to find and learn more about people I’m interested in connecting with. And LinkedIn serves as my online resume. My tweets and blog posts appear on my profile.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn!

Twitter

I’ve had a love-and-hate relationship with Twitter for the longest time; I think I’m finding the middle ground and considering it a great acquaintance, if not quite a friend. As much as the Twitter evangelists insist that the tool is for conversation, I have found that doing that is like conversing with someone at a cocktail party by shouting at them across a crowded room.

For me, Twitter’s greatest utility to be in permission-based broadcasting of relevant content to a group of self-selected followers. I (re)tweet or click-through links to articles or blog posts, including mine; ask or answer survey-type questions about various topics; or share/consume various updates. I have connected Twitter account to both my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.

Follow me on Twitter!

Facebook

Until recently, my only activity on Facebook was application-enabled automatic cross-posting of entries from this site and tweets. I have now discovered the utility — and addictiveness — of Facebook  for deepening my existing relationships and adding an additional dimension to “all the links and work stuff”, as a friend put it.

I am increasingly using Facebook to keep in touch with people about non-work related stuff.

Friend me on Facebook!

Other points of contact

See my Contact page for other ways to get in touch with me. If you’d like to discuss how to use these tools in your sustainable marketing mix, let me know! I look forward to connecting with you or hearing from you.

Best,

Peter

If books were nails, Christine Arena’s The High-Purpose Company would be one in the the coffin of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as commonly understood and debated. No company is perfect and no company will ever be - it’s companies that make their purpose invaluable to them and take responsibility for their actions that are truly responsible.

Arena dubs such companies “high-purpose companies”: they “exist to serve fundamental human needs” that are “deeply rooted throughout society” and they “are driven by purpose to the extent where purpose becomes a dominant force for corporate performance and development”. In other words, we had better evaluate a company’s corporate responsibility on its purpose and satisfaction of real needs, rather than any moral criteria.

After she retires the principal myths of CSR, chiefly that it’s about doing the right thing and about making the world a better place, Arena outlines a sequence for building high-purpose companies. This high-purpose progression begins with seeing the big picture and facing the truth about your company (realization stage); continues through setting intent and purpose (integration stage); and peaks with transcending, including, and anchoring the high purpose within your company (transformation stage). The book offers a number of detailed case studies of companies in each step of the progression.

It is the anchored high-purpose companies that are truly authentic and responsible: they “reflect their purpose inside and outside. They don’t have to fabricate elaborate means of conveying a responsible image for themselves because that image is intrinsic. It is who they are and what they are.” Corporate responsibility means authenticity. Corporate responsibility means your company’s higher purpose is “the sole source of identity, stability, and energy”. Corporate responsibility means being the change you, as a company, want to see in the world.

If I were to find a paragraph to summarize the book’s larger point, it would be this one (passage edited for length, emphasis mine):

“The corporate responsibility debate is passé. [W]e as a society would do well to move past the “good company” versus “bad company” labels because those labels aren’t particularly useful or constructive. They don’t help us to learn anything new or achieve anything worthwhile. [C]orporate responsibility is not a narrow philanthropic area. Corporate responsibility means taking responsibility for a company’s past, present, and future behavior. It means being responsive to conditions that affect a business, rather than remaining impervious to them. [I]t is not about charity. It is about change. And coping with change, requires not just a conscience, but also a level of competence.”

Amen to that.

***

Christine Arena, The High-Purpose Company: The Truly Responsible (and Highly Profitable) Firms That Are Changing Business Now, New York: Collins, 2007.