When I say green bank, what comes to mind? For most banks, that largely means customers being offered paperless statements, perhaps some recycled paper use, and they call it a day. Capital Pacific Bank, a recent BEST  award winner for its sustainability practices, clearly understands that this can go much deeper, having a positive impact on not only the environment, but the employees of the bank and the community it serves. 

What does this look like, specifically? 

It starts with Capital Pacific’s focus on local businesses, especially non profits, among them many area independent and private schools. According to Capital Pacific’s Susan Lucke, this means that they go far beyond just delivering the usual financial services, taking time to get to understand their unique challenges as non profits, then doing things like connecting them with resources and people that have nothing to do with the bank, all in the service of investing in and supporting the local community. 

Capital Pacific Bank employees volunteer at the Rebuilding Center

Capital Pacific’s green initiative’s also mean direct actions such as reducing 93% of their computer energy use via transitioning to Thin Client style computing and a commitment fully transitioning all paper files to an electronic system. They extended their efforts to their neighbors when they worked with the property manager of the Fox Tower high rise to establish a building wide composting service program. Now that’s commendable!

On the human side of the sustainability equation, Capital Pacific connects with local organizations to develop internship programs for at risk youth, and their staff donates more than 350 hours to local non profits in 2011. They recently volunteered at the Rebuilding Center, pulling nails out of reclaimed wood, enabling it to be used in new buildings. 2012 sees them deepening their volunteering, making sure there are more opportunities for individuals to participate in a way that fits the demands of their jobs. 

Understanding that what happens outside their bank is as important as in, Capital Pacific Bank covers 100% of employee mass transit costs, and beyond the now common 100% carbon offsetting, it is helping rivers thrive in the Pacific Northwest via Water Restoration Certificates from Bonneville Environmental Foundation. 

Capital Pacific Bank clearly gets that in these days where people are seeking a more equitable, local relation with their bank, and don’t hesitate to move their money, they should play an integral role in benefitting the community they serve, and the environment we live in.

I don’t know about you, but I hear about a lot of flashy green packaging innovations. But what about when reality hits the curb? Often, there’s a breakdown between the hype and what actually happens, which more often then not is nothing, as these greenovations don’t work in the existing system.

Not so with Dell, who as you’ll hear in the 9th installment of GreenSmith Sessions, has gone to extensive lengths to insure that its packaging, no matter how innovative, passes the curbside test. Bamboo, mushrooms, sugarcane bagasse, rice hulls and wheat chaff are all being investigated, with bamboo now having 2 years of successful market use in laptop packaging. 

I learned a lot from the personable Oliver Campbell, Director of Packaging at Dell. Dell’s thinking around packaging goes by criteria that was generated as a result of conversations with their customers. 3C as they call it:

Cube - How can we make it smaller?

Content - What more sustainable materials can we use?

Curb - Can it be sustainably disposed of at the curbside?

Dell is both going through FTC certification and its own testing to be sure that bamboo packaging can compatibly enter the recycling stream. They’ve actually found that bamboo fiber can improve the quality of recycled paper! Though they’re waiting until FTC approval to be able to officially state this. Mushroom packaging can be mulched, or simply tossed in the green brush collection bin. Dell itself has a composter on site to process the prototype packaging they’re working on.

Dell innovates not for novelty’s sake, but for both environmental benefit and financial sense. Basically, how can they do a better job helping their customers be greener, while saving green of the monetary kind? It’s a wise way to conduct business,  for anybody.

Listen in below as we talk about Campbell's uniquely appropriate background leading up to his current positon, Dell’s heroic product reclamation goals set in conjunction with the EPA, and fatherhood. You can also grab this podcast for later listening or subscribe to the whole GreenSmith Sessions series via iTunes.

If you have any questions for Oliver, or comments about practical green packaging innovation you’re coming across/working on, please share below.

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Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

Play or save >> GreenSmith Sessions #9 Oliver Campbell

Image credit: George Dearing

Something amazing happened in my neighborhood recently, that has lessons for your business. And it has to do with cookies. 

Portland, as you may know, is among the top cities in America for bicycling, with the highest percentage of people commuting daily by bike. In the Ladd’s Circle neighborhood, a clash of epic proportions was brewing.

The circular hub of the neighborhood serves as a juncture point to several well trafficked bike friendly routes across the city, used by thousands daily. It is the perfect shape to lean in and buzz right through the stop signs at the outside of the circle and zip around the curves, on your way. I know nothing of that, of course! 

This however makes it at times problematic for pedestrians. The neighborhood association is making a big stink, and had decided to take an “action” to nag/force bicyclists to stop. Talk had been made of needing to radically alter the engineering of the streets, change signage, etc. All quite costly.

Then, along comes an unexpected solution: cookies!

Yes, Joe Hand decided to take matters in his own hands, doing what he called, “an experiment in kindness.” He put up signage, and handed out a cookie to all bicyclists who chose to stop. And by most indications, it was a huge success. 

Hand humorously summed it up by saying a potential solution would be to, “Replace every controversial stop sign with a fresh chocolate chip cookie dispenser. Now, obviously this will be delicious. Sadly this is not a long term solution."

As trivial and silly as this may sound, his goal with this and other experiments is one that we as business leaders would do well to aim for as well: “Address controversial issues with unconventional methods to put fresh perspective on the situation.”

I couldn’t agree more with this thinking.

How many times have you come up against obstacles, both in and outside your company, where things reached an impasse, and trying to force people to change their behavior/thinking just wasn’t working? Absolutely, things can be achieved by declaration. But as we all know, those are ultimately less durable, and loaded with the lack of efficiency that comes with underlying resentment and resistance. 

So my question to you is, how can your business use unconventional thinking to create a desirable result for all parties involved? Try setting down your usual tactics, presumptions and biases, and opening to a different way of interacting. Sometimes, the surprise alone of an unexpected approach is enough to get people out of their patterned responses, and closer to resolution.

 I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, below.

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Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

Image Credit: Neighborhood Notes

Image Credit: roboppy, Flickr Creative Commons

Sometimes the most forward looking among us come from the most unlikely places.  I’m neck deep in the sustainable business realm, and delight in discovering  and sharing new sources of inspiration and innovation with my audiences. And the most powerful mover of green ideological mountains and catalyst for action I’ve seen in 2011? A rancher from Kansas. Bryan Welch.

Oh and he happens to also publish Mother Earth News, Utne Reader, Natural Home, and, um, Gas Engine magazine. 

This former newspaper man turned publisher has had an eclectic background that has helped him develop a broad perspective that doesn’t have the blinders on when it comes to thinking about how living and doing business sustainably can happen.

He recently wrote a book called Beautiful & Abundant: Building The New World We Want, that eschews the dramatic eco alarm sounding and finger wagging that many books and people take, while at the same time not avoiding thinking about and looking at the challenges we face. 

He has a clear framework for how to shape what you do and how you communicate it, that could very well be the glue that sticks all the disparate, supposedly separate groups of people in the world, together, in common cause.

For GreenSmith Sessions #8, I had the good fortune to spend just over 30 minutes in frank conversation with Welch about everything from how many environmentalists are stymieing mass scale progress on the important issues at hand, to his desire to see Earth Day and green business become obsolete concepts in the near future. Do stay tuned to the last five minutes, where he deftly explains that how he sees drastic population reduction being achieved, not by government mandates of natural/manmade disasters, but in an organic fair, just, desirable fashion. 

 This Session was full of gems, here’s two of the best:

 “It seems to me illogical that the concept of sustainability would be controversial. Who does not want clean air and clean water? Who does not want, 3 or 4 generations from now, a wonderful place for human beings to live on this planet? Yet somehow we’ve allowed sustainability to be pigeonholed as this wonky, tribal fascination for people who wear Birkenstocks and burn Patchouli. It’s wrong, it’s destructive, and it’s absurd.”

“People who are utterly cut off from the prosperity that we enjoy in the developed world don’t have the time, resources or motivation to think about sustainability. We alienate them if we pose solutions or pursue visions that exclude them, and we can’t afford to exclude or alienate them, because we need a very broad consensus across the planet, or the whole notion of human sustainability is unattainable.”

Listen in, and let's talk about it, below! 

Remember, you can play the podcast here, right click and save it, or get it free from iTunes, where you can also subscribe to get all future GreenSmith Sessions.

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Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

CLick here to play/save GreenSmith Sessions #8 Bryan Welch

Recently I read a piece by Tara Hunt, talking about how she was warned while in preparation for her TEDx presentation that some presenters might be a hard act to follow. She delved into how she’d decided to toss aside this fear, in favor of being that tough act to follow. Being the one to set the bar high. Being the one to not concern herself with how she compared to others. 

It got me thinking. How do green companies suffer from this comparison paralysis?

Is it time for us to stop thinking of ourselves as creators of an alternative to the mainstream option, and decide, or in many cases recognize that we are the mainstream option? And if not, just set down that need to be validated by the popular kids on the block. Or better yet, quit being resentful of others not changing as fast as you’d want, and do it yourself!

For so long, green businesses have defined themselves using the status quo, big name options as a barometer of how valid they were. Or perhaps they've identified themselves by how in opposition they were to that supposedly big bad company. 

People, stop. It’s a waste of your time. And time to forge your own road, focusing on your product being a superior experience, giving superior results, delighting in unexpected ways, as compared to any product or service in the neighborhood of what your creating. 

It’s time to kick ass, and make money. While making a positive impact. And if you are, be that shining example to others, that it’s ok to succeed, on a big scale, with integrity. In fact I’m saying it here: If you’re playing small and think it's somehow more noble to be so, you’re not serious about making a meaningful impact. Drop the old stories, and write a new one.

What’s your take on this? Are you ready? Are you doing it now? 

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

I had a conversation with a newer green apparel company founder recently that really irked me. Not necessarily about them specifically, but the choices they and other green businesses make. And I wanted to get your input on it. 

Put yourself in this situation: 

I bought a shirt from them online, and when it arrived, the black ink design was largely swallowed by the dark brown recycled fabric shirt. I suggested they consider white or light blue ink to contrast better. Their response: Any other colors at this point wouldn’t be as environmentally friendly. They were firmly committed to the greenest option. I can respect that. And yet to me, that means neglecting the overall quality of the product.

I returned the shirt, and got another, this one made from recycled plastic. They later told me the ink will fade, noticeably, in the first few washings. This time the reasoning was that the ink met an obscure sustainable clothing standard, and they were working out finding an ink that bound better to this type of fabric. 

My first suggestion was that they leverage their firm stand on being highly sustainable, and educate the public about the standard they were adhering to. Their response: We’re not actually certified by that standard, it costs too much, and we have to be careful associating our products with that standard. 

This makes no sense. Holding firm to a standard that you can’t claim to have met, that nobody is familiar with, while not knowing if your customers share your fervor, is ridiculous. They should have waited until their product could both meet this self set sustainability standard and offer an equivalent experience to its non green counterparts. Or, just started with a less green but better overall product, being transparent about where they need to improve, enrolling their customers and fans in the process. 

Coincidentally, this week Tom Szaky of Terracycle wrote a rather provocative piece on the post Sunchips compostable bag debacle, and his thoughts match mine when he said, 

 “Green companies need to hear this: Being green is not an excuse to put out an inferior product. Absolutely, aim for the highest sustainability possible in your products. But do not neglect quality, experience, or enjoyment. If you do, you lose, with everybody but the most dedicated green people.”

Putting out products that confirm people’s negative preconceptions about green product quality is a disservice to all other green businesses that pay attention to all aspects of customer experience with their product.

Readers: What’s your take on this? Where can we as green businesses learn from others? What’s important to focus on in 2011, in your opinion?

Image credit: Kalavinka

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

The first six GreenSmith Sessions have spanned the globe, from a CSR thought leader in London to the man giving green blogging a southern accent in Nashville, Tennessee. Today's GreenSmith Session went local. Very local, to the desk next door to me at lively coworking space Tenpod, here in Portland, Oregon. 

With 3 acres of green roofs under his belt, Jason King of TERRA.fluxus has plied his trade from California to Washington, in a wide range of enviroments. Listen in as we discuss everything from the more common than you'd think practice of using chicken coops for testing grounds for avante garde green architecture, to the fact that NYC gets more rain than supposedly rainy Portland, Oregon. Keep an ear out for some interesting perspectives on sustainability, what it means, could mean, and how we could do better.

Hopefully this conversation will, um, plant some seeds in your mind of what you could do in your community, or on your business

I noticed on his blog that he had some DIY resources for green roofing, so I asked for you if he had sites to recommend for you to explore. He had three! 

TERRA.fluxus

Landscape & Urbanism

Vegitecture

Click here to play/save GreenSmith Sessions #7 Jason King

If you have any questions for him, or examples of landscape architecture (or vegitecture as he likes to call it) we would all benefit from knowing about, please feel free to share below. I'll make sure he knows about your questions, seeing as I can lean over and tell him!

Enjoy.

PS You can now subscribe to the GreenSmith Sessions podcast series in iTunes, and download specific episodes here.

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

The funny factor was definitely in effect for GreenSmith Sessions #6, with Jeffrey Davis, a southern fried green blogger from Nashville, Tennessee. In my work as a digital publicist for green businesses, I interact with a lot of blogs and their editors, and Jeffrey definitely brings a different voice to the web. One influenced by his interest in fitness, the environment, and a lively engagement with the world that is uniquely southern. Both gregarious and considerate, he brings green living ideas to the masses with humor, curiosity, and relevance to people’s every day lives. 

 The recent piece Vegetarian Because I Hate Vegetables is a prime example. It leads with:

“I’m not a vegetarian. I experience abundant pleasure in the awesomeness that is animal protein. My wife, however, IS a vegetarian.

Whether you’re a vegetarian, omnivore, or maybe even a cannibal-vore, you must admit that this is one of the most awesome t-shirts in existence.

I love to hear how people arrive at their food paradigms, but vegetarians have some of the most interesting answers.”

Honesty, humor, and thoughtfulness. A great way to reach people. Jeffrey has written for many other people’s blogs, but now leading Eco Snobbery Sucks, he puts front and center his desire to make living a greener, fitter life, and being (or becoming) a greener business something that is not only possible, but doable. And enjoyable. But overall, that it's not an all or nothing proposition, which discourages many.

Building on this, Davis will be rolling out a consulting aspect, specifically geared to help businesses green more effectively, and better communicate it to and connect with their customers. 

I had to ask, having little knowledge of how green and the South (southern US) interact, what life was like for Davis down there. The answers both surprised and amused. 

So have a seat, and get ready for a meaty, funny GreenSmith Sessions. You can also save this podcast for later listening.

Click here to play or save GreenSmith Sessions #6 Jeffrey Davis

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

Do you want to know what the core of all the (human) problems in the world are? Empathy. Empathy, you mean that word tossed around by new age enthusiasts? Not quite. 

Think about how recently you got angry over another person’s actions or words. Or presumed someone or some group couldn’t possibly understand where you’re coming from, so why try? Or better yet, clung forcefully to being right, trying to diminish their point of view in favor of yours?

More often then we’re comfortable admitting, I suspect. 

I had an interesting, inspiring, deep, funny time in GreenSmith Sessions #5 (after post, below) with John Marshall Roberts, a man who describes himself as, “…a renegade social scientist who refused to fit in in the academic world that I came from.”

Roberts is an amalgamation of many things: a one time musician, now deeply versed in psychology, behavioral studies, and how they interest with business. Luckily for us, he’s able to distill it in an engaging, understandable manner, whether presenting at crux points like the Sustainable Brands conference or most recently at TEDx New Zealand (See video at the end of this post)

The problem it seems is pervasive cynicism of that which isn’t like us, no matter our level of development. And it’s not insurmountable. Recognizing cynicism for what it is - undigested pain - is the start to dissolving it and effectively, collectively moving forward. As Roberts said in our interview, when we realize the source of the cynicism, we don’t feel as personally offended, and we have more strategies and choices available for how to deal with them constructively.

However, having good, constructive ideas is one thing, executing them in the real world is another. Listen in as Roberts shares how he and his team have been creating ways to repurpose and give further structure to the concepts of his keystone book, Igniting Inspiration, in a modern, quick bite, media enmeshed society. The results are impressive. (NOTE: As Roberts mentioned in our interview, he's given us a very generous 30% off code for his Igniting Inpiration 101 course, good through December 15th, 2010. It is GSCART)

He and his company World View Learning have also taken what they learned about online learning outside their own projects, working with other organizations to better bring to life the crucial knowledge that businesses, governments and individuals need to know, and make beneficial, durable change more likely.

This was a fascinating GreenSmith Session, I encourage you to listen to the whole thing, you’ll want to keep a notepad nearby. It’s positively full of thoughts to get your mind moving, laughs to loosen you up and leave you hopeful, and many things that will have you wanting to take action, right now. 

Best quote: “If we take that blame away, and throw in the word empathy, which leads to insight, then insight can lead to common vision, which can lead to collaboration, which can lead to actual problem solving.”

For more on what John Marshall Roberts and World View Learning are up to, visit www.johnmarshallroberts.com.

Click here to play GreenSmith Sessions #5 John Marshall Roberts
(To save, right or control+click)

Readers/Listeners: What did you learn from this podcast? Have any questions for John? I’ll make sure he sees them.

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

I don’t know about you, but I thought I knew a fair amount about lighting. CFLs, check. LED, check. Odd designer bulbs, check. LEDs are more efficient than everything else, right? Not so, as I learned in the latest GreenSmith Session with Andre Lucero of Lucero Design, a lighting design & consulting firm out of San Francisco. 

I also learned how those glaring mercury vapor based monsters in streetlights called metal halides have now made the transformation to ceramic metal halides, in tiny sizes, useable even in store displays. And that they’re quite efficient and long lasting.

 Lucero made a surprising, brilliantly simple economic case for businesses using better lighting: Longer life equals less staff time and materials used replacing them. In a store with hundreds or thousands of lights, this makes absolute sense, whether or not you’re convinced of the ecological case for a change in lighting.

Listen in as Lucero gives useful, easily implemented suggestions for both home and business lighting. If you’re looking for a good green lighting company, Lucero suggests B-K Lighting, whose factory is completely off the grid, and its lighting fixtures are made from recyclable materials.

Best quote? When asked about the future of sustainable lighting, Lucero said, “…they might have one that substitutes mayonnaise rather than mercury…”

And do keep an ear out for the Blue Angels!

Listen in and I’d love your comments, additional resources, and questions.

 image via Plumen

Click here to play or save GreenSmith Sessions #4 Andre Lucero

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.