Sustainable Brands 2010 Re-cap, Part 2: Business Trends
To continue with my thoughts, as inspired by Sustainable Brands 2010:
There’s something about the sustainability topic that helps align a businessperson’s personal/human and work values. This point came up repeatedly in conference presentations and during my interviews with sustainability consultants and executives while in Monterey. Though this human/work alignment can’t necessarily “sell” someone on sustainability, it is a “value add” or bonus that keeps people interested in finding more ways to integrate it into business practices.
Most compelling, for me, is the idea of the cross-generational bridging potential of sustainability. Both in terms of corporate executives, for example, finding a sudden reconnection with their teenage kids, and in terms of corporations being able to attract and maintain younger generation employees. It seems a universal truth that the potential for being thought “cool” to your tween or teenage kids is incredibly motivating. From what I heard, sustainability or “green” efforts of any type (water or energy efficiency on down to social cause funding and products sold) are recognized by kids and inspire new levels of connection and conversation on the homefront.
GreenMyParents (GMP) is one organization that embodies this truth for their cause. Jordan Howard, a teenage girl from the Los Angeles area who is a GMP program champion, made a great case at SB2010, as did the GMP video showing interviews with other kids and parents along the same lines. The program inspires entire families toward energy efficiency and purchasing changes by way of pledges from both parents and kids working together. In the process, the kids point out all the things their families can do to use less water, electricity, heating fuel and so on. Not surprisingly, GMP is now developing its “Green My School” program. The idea is powerfully simple for leveraging whole family participation in a fun/competitive way. (I am currently reviewing the Green My Parents book, so stay tuned.)
Another emerging trend at SB2010, and one that Will Sarni, CEO of DOMANI Sustainability Consulting, specifically mentioned when we talked, was that the basic business case for sustainability no longer needs the hard sell. Corporations are on to the more sophisticated questions. Yet, they still very much need guidance on the smartest and most effective ways for their businesses to expand their efforts. (A just published Environmental Leader article about new research seems to confirm this). Along the same lines, leading green business expert/author, Andrew Winston, noted that today’s businesses are no longer waiting for the local or federal governments to pressure them or their suppliers into sustainability. They are seeing opportunity in compliance – which is a point also made very strongly by management academics/authors, Nidumolu, Prahalad and Rangaswami, in a September 2009 Harvard Business Review article, “Why Sustainability is Now the Key Driver of Innovation.”
The Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management Company (MRM), founded by Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba in 2008 may be one good example of an industry seeing compliance as opportunity, and being proactive. I had a great conversation with Panasonic executive David Thompson, who also serves as MRM’s president, about how a Minnesota law, specifically, inspired what is now a national recycling partnership.
Finally, social media was clearly key for many SB2010 representative corporations in how they are communicating with consumers and inspiring sustainability engagement. It is apparent that “social media” is no longer a curiosity or a “for teens only” tool. Consider Ford’s hugely successful Fiesta Movement or the way so many branded social cause efforts now revolve mainly around videos, blogs and Facebook or Twitter campaigns. The effective use of social media seems to be yet another reflection on how sustainability bridges generations, both in terms of consumer connection and in how the younger generations are proving their value to sustainably operating businesses.
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Next up in my SB2010 Re-Cap: Social Justice.
