Do you think the whole ‘green’ thing is just a hyped up scam, probably started by the Chinese? Then you’re probably an absolutistic ‘Navy’ thinker type, trying to understand sustainability through your dichotomous right/wrong, good/evil worldview.
OK, let me back up.
As a sustainability marketer, I don’t have to agree with the skeptics, but it sure helps to understand them a little better. To this end, John Marshall Roberts introduced the room to the 8 Graves Colors of Thinking Types, a colour coded system of segmenting worldviews, from our barely self-aware hunter-gatherer ancestors (Tan) to the fully realized holistic thinkers of tomorrow (Indigo).

Each group views the world differently and will experience a different type of cynicism that defines their green skepticism. Have a look at these four points of view and see if you recognize yourself or anyone you know:

• Navy (Absolutistic)  Life is a test. “Global warming is a scam. It’s ridiculous liberal propaganda. It’s arrogant to think that man could change the climate.”
• Copper (Individualistic) Life is a game. “It’s not my job to take care of the weak, the lazy and the incompetent. They’ve got to suck it up and learn to take care of themselves”
• Jade (Humanistic) One human family. “Earth is a fragile system which is collapsing due to corporate greed.”
• Gold (Systemic) Life is a system. “Why am I always the only grownup in the room? This is exhausting. Maybe I should just say ‘to hell with it’ and get stinking rich before the world collapses”

So as a sustainability marketer, how can you better understand the worldview types you may encounter? In one empathy exercise, we were tasked to write a paragraph from a different coloured point of view from our own, as if they were stuck at a sustainability conference against their will. Then we were asked how we might encourage them to stay engaged. Here is my ‘Copper CEO Complaint’

“I can’t believe I am here wasting my time. The corporate jet can’t fuel up fast enough, this fast-talking new-age freak is really getting on my nerves. Can’t he see the bottom line is really the only judge of any business decision? I’d like to see him try pedaling this rainbow crap to the executive! Maybe I can find some way to write this off.”

To counter, Roberts advises framing the discussion with metaphors and language appropriate for the worldview. Copper thinkers fear being low status or losing control. They are also competitive ‘gamers’. So a response to the diatribe above might go something like this:

“Well, Chief, there are bottom line considerations here that may not be evident at first. You know our customers don’t always think like the executive, and we don’t want our competition getting a head start on this sustainability stuff before we do.”

Here are a few more notes on the four worldview types:

Navy Thinkers:

• Associate the word green with hype, crap, scam, lie,nothing, political propaganda
• Value protecting their families (eg, against toxins)
• Hate China
• Eat a lot of organic foods, yet care less about a company’s  environmental record. It’s about purity

Copper Thinkers:

• Top enviro concerns: population growth, resource scarcity
• “If we don’t do it, they’re gonna, and then where will we be?”
• Like fast cars
• Fair Trade (living wage) is most important in product sustainability

Jade Thinkers

• Judge through networks, friends, 3rd parties
• Likely to change if their kids tell them to
• Fear being selfish, of losing social connection

Gold Thinkers

• Look at processes, not brand names
• Choose the environment over personal comfort
• Gold sees everything as a possibility
• Chameleon like qualities of gold thinkers make them hard to pin down

For more on Roberts Worldview, or their recent study co-authored with the Shelton Group, visit their websites.
http://www.worldviewthinking.com/
http://www.sheltongrp.com/

One can only take so much business info.

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In 2008 I spent the night drinking and playing cards with a one-time NFL football player before crashing on the floor of the bar car. This time around, things have been much more mellow, whether through the ubiquitous vortex of i-devices or the advancement of ad guy age.
Thus, I had time to read ‘Plastics, A Toxic Love Story’ by Susan Freinkel (on my plastic and probably somewhat toxic iPad)

This book answered many of the questions I have always had about plastic. Like where it comes from (waste products from oil production, plant sources, etc) what makes a plastic biodegradable (some petro plastics are, some bio plastics, not) and just how darn much of the stuff we produce (six hundred billion pounds a year!)
As the train ambled through the lush forests if Oregon, Freinkel took me through the history of plastic all the way to modern day developments in polymers generated by microorganisms. Along the way she examines the process and role of recycling, and even travels to the heart of a toy factory in rural China to look at working conditions there. The whole book begins with the author doing an audit of every piece of plastic she touches in a day. Try that yourself and you’ll soon see why this should be required reading for every modern consumer.
So now I am looking at the Amtrak ‘Greenware’ plant cup in a new way. At least the whiskey inside is completely biodegradable.

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The day started too early, but cycling along the False Creek seawall at dawn gave Vancouver a quiet grace I have not seen for a long time. Bus through customs was uneventful, though an extra $10 to put a bike in the hold for a 3 hour trip seems a bit much.
At the Amtrak Station in Seattle, the renovation work that was underway in 2008 does not appear to have advanced significantly. Recycling bins at the ends of the classic train pews have brought some visible attempt at sustainability messaging to the decor, but otherwise it could be a dingy train station from 1976.
Checking in my bike costs another $10, but for that I get a free box. They want me to take off the pedals and undo the handlebars, but without the tools I just mangle it into the box and hope for the best.
So far the bucolic morning ride is the only apparent reward for traveling green.
Update: There is one reward… LEGROOM!

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Sustainable Brands 2011 starts in a week. The train is booked. I’m taking my bike in for a tune-up. I’ve consolidated the results of my survey and have chosen my sessions (with your able assistance, dear readers). I’ve even offered to host a talk on green attitudes at one of the SB’11 ‘Birds of a Feather’ dinner discussions – evening mixers held at local restaurants. My topic: Good Green News / Bad Green News – Which motivates better?

For the rest of the sessions, according to your survey votes, here are some of the talks I should see:

• Inspiring Sustainability in Skeptics
• Managing For Change: Stages of Sustainability Maturity
• Reality Check: Evaluating & Combating Consumer’s Green Fatigue
• Fun and Impact: Making the Connection and
• Dissecting Communications from the Top 10 Green Brands

Networking-wise, most respondents were interested in meeting folks from Disney, Best Buy and Saatchi & Saatchi. But by far the most votes encouraged me to seek out “the (other) freakiest-looking person in the room”. I’m on it.

Best suggestion for non-conference gonzo-journalistic activities: “Strippers. How to live green by wearing less.”

The survey is still posted, so there’s time for a few more entries in the ‘Green California Souvenir’ contest.

Otherwise it’s off to Monterey….

Remember, you can follow all the fun in real-time on my Twitter feed @GreenBriefs.

It’s official. I’m booked to return to the biggest green marketing event in North America – SB’11 in Monterey. But what will I see? Who shall I meet? What toxins should I ingest to effectively anesthetize myself against the unending torrents of sustainable marketing bumf?

This is where I call upon you, dear Green Briefs readers. Simply help choose which sessions I should attend, whom I should offend and with what elixers my arm should bend, with this little survey.

Then stay tuned to the ‘Briefs for updates starting June 5th. Live vicariously as I journey to California on the Amtrak Cascades train for 30 hours, sleep in coach (or the bar car) attend four days of green marketing conferences with some of the world’s top companies and tour the Monterey environs with my bike and a rented Prius. (Long-time Green Briefs readers may experience deja-vu, as this is almost exactly what I did when attending Sustainable Brands 2008. Flashbacks here.)

Hopefully I will return with even more sustainability wisdom and deep marketing knowledge, all in the name of green. Which could be my skin colour by the time I make it back.

Come on, take the survey already!

It’s a classic sustainability marketing conundrum. Your team has been recycling, reducing carbon and printing on both sides of the paper like green fiends, but how do you tell the story without sounding like you have a Hummer-sized corporate ego?

1. Praise your customers
This is how we handled it with London Drugs, and our recycling awareness campaign in Victoria. “Our customers have recycled over 90,000lbs of Styrofoam…” the StyroCycle billboard proudly states. “Thanks to you, we’ve kept 90,000lbs of Styrofoam from Landfills!” the radio ad declares. It’s true. The customers are the ones bringing back the packaging. And London Drugs sounds good thanking them.

2. Recognize your employees
The same strategy works when head office thanks the people in the trenches. After all, they are usually the ones doing the job. And depending on your target market, they may relate better to your front-line workers than your CEO. So thank them for their hard work and sustainability successes.

3. Thank the organizations who have influenced you
If your organization has been forced to change some of your practices due to pressure from NGO’s, activists or other groups, why not thank them? Shoemaker Timberland came close, when they acknowleged Greenpeace’s efforts to encourage them improve traceability in their supply chain, regarding sources of leather that are deforesting the Amazon. But wouldn’t it disarm the critics if you actually thanked them for their influence? If you are going to change anyway, you might as well get the upper hand in the PR exchange.

4. Use a little humour.
Issues like waste, environment and recycling can sometimes seem too heavy to treat lightly. But we are all human. Sometimes a light introduction to the subject is all it takes to get folks to sit up and pay attention for a minute. Which is really all you can ask your communications to do. The rest is up to the reader.

These are just a few ways you can get your green successes out there without making your head look too big to fit through the boardroom door. Whatever you do, don’t stop improving and don’t shy away from spreading the news. It could be your best competitive advantage.

BC retailer London Drugs is the only major regional retailer who takes back all of their packaging for recycling, including the styrofoam. It’s a program called Bring Back the Pack, and to date, stores have relied mostly on word-of-mouth, PR and social media to spread the news about it. But what would happen if they took the news to the airwaves, newspapers and the streets? Would it increase store visits or market share? Unicycle Creative was asked to find out.

StyroCycle gets the campaign rolling – literally.

The media strategy consisted of radio ads, newspaper advertorials and PR in the Victoria area. But the most unique media vehicle of all was the one pedaled by Victoria Pedicab Company President and Owner Andrew Capeau. The StyroCycle was inspired by on-line photos of cyclists in Asia hauling styrofoam blocks in outrageous stacks. Unicycle Creative took this idea and designed a pedicab shell that would be visually arresting, stable and safe, and still allow for passengers. Then we designed a month-long schedule of weekend appearances, store visits and media opportunities.

Stop. Gawk. Take a picture. Ask questions.

Victoria Pedicab President Capeau is used to getting stares, but found that the StyroCycle was a bona-fide attention-magnet.

“Pedestrians, car, bus and truck drivers are gawking with jaws wide open.  I am seeing double takes, triple takes and even full on stops with fingers pointing.  Skateboarders to baby stroller pushers are giving me the thumbs up.  I’m posing for pictures, high fives are exchanged…it’s a love in, baby!” (For his full Day-in-the-Life of a Guerilla-Media StyroCycle Pilot blog, click here)

Pocket-sized recycling cheat-sheet handouts gave potential customers even more reasons to visit one of the four Victoria stores. Meanwhile, the London Drugs PR team was busy arranging interviews, and the StyroCycle made good on-camera opportunities for both the Mayor of Victoria and BC’s Minister of Environment.

More recycling = more visits?

London Drugs is still analyzing the overall results of the campaign, but anecdotal response is strong.

• Some stores reported increases in recycling as high as 200% the week after the StyroCycle’s appearance.
• All stores reported positive customer feedback
• StyroCycle has appeared in blogs, videos and too many snapshots to count
• One customer evcen took the time to write a letter saying the recycling policy would positively impact their future buying decisions.

For a multi-category retailer like London Drugs, where almost every store visit results in a purchase, driving store visits with recycling is a great way to do good and get more sales. By going the extra mile to market a unique program like Bring Back the Pack, recycling can even build longer term brand loyalty.

Facebook, Blogs and the StyroCycle YouTube video will continue to get the message out beyond the campaign end date, but will the StyroCycle ride again? Time will tell. But if not, at least we know it will be recycled.

BC Minister of Environment Terry Lake with London Drugs Senior VP Clint Mahlman checking out the big bumper sticker.

WTF? Are cyclists turning to tobacco or is it a plot to get smokers to take up riding? Only Mayor Gregor knows for sure.

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There’s fair trade, there’s direct trade, then there’s coffee bought straight from the farmer at a single family plantation in Atenas, Costa Rica. With such a singular product and such a genuine story to tell, Unicycle Creative was stoked to have the opportunity to name this unique blend and design its packaging.

I wanted to communicate the intimacy of this supply-chain in a way that was both fresh and human. When I found out that the name of the matriarch of the farm was ‘Sole’ and that the word has the same meaning in Costa Rican Spanish as in English, I knew I had to look no further for the perfect branding.

Using images from a Juanita, a photographer and friend of the family farm, and working remotely with my client, I designed labels for medium and dark roast varieties using portraits of ‘mama’ Sole and ‘papa’ Gerardo.

My client, Primal Echo, is based out of Fort Collins Colorado. Ana Arias, the Primal Echo ‘Chief Monkey’, actually grew up in Costa Rica and is using her local roots to design a whole line of artisan products from the ground up. Because of the limited initial quantities, Ana elected to use adhesive labels printed locally and applied to the bags. So it was that I ended up sending press-ready PDF’s all the way to San Jose Costa Rica where they were printed by Duenografica.

When Ana sent pictures of our label subjects actually holding the packages at the farm, I was incredibly pleased with both the graphic outcome and the miracle of Internet technology.

To have designed a package in Vancouver Canada for a client from Fort Collins Colorado which was printed and produced in Central America brings the whole world closer together.

But now I really think it’s time for a trip to the farm…

Find out more about Primal Echo, Sole Coffee, and the family farm on Ana’s blog here. To order online, visit PrimalEcho.com To talk more about supply-chain-conscious branding, drop me a line.