Recently the world’s  biggest retail footprint launched the Wal-Mart Sustainability Index, their new  scorecard for vendors. It’s a 15-question checklist designed to provide Wally World with the information it needs to give it’s customers the straight goods on the ‘green-ness’ of the products they consume. According to sources, this list will be provided to all suppliers of Wal-Mart products. Which could provide some genuine humour in some cases. And, interestingly enough, Wal-Mart itself will only be able to answer some of the questions in this survey when they get the answers back from their suppliers.

But all Wal-Bashing aside, this move will send ripples through boardrooms throughout the continent, as CEOs rush to define terms like ‘ethical production‘. A chain-reaction effect will likely then take place as copies of the questionnaire are forwarded to sub-suppliers on down the chain. This can only help the overall awareness of the movement toward sustainability, and will hopefully lead to greater transparency throughout the retail environment. Not to mention providing the marketing department with new green stories to tell. (Note to Wal-Mart suppliers: keep your marketing departments in this loop!)

Below are the 15 questions from the Index. How would your company rate? I know I’ve got some homework to do.

WAL-MART Sustainability Index

Energy and Climate / Reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions
1. Have you measured your corporate greenhouse gas emissions? (Y/N)
2. Have you opted to report your greenhouse gas emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)? (Y/N)
3. What are your total greenhouse gas emissions reported in your most recently completed report? (Enter total metric tons CO2e, e.g. CDP6 Questionnaire, Section 2b – Scope 1 and 2 emissions)
4. Have you set publicly available greenhouse gas reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets? (Enter total metric tons and target date; 2 fields or leave blank)
Material Efficiency / Reduce waste and enhance quality
Scores will be automatically calculated based on your participation in the Packaging Scorecard in addition to the following:
5. If measured, please report total amount of solid waste generated from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Wal-Mart Inc for the most recent year measured. (Enter total lbs)
6. Have you set publicly available solid waste reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets? (Enter total lbs and target date; 2 fields or leave blank)
7. If measured, please report total water use from the facilities that produce your product(s) for Wal-Mart Inc for the most recent year measured. (Enter total gallons)
8. Have you set publically available water use reduction targets? If yes, what are those targets? (Enter total gallons and target date; 2 fields or leave blank)
Natural Resources / High quality, responsibly sourced raw materials
9. Have you established publicly available sustainability purchasing guidelines for your direct suppliers that address issues such as environmental compliance, employment practices, and product/ingredient safety? (Y/N)
10. Have you obtained 3rd party certifications for any of the products that you sell to Walmart? If so, from the list of certifications below, please select those for which any of your products are, or utilize materials that are, currently certified.
People and Community / Responsible & ethical production
11. Do you know the location of 100% of the facilities that produce your product(s)? (Y/N)
12. Before beginning a business relationship with a manufacturing facility, do you evaluate their quality of production and capacity for production? (Y/N)
13. Do you have a process for managing social compliance at the manufacturing level? (Y/N)
14. Do you work with your supply base to resolve issues found during social compliance evaluations and also document specific corrections and improvements? (Y/N)
15. Do you invest in community development activities in the markets you source from and/or operate within? (Y/N)

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Andrew Sauder from Globe-Net, an online resource for environmental business news. It was a stimulating conversation, leading to big questions around the vision for green marketing itself. Check it out here, along with the whole Globe-Net site. It’s a resource that will definitely be in my bookmark list.

Green marketing is like following a trail of whole-wheat, organic fair-trade breadcrumbs – one morsel leads to the next, until your shirt buttons are gut-stretched and you need at least 3 free-range beers to wash it all down.
Last week, as I blogged about Ocean Wise at the Cactus Club Café, I also noticed an interesting Green Table logo on their menu. As this offered another potential excuse to write off a meal, I decided look them up.
According to their website, Green Table is “a growing group of leading restaurant professionals, joined by the people who supply and support us.” Like Ocean Wise, they are a program that should appeal to both the foodservice industry and the foodeater public alike. But according to Executive Director André LaRivière, the message could be a bit complex for everyday info snacking.
“Restaurants look at Green Table as a holistic program,” says LaRivière. “It has to fill a lot of check boxes on the spreadsheet: marketing, carbon footprint, community engagement and saving money. Restaurants may want to satisfy existing customer demands, make it another component of their green credentials, or they may see it as part of being ‘a player’ in Vancouver’s dining scene. This is a very collaborative, youthful scene. Restaurateurs here have a keen awareness that they are developing something they can all benefit from.”
One area of membership growth for Green table has been in the catering industry. Says LaRivière, “Caterers see a real value in offering a ‘certified’ green menu, because their corporate customers are asking for it.”
So what about regular foodies? How is green table going to go mainstream with those masses who may be hungrier for red meat than for green credentials?
“The end customers will have a strong influence, but the real change will be effected in supply, demand and distribution.” says LaRivière, “We’ve been growing Green Table ‘organically’, and we will likely continue partnering with groups at the regional level, as we have with Whistler’s 2020 solution. We also know that Vancouver is a hub for our message. People here have a knowledge of the future of food at a different level.”
As a patron of dining establishments (some finer than others – a reality when you share the dinner decision making with an 8-year old) I would love to have the opportunity to choose restaurants based on recognized green credentials. So I’m going to throw a few Green Briefs Marketing Ideas at the wall and see what might stick.
The huge challenge is the budgetary scope of taking a message mainstream – it’s expensive to target a broad demographic of diners. One approach would be to partner with some strong eco-cause marketing organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund, or Vancouver Food Bank, for a green dining out for charity event. One night a year, all participating Green Table restaurants could cover their tables with green cloth (sustainably sourced, of course) and host diners with part proceeds from the meal going to charity. This would not only drive home the branding of Green Table, it would also get the media leverage necessary to hit that mainstream market.
The rest of the year, participating restaurants could also hand out Green Table loyalty cards, which diners could use to collect points and redeem on the Green Table site.
Whatever LaRivière and Green Table decide to do (I hear a more networked web platform is in the works) I hope we see more. What’s coming out of the kitchen is pretty appealing, not to mention good for us.

Let me start by saying, tonight I had my heart (and palette) set on sushi. I could almost taste the cool, sweet rice, and the fresh tuna mixing with the salt of the soy sauce… then I happened to glance at a small Ocean Wise brochure my son brought back from a recent screening of the film, Sharkwater
This movie illustrates the threats facing the world’s fish stocks, most notably the predators – such as sharks, and the ever tasty tuna. The Ocean Wise Program is an initiative developed by the Vancouver Aquarium to make it easier to identify ocean-friendly seafood (that has been harvested in a sustainable manner from stocks that are abundant and resilient). Looking through this little guide to Western Canadian restaurants, I was somewhat crestfallen to discover there were no sushi restaurants listed. Guess that oficially puts my favourite Japanese delicacy on the Guilty Pleasures List. So instead, I chose the Cactus Club Cafe and settled for Cajun Halibut Tacos. The Ocean Wise logo was featured quite prominently on their menu, but almost completely buried on the Cactus Club website and pretty much lost on my server. (“It’s from the north shore, not farmed or caught with nets or anything…”)
Now I’m more susceptible to eco-guilt than most, but it occurs to me this could and should become a growing trend. A sign inside the huge aquarium at the front door would be a great place to start.
Now if I could just get them to offer organic wines by the glass.

I love discovering new reasons to blog about my favourite products. So when my wife Sharon brought home this special Canada Day package of my beloved Que Pasa Organic Tortilla Chips, I was inspired.
Right off the bat this has good idea written all over it. Not only does it present the product in a fresh and attractive way (combining the red and white corn chips in a festive blend) the theme is tied to a strong national holiday and reintroduces the idea that Que Pasa is actually a made-in-Canada product. Of course this wouldn’t be a Green Briefs blog if I didn’t have some constructive criticism to offer. In this case it has to do with missed opportunities.
Googling ‘Que Pasa O Canada Tortilla Chips’ leads me to the main products section of their site , but this festive product extension is not mentioned. Nor could I find any other reference to it. I would love to have found a humorous Mexi-Canadian recipe book, a glossary of Canuck Spanish terms, or a YouTube video. (“We don’t need no steenking badges, eh!”) The package label itself could have done with a bit more fun as well, with a special URL to visit for more info. Perhaps a trip to Mexico as part of a cross-promotion with Corona.
All in all, a lot of ways to think out of the bag on this one. Maybe next year. (And when the next federal election is called, I can see a lot more strategies to dip into.)
Speaking of which… time to eat the photo prop.
After all, it’s Canada Day weekend at the cabin.
Andale!

Well, after months of palative care at the bedside of a dying cel phone, I finally succumbed to the lure of the iPhone. Is it sustainable? Uhh… Is it recycled? Um, no… Is it cool? Oh yeah.
But it also further emphsizes the opposites in my existence. The push and pull between my love of technology and my desire to simplify. Between my desire to work less and the ability to work more. Between the thrill of being connected and the uneasy feeling that I might never be able to detach. So I write this blog from the deck of our cabin in the Coast Mountains north of Whistler. Poking the keypad while swatting enough mosquitoes to make a salad. Off the grid, but wired to the world. And I tell myself it’s like all technology. Not evil of itself, but just another instrument with which to inflict our insecurities upon the world.
And so it is, dear Green Briefs readers… Stay tuned for even more fumbling attempts at eco-balanced reporting, and perhaps grant me a bit more slack for typos on this little touch pad. I guess life (and green living) isn’t always about efficiency. Sometimes you just have to look col- ccol… COOL.

Reading through Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Thomas  Friedman, I came across an interesting description of clean fuels vs. dirty fuels, by Rochelle Lefkowitz, from Pro-Media.  In a flash of brilliant simplicity she describes them as ‘Fuels from Heaven or Fuels from Hell.”
The Fuels from Heaven include wind, tidal, biomass and solar power. These all come from above ground, are renewable and produce no harmful emissions. (Presumably the CO2 from burning biomass is just releasing carbon that was already captured from the atmosphere – part of the cycle)
As opposed to the Fuels from Hell – coal, oil and natural gas. All are sourced from the bowels of the earth, all are exhaustible and all add to the overall CO2 content of our atmosphere.
Now there’s a branding angle worth exploring. Eternal bliss vs. damnation. Do you want your electricity to come from the realm of the Heavenly Father or The Dungeons of Satan? I can hear the radio ad now:

SFX: Dripping cave combined with factory noises and sounds of human torment. A phone rings.
Annoying Switchboard Operator: “Hell Fuels, how may I direct your call? Oil spills? Certainly. One moment. (click)
Good morning, Hell Fuels. Strip Mining Department? Would you like Coal or Tar Sands? One moment. (click)
Hell Fuels, how may I direct your call? Missing Species Department? I’m sorry, their line is still busy. Please Hold. (click)
Good morning, Hell Fuels. The Global Political Instability Department? One moment please. (click)
Hell Fuels, how may I direct your call? Global Warming Department? I’m sorry, that doesn’t exist. Yes, I know the liberal media is full of lots of cute stories, but I can assure you… You want to talk to my supervisor? The President of Hell Fuels? The Lord of Darkness? Why sir, who did you think you were speaking with? (voice changes to deep bellowing evil laugh, then back to annoying switchboard operator) Buh bye now. Good morning, Hell Fuels….”
Announcer: “There’s got to be a better way. Fuels from Heaven – wind, tidal, solar.”
SFX: Angelic music
Announcer: Let’s put our energy investment above the ground.

Okay, so it’s a 67-second radio spot with no client. But it’s a powerful metaphor that not only clearly points out the differences in fuel technology, it also has implications for our individual behaviour.
Every time you make an energy choice, who’s side are you on?

I guess it was just a matter of time. Poke the giant frequently enough and you’re going to get a swat. Over the last few years, municipalities, retailers and consumers have continued to embrace reusable shopping bags and restrict, regulate and reject plastic bags. And Big Industry responded in classic fashion, aiming at the heart of the mainstream consumer belt with a common-sense study overblown to plague-fear proportions.
The Canadian Plastics Industry Association hired two independent labs to conduct what it said was the first study of so-called eco-friendly grocery bags in North America, and found 64 per cent of them were contaminated with some level of bacteria. They went on to speculate with their own warning of ‘potential’ health problems if the reusable bags are used to carry gym clothes or diapers in addition to groceries. Here they mentioned the superbug called community-acquired MRSA (methycillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) Note that they didn’t find any of this mutant strain in the bags tested, as you can bet they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops if they had.
The ever-cooperative mainstream press picked up the story and ran with it, pretty much as instructed, with headlines like, “Plastics study: Reusable grocery bags dangerous“,  “Study says reusable grocery bags dangerous”,  and my favourite, from the creative conservatives at the National Post:  “Back to plastic? Reusable grocery bags may cause food poisoning.”  For an article that should have been titled ‘Study shows the importance of cleaning reusable shopping bags.”
It’s a clever ploy from the makers of single-use bags, whose products have taken a lashing of late. But I see an upside. Here’s a chance for an entrepreneur to create an eco-friendly reusable bag sanitizer/cleaner. It’s a guaranteed success.  After all, if the plastics industry says we should be afraid, who are we to argue?

This is the second year that your Unicycling blogger has attended this show, and if the crowds heading into Vancouver’s new Trade & Convention Centre on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May were any indication, green products and services are even more popular this year despite the recession. (Click here for a look at last year’s reviews)
Once again I made my annual tour of the event, evaluating products, buzz and potential, and offering up my usual marketing recommendations – unasked for, and unbilled – starting, of course, with the booze-tasting zone.

When I reported on this product last year, my main comment was ‘great beer, shame about the packaging’. Well, this year, the beer is just as good, and the packaging… better. Brian Hansford, Territory Manager for Pacific Western Brewing, told me the packaging had definitely helped sales, pointing out that the new box now actually features a picture of the bottle. The booth included POS designed on the same theme, and overall the effect reflects much better on the quality of the product.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: The package looks good, but could use some story. What is Natureland? What makes it different than other beers? Is there a web site? (Actually, not that I could find. Googling just led me to the Pacific Brewing site, which featured the OLD package) Time now to tell the world the story behind the beer, and create marketing that talks to nature-loving organic beer drinkers everywhere. Email me for more ideas. Will write for beer.