This booth was a smart sharing of resources, between a responsible recycler and an artisan who uses their raw materials. The Electronic Recycling Association (ERA) works to refurbish systems that are feasible to restore, and recycle the rest for worthy charities and organizations. When I took a closer look at their website I found a series of YouTube mini-videos and a rather strange animatronic woman who welcomed me with a Stephen Hawking-like voice, before following my mouse around the screen with her eyes. The first YouTube video I watched gave me a much better feeling, with the phrase “…instead of reduce reuse recycle, it’s more like reuse, reuse, reuse…”
The Unique Stained Glass Works part of the booth featured some very unique pieces made with old circuit boards, leaded in the old-world stained glass style. I found the business card holders to have particular potential as eco-promo gifts.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: For ERA, featuring more of the associations and charities that benefit from their work might be nice… with a more human feeling overall.

Here’s one great brand idea. Take the 100-Mile Diet concept, and become the online source for finding lifestyle products in that category. That’s the premise behind ShantiGreen. Their booth showed off some genuinely interesting products (who knew there was a local Lower Mainland source for stainless water bottles?)
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: Great idea, wrong name. The brand identity of this company led me to expect a line of hand creams, or yoga wear. I think if the 100-mile Radius is your thing, that has to be central to your identity. For instance, the domain Radius100.ca is available. Just a thought.

This booth was staffed by people so friendly the even offered me a piece of their pizza. And overall their show presence was very consistent with their logo, colours and branding. As I was looking for some cleaner, I almost bought a bottle of their concentrated stuff, as the rep gave me a whiff of its orangey scent and explained all the different cleaning jobs this one product could provide when used in various concentrations. So what stopped me? For one thing, the cleaner bottle itself is kind of generic, as is the overall logo and brand. It just didn’t have as much positive personality as the people behind it. But it certainly could.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: A unique packaging idea would really help this brand. Something with personality. And a tangible green benefit. And a purpose tied to the brand itself. How about a recycled-plastic bottle that somehow helps you measure the correct concentration of EnviroOrange for the job at hand? Or even an orange-shaped measuring device that attaches to the bottle? That would really help me imagine measuring out the different concentrations for all the cleaning tasks this brand can tackle.

This is one of my favourite all-time brands. (At least from a functionality perspective) I have searched for and discovered many treasures there, as well as dropping off numerous items of my own that I hope have found their own second lives with other bargain-hunters. It made perfect sense to me that they should have a presence at EPIC, as they are one of the original green brands, offering benefits on both the environmental and social fronts. The booth was modest in size, and featured a few interesting clothing treasures. But it could have done so much more.
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: It seemed the booth could have been either a found-treasure showcase or a shopping area, but ended up being somewhere in between. The backdrop showed some of the good work being done by the organization, and Reuse, Rehabilitate, Recycle is a great line. But the booth would have benefited from some more upscale design and messaging for this sophisticated market. In fact, I believe the entire Thrift Store brand is due for a makeover. People are recycling really good quality stuff these days, and with both the economy and greener shopping taking the front seat, the Salvation Army needs to remove any psychological barriers to more upscale customers deciding to shop there.

This was one booth that almost stumped me. It had something to do with EM (effective microorganisms) and involved some sort of kitchen composter for meat, bones and other food waste. (!) As I spoke with their enthusiastic and friendly rep, Lynda, I gradually came to understand that EM represents a proprietary combination of some 14 microorganisms that work together to help reverse the effects of ground pollution and chemical-intensive farming, and has multiple uses in homes, gardens and agriculture. I had to do more research on their web site to understand that composting is their #1 focus, and that the EM blend (called Bokashi) is used to anaerobically compost waste, providing a low-odour liquid extract that can be used in organic gardens, septic systems and house plants. Now it’s starting to sound interesting!
Green Briefs Marketing Thoughts: This is a classic case of having so many good things to say, it’s difficult to know where to start. And as in many of these cases, the people working closely with the brand can sometimes overlook simple key messages that help the uninitiated put the puzzle together. A facilitated session with sales, marketing, R&D and someone who knows nothing about it would help sort out ‘EM101’ for people new to the brand.

This shot has been circulating around the blogosphere for a while, but it’s too good not to share. This is obviously a home-made contraption, and it’s doubtful it would be that effective in its current incarnation, but the sheer popularity of the idea and its catchy name lead me to believe its a product just waiting to be properly engineered and designed. As I searched around, I discovered a link to someone who’s tried it in a slightly different configuration, and a motorcycle version that just looks scary. So what would it need to work? Perhaps an electric booster motor. A beer holder, obviously. And as my 8 3/4 year old son Jaxon suggested, maybe the mower part would work better at the back. Lots of fodder for engineering exploration here! What’s not in doubt is its easy marketability. So if this is your idea, or your photo, and you want to take it to the next level, give me a call. As for the URL – mowercycle.com – talk to me about that, too. I registered it yesterday.

(Photo Credit: Jim Hamilton?)

It’s no secret that getting some of the lead out of your foot gives you better gas mileage. But just how much better may surprise you. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on ‘Eco-Driving’ documents one woman’s gas mileage increasing from 15mpg to 21 – a saving of 40%. The techniques are simple – accelerate slowly, coast up to red lights, keep your highway speed below 100kph – and for more advanced ‘hyper-milers’ (as hard-core eco-drivers are known), turn off your car at lights and while going down hills, and practice the ‘pulse-and-glide’.
Unfortunately, while all the tools are there at our disposal, our speed-obsessed car-as-power-penis culture thwarts us at every turn with the big money marketing and media machine tuned to a high-revving whine and bursting off the line with the smell of burning rubber.
So how can we make efficient driving cool? Is there a way to turn speed-culture on its ear, especially with younger drivers? Well, maybe an action movie about hyper-milers might not be realistic. But there are a few tricks that might work.
Create a Social Media Movement. There may only be 3% of young drivers interested in eco-driving scattered around the country, but those numbers add up when networked. A Facebook group for eco-drivers and a competition application could easily be developed, pitting mileage fiends around the world against each other. Prime sponsorship opportunity for some smart company in the eco-space. I found one eco-driving Facebook group, but it’s all in Greek!
Make a YouTube Parody. Create a ‘Fast & Furious’ style movie trailer that extols the virtues of eco-driving while portraying speed culture as the adolescent farce it really is. (Note, ‘The Passed and The Virtuous’ is available… film producers feel free to contact me!)
Pit Youth against Big Oil. Illustrate the direct relationship between personally achieving better mileage and sticking it to the man at the Exxon level. Possibly with a web site that lets you track gas savings and shows the cumulative effect our actions are having. Youth thrives on the up-yours energy of a good rebellion. Driving slow can be a statement.
Word-of-Mouth Marketing. Just do it and talk it up. Everywhere you can. For instance, if you’re a blogger, write an article like this one. Heck, SOMEBODY is going to read it.

In an effort to stay at the forefront of environmental product communication, Unicycle Creative is proud to launch a new worldwide standard for eco-labeling, the Dead Polar Bear Scale (DPB)
“It’s a way for consumers to really know what they’re buying into from a climate perspective,” Says Unicycle President Lorne Craig, “We’re all killing polar bears of course… now we can use that knowledge to help adjust our buying behaviour.”
The DPB rating was developed using some of the latest intelligence on eco-labeling. A recent U.K. survey suggested that labeling information presented as plain text was much more difficult for consumers to  understand. More than half (56%) correctly identified the efficiency of a fictional new car called “Marko” when the data was shown in a colour-coded chart, compared with less than 31% when the information was presented in plain text.
As of January 2009, California and Vermont both made it mandatory that new cars sold there be labeled for climate impact. Both states use a black-and-white environmental performance label.
In the U.K., the British motor industry introduced a colour-coded label, in use at an estimated 93% of U.K. car dealerships.
“We use colours too,” Says Craig “The Five DPB rating is blood red, while the One DPB is rendered in classic eco green.”

Regulatory agencies or vendors interested in licensing the DPB Climate Labeling Scale can contact Lorne Craig via email.

Thanks to Sustainable Life Media for the original story thread.

Consumers are cutting back everywhere these days, but one 2009 study shows they intend to buy as green as ever. According to the Cone 2009 Consumer Environmental Survey, 44% of US consumers say they are making the same green purchases as when their stocks were flying, and 34% are actually more likely to purchase green today. By contrast, only 8% of respondents said they were less likely to purchase green products or services.
Consumers also appear to be putting more pressure on companies to behave sustainably and to communicate more effectively. More than a third of respondents say they have higher expectations for companies to make and sell environmentally responsible products during the economic downturn. A whopping 70% say they are paying attention to companies’ environmental behaviour even if they are holding off on purchasing.
One other stat offers some critical direction for marketers. A surprising 63% say they trust companies to tell the truth in their environmental messaging, and 85% think companies should communicate their environmental messaging year round – not just on Earth Day.
So now is not the time for marketers to be making inflated eco claims or to shirk our responsibility for keeping the environment on the corporate agenda. We must help our clients move their own green agenda forward responsibly.
“The fact that consumers continue to be interested in the environment and mindful of corporate efforts, even in the midst of a grueling recession, is evidence that this is more than just a passing trend,” says Jonathan Yohannan, SVP of corporate responsibility at Cone. “Environmental responsibility is not just an expectation in times of prosperity.”
Customers are keeping the faith. It’s up to us to make it happen.

This was one of those ideas that made me wonder why I hadn’t thought of it. You have machines to sell aluminum cans of soda and plastic bottles of water, so why not offer the same convenience for recycling your empties and getting any deposit back? Turns out a Norwegian-based company called TOMRA is all over it. (The original technology was developed in 1972, and TOMRA has had an interesting ride over the last 30 years, including battling slumps in both the market and the price of scrap aluminum, but I digress)
The news that really caught my eye was a MediaPost headline: New Out-of-Home Ad Space: Recycling Machines. Each TOMRA recycling kiosk will soon have the opportunity to be a street-level billboard. Of course, Pepsi and Coke have been doing this for years. But as the containers put INTO the machine can be of any brand, the branding of the machines themselves is wide open. Advertisers can associate their brands with the goodwill and positive associations of recycling and at the same time help fund its progress. Now, the example shown in the article seemed a little tame, so I thought I’d try a few of my own, below. (All done completely without permission, of course. All logos are registered trademarks of their owners, blah-de-blah-de-blah) So enjoy them before corporate lawyers lock me up.
In any case, it’s nice to see that recycling CAN pay… in more ways than one.