Last night I attended Vertality2, a sustainable business networking event put on by Vancouver’s Board of Change. It’s part of my 2012 Resolution Pak™ to attend more of these things and network a little more effectively. Which sounds good until I am really too busy to go, and find myself looking around a room full of people I don’t know and thinking I should just get back home to catch up on work.

Fortunately, beer came to the rescue. I had one, which caused me to hang around long enough to spot someone I did know. Chris Livingstone, the Director of All Sorts Of Things at Globe (including the EPIC Vancouver show) and a guy who can put more names to faces than anyone I know. So I had another beer (Thanks, Chris) and before I knew it, I was talking to more people I didn’t even know.

The best part is, these were really good conversations. Green building standards, sustainability in the oil patch (?!), entrepreneurial ventures, sponsorship, yoga, car co-ops… smart people sharing lots of good ideas. And of course, more beer.

Mercifully quick speeches from representatives of Saltspring Coffee, Vancity and Hollyhock reminded me of just how human the successful corporate face of change is in this city. Monika Marcovici and Sonny Wong folowed up with the announcement of the one-thousand and first member of the Board of Change.

As I had another beer, I began to feel invigorated. Maybe we are building a critical mass of positive green thinking. Maybe the Rebel Alliance can muster a charge against the Empire. Maybe the changes I am working to make in my life and work are part of something greater.

Thanks, Board of Change. Thanks, Beer.

Picture a scene from Madison Avenue, circa 1997.

“OK, team, here’s the brief. We have a planet. Beautiful blue ball. Happy inhabitants threatened with a global emissions crisis that could cook the whole thing like an egg. We need to brand a planetary climate treaty. A deal that will galvanize everyone from CEO’s to little old ladies into international action to save the day! It’s the pitch of a lifetime!! So what do we call it? I need ideas, people!”

“Uh… how about Kyoto…”

“Kyoto?? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Who in their green mind is going to rally behind the name of an obscure Japanese town that doesn’t even have a Whole Foods™ market? You’re FIRED! And I need a drink…”

I know branding can’t solve everything, but it’s no surprise that the headline ‘Canada withdraws from Kyoto’ is met with a shrug. Sounds like a failed minor military campaign from WW2. “Sorry, chief – we pulled out. It was just too boring there.”

It would have sounded much more dramatic if Canada had to announce they were pulling out of the “Save-Our-Planet Agreement”. Or that Harper moved to block the “Global Disaster Aversion Treaty”.

Nothing against the fine people of Kyoto, but even they must be feeling the backwash from the negative press the name of their fine city is receiving.

Now we have Durban. (“Rhymes with turban! Could be catchy….?” No?”) And yet another deal in the making. Next year, negotiations will begin on a new, legally binding accord that will be signed by 2015 and come into force by 2020.

So we have about 3 years to come up with a better brand to save the world.

Don Draper, where are you?

If Santa doesn’t show up at your house Christmas Eve, look for him at the corner of 8th & Cypress in Vancouver, dangling above a rather creative display of recycled ornamentation in a Kitsilano traffic circle. At least that’s where I last saw the guy. Not so fat, definitely not jolly and looking, frankly, a little worse for wear. Not sure who he pissed off (Hell’s Angels? The RCMP?) but I hope they show some mercy by December 24th. Otherwise this whole town could be on the coal list. Not that the mining-happy BC Liberal Government would mind that at all.

Merry Christmas.

P.S. The guy who set up the display saw me taking this pic and asked me to donate to the Food Bank. So I did. You should too – come on, it’s a 5-minute online transaction. Maybe it will help save Santa.

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is known the world over as a tough neighbourhood. So when we were asked to brand a redevelopment of market homes on the border of this area, we knew it would not be easy. But with a strong developer and a surprising number of community advantages, this project has become a small but effective redevelopment success story.

Salient Group, with offices right in Gastown, has used their local knowledge and love of heritage renovation to launch some of the area’s most innovative residential redevelopments. Just a bit further east, a local property lending institution was stuck with an old stratified concrete and brick building which had sat vacant for a number of years. They called upon Salient’s expertise to reconceive, develop and market the homes.

Salient called Unicycle Creative.

Establishing the story
In the original Brand Centering session, we realized there’s more to Gastown and the Downtown Eastside than you’ll see on the evening news. It is home to some of Vancouver’s most exciting new restaurants, shops and businesses.

“Our buyers are people who know this area, and may even already live or work here,” says Robert Fung, President of the Salient Group. “They see the possibilities this neighbourhood has, and they like its creative ‘edge’. So we knew we didn’t want a traditional real estate campaign with smiling people sipping lattes.”

From a sustainability perspective, the re-use of an existing building shell, the addition of density to an ‘urban village’ neighbourhood and the focus on affordability for entry-level purchasers all reflected quite positively on the development. But a purely ‘green’ angle was secondary, we felt, to the rich story of the community itself.

21 Doors. A name that opens a lot of possibilities.
Intimate. Understated. An approachable scale of community development. A limited number of buying opportunities. These are some of the qualities communicated in this unique development identity.

“We knew an over-the-top creative name would be trying too hard,” says Unicycle Creative Director Lorne Craig. “Yet branding this building with the address alone would not say enough. We wanted people to imagine sharing time in the central courtyard with their neighbours. We also wanted to respect the fact that the Downtown Eastside is already a community, and we are part of that. 21 Doors has a close-knit quality to it that we hope will continue to inspire the people that live there.”

Celebrating a ‘Community of Independents’
The LiveAt21Doors identity was designed as a combination of art and journalism, using line drawings, gritty concrete textures and a duotone colour palette. A neighbourhood map boldly features hip new local restaurants and businesses right next to Downtown Eastside landmarks like the Carnegie Centre and Pigeon Park.

A gallery of artistic photographs by project designer Arno Apeldoorn brought a fresh eye to the Gastown area, showing off the textures and light that make this historic area such a treasure. These were also used prominently in the display centre.
The traditional glossy real estate lifestyle brochure was abandoned in favour of a simple door hanger, distributed to local businesses. This piece played off the ‘door’ theme, while showcasing the many benefits of living in the Gastown/Eastside area with a bit of fun. A print ad in the Georgia Straight drove more prospects to the LiveAt21Doors.com website, setting the stage for opening day.

Open for success.
After the dust settled on the first weekend of sales, 19 of the 21 Doors were spoken for. The affordable price point of these homes and the intelligent courtyard design by Taylor Kurtz Architecture & Design were the real draw. But overcoming the negative perceptions of a neighbourhood in transition by putting it in full view and celebrating its diversity no doubt played a valuable part in such a successful launch.

These units were never designed to gentrify the area with million-dollar homes. They were offered as an affordable opening into one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets.

So perhaps most satisfying statistic of all is the fact that over 50% of sales went to first-time buyers. The sales team worked extra hard to make deals happen for those new home owners who love the Gastown area and want to bring their own energy to the community.

All of which makes these 21 Doors a worthy contribution to the revitalization of Vancouver’s original neighbourhood.

Riding past a construction site in my neighbourhood, I was at first only casually disheartened to see a giant dumpster full of completely recyclable material sitting on the street. But as I cycled on my way, ruminating on the steps we take to ensure our household recycles efficiently, my mild distaste grew into a snit of righteously indignant proportions.

Why should I risk my fingers rinsing out locally line-caught albacore tuna cans when some steel-toed doofus can mindlessly chuck his big mac wrappers right on top of the perfectly-recyclable cardboard, steel, and wood waste he spent the morning mixing together in a landfill-bound dumpster? How hard would it be to invent a materials separation system that is as easy as chucking it in the bin?

Well, the answer turns out to be, not very difficult at all. If you have Photoshop.

It’s a little more challenging to do in real life, but the City of Vancouver and Metro Vancouver appear to be taking it on. Under the Zero Waste category of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan, a section called Enhance Construction, Renovation & Demolition Recycling tackles this very issue, with a series of proposed projects and legal amendments. A bit more Googling led me to this Metro Vancouver PDF, asking for feedback on mandatory construction and demolition  recycling regulations.

No doubt many trades and developers will be howling like scorched cats at this latest affront to the easiest possible path to profit. But it really has to happen. And when it does, the recycler that can bring the easiest most intuitive system to market should be able to really clean up.

And all us happy home recyclers won’t feel quite as duped.

Pacific Centre Mall, in the high-fashion heart of Vancouver, is not a place you associate with sorting trash. Yet that is exactly what they do, from the cardboard, plastic and returnables from merchants and customers to the organic compost diversion in the food court. Throw in a bit of waste-to-energy from the stuff that can’t be segregated and you have a Zero Waste Shopping Mall.

So how do you tell that story in a way that appeals to the fashionistas? (And still include the sustainability branding of parent company Cadillac Fairview…?)

Well, everyone loves a good discount.

By framing the ‘Green At Work’ message in a 100% OFF price tag format, Unicycle Creative got instant shopper attention and described Pacific Centre’s waste diversion rate in one clean graphic.

The team at Pacific Centre went one step further, designing an in-mall Recycled Runway Fashion Show, using local artists to create a stunning ready-to-wear-it-again collection. Unicycle designed a pair of banners to frame the show and communicate key zero waste messages.

Some of my deeper green readers may look down their noses at the idea of such a bastion of consumerism dipping a pedicured toe into the sustainability pond. But I see it this way: Shopping isn’t disappearing anytime soon. Putting sustainability on the radar of fashion shoppers is an important step in creating the conditions that will put pressure on all parts of the retail supply chain to green up their act. Zero Waste is a solid start.

It might as well look good on them.

I made a great local produce discovery this fall. While browsing at nearby Sunshine Market, I picked up some BC-grown table grapes of a variety previously unknown to me. Small and virtually seedless, with a sweet pulp, offset by the tangy flavour of healthy-looking purple skins delivering a surprising flavour burst. We have since tried them on cereal, in smoothies, in salads and as part of a rocking lime/kiwi salsa for barbecued halibut.

Unfortunately, this discovery may remain secret for some time. I don’t think most people would have made it past the drab industrial label and yawn-inducing name. Wait for it:

Coronation Grapes.

Where is the connection? The last coronation affecting Canada took place in 1953. (Queen Elizabeth, in her young-Audrey-Hepburn period) This sounds like a product my Aunt Phyllis would have on her tea tray. It’s a name only a British soap-opera fan could love.

Not wanting to gripe without offering at least a token solution, I got curious and visited the BC Grape Growers website to find out more. Turns out this particular variety was actually invented in Summerland, BC. It’s the most abundantly-planted table grape in the Okanagan, and you can use them in any berry recipe.

A grape with this much kick-ass flavour and genuine local roots has a lot of options for rebranding. Start with the colour. The size. The delicate velvety ‘bloom’ on their surface. Or go right to their origins. Even the obvious ‘Summerland Grapes’ would be an improvement, offering visions of glowing vineyards and a direct connection to their history. But I’m sure even more could be done with a little thought (and a few glasses of wine).

Start with a more intriguing package design, with the local story and a link to more info and recipes right on the box. Then take the marketing outwards. Locavore restaurants could feature these grapes as appetizers, in desserts, salsas and on ice cream. (Or in a glass of vodka! The Summerland Grapetini!) Make them part of BC wine festivals. Design a kooky claymation character to sing and dance their praises on YouTube. Anything, for crying out loud, that will break peoples’ habit of mindlessly reaching for the massive-carbon-footprint-foreign-jumbo-mutant-grape-bunches offered up in every big box mart.

I am one of the rare ‘committed local’ buyers who will go out of my way to try produce that didn’t rack up more air miles than my last three vacations. But the mainstream will need something more inspiring than ‘Coronation’ to shift their buying habits. BC Grape Growers, you have my number.

God save the grape.

Shot through the window of a closed-down Blockbuster store. How quickly a business model can change. Maybe this will happen to the Tar Sands one day.

These days, ‘Canadian Made’ only seems to apply to the raw logs, bitumen and grain we gleefully export. Yet, in a corner of the Whistler, BC business park known as ‘Function Junction’ is something unique in Western Canada, and rare in North America – a ski & snowboard factory. So how does this experiment in local production work? Is there a market for more sustainable locally-produced snow riding devices? And most puzzling of all, why would any company in their right mind bypass the potential profit of cheap offshore production? I took a drive up to Whistler past peaks dusted with early fall snow to visit Prior and find out for myself.

A ride 20 years in the making

I met with General Manager Dean Thompson in the office /ski store upstairs from the factory floor. He explained that in 1990, when the company started in Chris Prior’s garage in Lions Bay, the Pacific Northwest was home to a number of ski and snowboard factories including K2, Ride and Morrow.

“Over the last 12 years, companies have consolidated and production has continued to move offshore.” Thompson says. “Almost no one is manufacturing locally now. K2 pulled out in 2000 and bought up Ride and a few other companies. During this time it was also bought by a bigger company who also owns Coleman (think camping stoves) among other non-snow related companies. But the Prior brand is still undiluted. That’s one of the things that originally appealed to me about the company.”

One of the secrets to Prior’s survival has been carving out a niche. In 2000, they developed their first splitboard, (a backcountry snowboard that separates into two skis for climbing up and reassembles for the single-plank powder ride back down)  The splitboard market continued to grow and Prior is a major player globally. Skis came shortly thereafter and strong support from heli-ski operations and the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides helped solidify a strong backcountry customer base. Prior has now gone beyond their local roots, expanding their line and selling their pure Canadian brand online to customers and distributors in Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and Japan.

How sustainable can a ski or snowboard be?

Every Prior product begins with a wood core sourced from a small manufacturer just south of the border. (“One of the last holdouts from the old ski manufacturing infrastructure”, Thompson says) These are made primarily with apsen and maple, though Thompson says they are experimenting with some locally-sourced alternatives.

But making a durable, high-performance ride takes more than trees. Each is a multi-layered sandwich that includes non-renewable materials like fiberglass and UHMW Polyethylene. Topsheet graphics are also printed offsite, and when asked about the possibilities for recycled substrate, Thompson told me they plan to look at alternatives. “We have recently hired a product engineer,’ he added. “That will let us do a lot more work with our design and supply chain, and maybe put some positive sustainability pressure on some of our suppliers.”

Not that they have been idle.

“We actually tried using an experimental hemp-based fiberglass replacement a few years back.” Thompson says. “But it didn’t perform as well as we hoped.”

No word on whether they burned the rest of it.

Local Culture and the 20-Centimeter Rule

Perhaps the most sustainable part of the Prior brand is its engagement with the Whistler community.

Thompson elaborates, “We like to support local Whistler area talent when we develop our graphics, including using some great First Nations artists. It gives us a Whistler-inspired look that the rest of the world responds to.”

Prior is also involved with the Whistler Centre for Sustainability iShift Program and sponsors numerous local events and riders.

One of the most popular ‘community involvement’ policies is the locals rate. Anyone with a Squamish, Whistler or Pemberton address gets a substantial discount off the retail Prior price.

Growing a company in a mountain town does have its challenges, however.

“We’ve always respected the 20-Centimeter Rule,” says Thompson. “If there’s more than 20cm of fresh powder on the mountains, the factory pretty much doesn’t open ‘til noon that day. Unfortunately in the past, that has left a customer or two waiting at a locked door. So now we leave at least one or two people back at the shop.”

Presumably those who draw the short straw.

So what does Prior’s future hold?

Thompson sees lots of upside. “We have room for growth within our current space – we could pretty easily run more shifts. But it’s also important that we stay small enough to be efficient and let our people police themselves a bit.”

The biggest impression I was left with is that the Prior brand is all about authenticity. ‘Hand Crafted in Whistler’ is proudly stamped right on the skis and boards Prior makes, and North America’s biggest product testing range is right out the back door.

“Everyone who builds our product also rides.” Thompson concluded. “We are immersed in the snow culture almost year round.”

That’s one brand benefit no Asian factory can match.

The Green Briefs Two-Bits

As an independent brand, growing in a market not known for manufacturing, Prior is a great local story. Sales around the world also show the Canadian label resonates internationally. They are a ‘shop local’ option for enlightened Pacific Northwest skiers and boarders, with a mission statement that includes strong support for the community, the mountains and the environment.

Prior has already has a sustainability story to tell, and boosted engineering horsepower may let them make some more innovative advancements in that area. This might also provide some marketing partnership opportunities with other brands that share the sustainable living space. I’d love to see what brand stories develop in the next few years.

In the meantime, I will also be demo-ing a set of Prior Husume skis when Whistler Blackcomb opens, so stay tuned for the Green Briefs White Pow Sustainable Ski Review™ on those.

When I found this $2 shirt at the Whistler Re-Use-It Centre (Thrift Store) it reminded me of all the things I love about the CBC.  As Canadian institutions go, this is one of the best. Intelligent debate, launching pad for amazing Canadian music, a touchstone of what broadcasting was meant to be before it was hijacked by Rupert Murdoch. OK, CBC has some really lame TV shows, too. But the tackiness factor of this shirt also represents that very well.

Happy 75th Birthday, CBC!