Turning Transparent in a Green World

SLM: The Marketing of Green May 31- June 4 Monterey, CA

Do you have green building products that span both the Business to Business and the Business to Consumer worlds? You may want to attend the Sustainable Life Mediaconference at the end of the month in Monterey, CA. Sustainable Life Media focuses on green brand management and everything you need to make those brands authentic and market changing.

The event contains mostly consumer goods, but what happens in consumerland spills over into B2B world. The one sector reinforces the other.

You'll hear about:

• Transformations
• Capturing the essence of sustainability
• Consumer product case studies
• Green brand messaging
• How to inspire employees and customers alike
• Collaboration programs
• Give Back Programs
• Low impact packaging
• Social Media shifting consumer thinking
• Eco Labeling 
• Green event planning
• Social footprints

Check out the whole line up here: http://sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb09

Other key presentations:

LCA on a budget, Jeremy Faludi, Professor, Stanford Design School.

Top 10 Online Sustainable Brands Stories and the Tools That Got Them There

A Legal Look at Green Marketing Claims and the FTC's Green Guides

Transparency & Green Materials: Key Building Blocks for Tomorrow's Brand Leaders

Leonard Robinson, California Dept. of Toxic Substances - DTSC Goes "Wiki" With Green Chemistry "On September 29, 2008, Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 1879 and Senate Bill 509, two laws that authorize California state government to develop an alternatives analysis framework to stimulate the rapid acceleration of replacement of harmful chemicals and ingredients with safer alternatives in products sold in California. One of the most forward-looking initiatives in the world, Mr. Robinson will share his perspective on the implications of this initiative and the doors it might open for new product innovation for a greener future.

Check out the Who's Who list of attendees and go if only to meet the sustainable innovators inside a company who might want to bring your product into the mix.You never know who you might be sitting next to.

Be there or NOT be talked about.

 

ANSI Sustainable Workshop: two days and no conclusions except...

If you couldn't attend the ANSI Workshop last week, you can read every document covered the ANSI event wiki. (Don't you love transparency?)

Some takeaways were on the "tell me something I didn't know" level and others are beginning to point us in direction of general agreement. See all presentations, ANSI Sustainable Product Standard workshop here and highlights below.

CLOSING SUMMARY By Joe Bhatia, ANSI President and CEO

• We need various viable options
• There is no one organization that covers everything that's needed
• The solution must be a private-public partnership
• There isn't a one-word answer for what is green and what isn't so we need to allow for gray
• The solution must be economically viable
• The solution must seek social goodness.
• A standards-based approach is a good idea
• It must be scientifically based
• Good performance should be rewarded and baselines moved up.
• Consensus matters, but not to the determent of "lowering standards"
• Being an ANSI accredited standard means that it will mesh with the global ISO standards and be part of the 313,000 other standards that ANSI has on it's database.

BREAK OUT SESSION HIGHLIGHTS

• "Need for multi-pronged approach - government regulations to set the floor and voluntary leadership standards to raise the ceiling. Variety, multiplicity of approaches provides competition and rigor, but adds to confusion"
• Marketing matters - but shouldn't be the determinate of a great standard. "The buying public has very little real knowledge about the credibility of standards or process used; they go on impressions of reputation and how often they see the standard (i.e. how well the standards organizations markets itself)"
• GUIDANCE for credible standard criteria...
  • Harmonized definitions of terms
  • Have an overarching body to provide guidance (gov and private sectors)
  • International in scope
  • Have an inclusive set of the right stakeholders at the table
  • Balance achievement against lowest common denominator)
  • Measurable, science-based that do not stifle innovation
  • Evaluate demand and ensure reasonable scope
• Attributes and weighting
  • Include environment,economy, social welfare
  • Determine a common set of attributes for all products
  • Transparent reporting with end user determine the weighting
  • Or weighting determined by stakeholders
• Multiple attributes lead to more credible standards and improved confidence
• Single attributes are easier to understand, but more complex to coordinate and could lead to green wash as one attribute is heralded and others ignored.
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is still confusing and needs to be defined.
• How to measure environmental and societal outcomes determined by lists of how to measure, what to measure and what is the baseline for measurement.

Validation is a great thing. As I look down this list of confusion it's nice to know that Green Building Pages already covers the issues and helps you search for the best answers furing this transitional times.  

Did anyone attend the sessions? What were your impressions of next steps?

International Builder's Show or Greenbuild, who won?

According to the stats, the International Builder's Show in Vegas last week brought in 60,000 attendees. Not too shabby. Greenbuild in Boston was a much smaller venue and brought in about 20,000. By the numbers, IBS won. By the attitude, Greenbuild won.

At Greenbuild you could feel the excitement and the promise of what a green future would look like. At IBS, even though it was in Vegas with perfect weather, the tone was lack-luster at best. I walked the IBS floors on Thursday in search of companies heading into a sustainable future. Maybe it was the showrooms I picked, but I didn't see much in the way of REAL green efforts.

That said, Henkel had a new line of no VOC adhesives. I have a friend who is so sensitive to VOCs that she has to let any new products out gas on her front porch before bringing them into her home. Back about ten years ago, I sold tankloads of adhesives. The are nasty and very hard to go green and still maintain a profit while keeping production lines humming. Kudos to Henkel for introducing this new line.

Later, I chatted with a several insulation companies - Biobased.net, Icynene.com and NevadaFoam.com. They were in competition, per se with the new cement walls with foam forms and with wood walls with foam cores. All of them help to keep your home toasty or cool, and all of them had way too many ways to tell you how they did it. Unless reasearch analysis is your thing, comparing products via their handouts is an insane use of time.

A surprise highlight came from a chat with the Soybean Board. I had no idea so many products came from this renewable and chewable plant. We'll be revisiting that sector in the upcoming blogs.

I don't know if I would go back to the IBS show again. It was fun, but there wasn't enough of the sustainable future there to make it worth the drive across the desert. I'll leave the gamblers in Vegas. As for me, I'm betting on the sure thing - green homes and offices and conferences like Greenbuild that inspire me to do better.

Find Us at Green California Schools - Dec. 8-10

Billed as the nation's largest green schools summit and exposition, "Green California Schools" blends together K-12 sustainable education, buildings, and operations while creating a "culture of conservation and environmental mindfulness." The Anaheim ConventionCenter in Anaheim, CA is the the location for 50 workshops and over 200 exhibitors. For more info go to: www.green-technology.org/gcschools or call 626-577-5700. I'll be there floating around talking to manufacturers and inviting them to participate on Green Building Pages, The Green Hive and in the building of 50 new LEED Platinum buildings for the LA Community College District. Call me at 714-926-1223 to learn more or go to http://laccdbuildsgreen.blip.tv