3p Contributor: Jen Boynton
Recent Articles
Naked Pizza: The Trojan Horse of the Pizza Industry
Who doesn’t like pizza? Even the owner of ihatepizza.com can’t work up ire about his favorite least favorite food. I’m a fan, which is one reason Naked Pizza was among the most captivating components of Val Casey’s keynote at SXSW. Casey discussed the importance of meeting people where they are, when it comes to sustainability, and she used Naked Pizza an example of a business that embodies that motive.
Naked Pizza is a start-up out of New Orleans that was founded by a former anthropologist and a real estate developer who wanted to do the impossible and make pizza a health food. This wasn’t just about waistlines- the partners realized that making health food delicious and familiar is one of the keys to solving the obesity crisis. Funded by dotcom winner Mark Cuban and The Kraft Group, team Naked Pizza cites a simple equation as its key to success:
All-natural, reduced-calorie, multi-grain, probiotic pizza – preachy brand image + Twitter = Naked Pizza
Brilliant.
10 Ways Crowdsourcing Can Save or Fail Your Business
Crowdsourcing is kind of the best of the internet. Strangers self-organize to complete a task or solve a problem, and the solution often comes faster and cheaper than anything one desk jockey in a cubicle could come up with on his own. An amazing example of crowdsourcing in action is the Haiti Crowdsourcing project which connected real time texts and phone calls from Haitians in need after the earthquake with a graphical overlay map of their precise location, so emergency personnel could respond.
Of course, when you set the crowd free, dangerous things can happen, too, like in the case of the popularity contest that left Kraft re-naming Australia’s beloved Vegemite “isnack 2.0″ and then quickly changing it back after the public outcry about the stupid name.
Entrepreneurs and brand managers alike are left wondering how to utilize these tools to benefit their businesses without opening themselves up to disaster. Folks who are passionate about social change are also concerned about using these tools effectively without coercing the individuals in the crowd to do work for free that might otherwise be done by a professional. These are some of the themes that emerged from the SXSW panel Crowd Sourcing Innovative Social Change. The panel was crowdsourced, of course, with the moderator walking the crowd and taking questions and answers alike from both the panelists and the audience members. Here are the best and worst uses of crowdsourcing, straight from the hive mind:
Voluntary Simplicity and the Triple Bottom Line: An Interview with Duane Elgin
Author Duane Elgin challenges his readers to give up the trappings of modern life (snuggies, melon ballers and all the other gadgets we can’t live without) in favor of a deeper form of satisfaction. His book Voluntary Simplicity has been much loved by those who find solace in the simpler path and much maligned by those who call followers mildly cultish and obsessive in their asceticism. First published in 1981, the book has recently been re-vamped with the modern sustainability movement in mind.
Elgin sums up the societal shifts of the last 30 years with the simplest of anecdotes: he’s gone from being introduced as the “MBA who has gone bad” to being introduced as “the MBA who has gone green.” MBAs no longer have to be singly focused on money to utilize their learning. We know all about that here at 3p, so we checked in with Elgin to ask him a few questions about the voluntary simplicity movement and how it relates to the triple bottom line
3p: How did your business education influence your development of the theory of voluntary simplicity?
10 Trends in Sustainability Reporting: Great Minds Think Alike
Don’t you love it when you are thinking about your best friend, and when the phone rings, she’s on the other line?
That’s what happened to me this morning with our friends over at Environmental Leader. Just as I was sitting down to write about the program we’ve been putting together for a free and very exciting virtual conference on sustainability reporting, (GRI calling in all the way from Amsterdam and Seventh Generation will be there) I checked my reader, and what do I see, but a post from EL about the top 10 Trends in Sustainability Reporting. Environmental Leader, you are so on top of it. Which I guess makes sense, what with the name and all.
Here are the top 10 issues of the day with sustainability reporting, according to Environmental Leader:
Top Gear Takes Innovation in a Whole New Direction
Host James May with some "commie" cars
I’m one of those freakzoid environmentalists with neither a car nor a television. Which is why it is all the more remarkable that I’m chuffed to bits by this British show Top Gear. The 13th season premieres on BBC America on Monday. I’m behind the times, what with the lack of television and all, but the folks at Top Gear were kind enough to send me a screener which I watched on my trusty laptop.
This show features cars that drive fast, which is drool-worthy for technically minded folks (me, I read my RSS feed during those parts), but of course it’s got 3 British hosts who pretty much make the thing with their banter, G&T mixing on camera, and celebrity guests who get to drive the cars too. The most entertaining part for me are the challenges the producers create for the hosts.
In Season 10, episode 2 the boys have to create amphibious vehicles with which to drive on land and across the English channel. It’s hilarious to see what they come up with, and (spoiler alert) how badly it all goes awry.
From a sustainability standpoint, at first I was a bit resistant to the program because it seemed as if it were all about gadget lust–on a really expensive scale. But what I’ve realized is that there is glory in the gadget sometimes, and we shouldn’t try to deny that, lest we become teetotalers that no one wants to talk to. The challenges where the hosts have to use their knowledge of all the moving parts to complete an asinine task remind me of the potential for problem solving that exists when one combines knowledge and passion with a healthy dose of humor and gin. Watch as the gang tests the limits of American muscle cars on the Bonneville salt flats:
How Google’s China Pullout Shows Their Triple Bottom Line
Cartoon police officers JingJing and ChaCha appear periodically when surfing the Web in China to help Internet users remember to maintain harmonious Internet order together and to be conscious of safe and healthy use of the Internet.
What happens when, in its mission to make information as universally acceptable as possible, Google has to be kind of evil? Google’s mission and motto, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” and, of course, “don’t be evil,” will not be new to most readers. What’s interesting is when these two missions come at odds, like in the case of China.
Google wrestled hard with whether or not it could afford to refuse China’s demands. If it refused to comply, it would lose key market share and cut off access to more than 103 million internet users. If it complied, it would deviate from the company’s core values. The search giant’s decision to stand up for itself and make the right move is one of the greatest examples of company activism for triple bottom line thinking of our time.
Top Five Start-Up Posts of the Year
Dear Readers,
TriplePundit has had a heck of a year. With your help, we’ve grown to be one of the most widely-read online publications about sustainable business, we’ve brought in many new contributors, and we’ve helped stoke the fires of a new, green economy in many new places. We hope you’ve had a great time reading and engaging with us and we’re ready to kick of January with a lot of new features, partnerships, and content.
To celebrate the end of the year, or crack team of editors has put together a few top-five lists for the year, including this one: the best start-up stories of the year. These are the stories that inspired us the most and gave us hope about the possibility for a better way to do business.
First up: the unbelievable. Making drinking water from thin air. It’s not science fiction. This story hit big for the technology’s potential to bring water to waterless regions.
Then there was Virgance, the company that figured out how to turn activism into a business model. Got a mob, need action? These guys will tell you how to monetize it, too.
Zumbox plans to revolutionize the mail with the power of digital transmission. How novel!
Molten Salt just sounds cool, doesn’t it? Molten Salt! SolarReserve thinks it’s the key to solving the solar energy storage problem. And adding flavor to your popcorn. (Ok, that last one maybe not so much.)
Finally, there’s Better Place. The company aims to make the world just that, through innovations to electric vehicle charging and the car ownership model. Turn a traditional sales model on its head by renting the risky part (batteries) and suddenly you have a new market opportunity. These guys are one to watch, for sure.
Check back tomorrow for the best of the worst: greenwashing edition. On Wednesday we’ll look at our top five posts of the year!
Suntrica Brings Mobile Connectivity to 3rd World and Gadget Lust to You
Imagine biking 25 miles to reach the nearest electricity source capable of powering your cell phone. According to UN research published in 2005, only 20% of Africans (excluding South Africa and Egypt) have access to reliable grid electricity, and this number falls to 2% in rural areas. Consider that one more time. Only 2% of rural Africans have access to electric lights to scare the night away.
Couple that with the fact that the developing world is the fastest growing market for cell phones by a long shot. Worldwide, there are more than 2.4 billion cellphone users (2006 data) and 59 percent of these 2.4 billion people live in developing countries. This makes cellphones the first telecommunications technology in history to have more users there than in the developed world.
In countries where mobile technology has leapfrogged infrastructure power for mobile devices can be quite difficult to come by.
So while mobile connectivity represents a major opportunity for quality of life for the base of the pyramid the realities of the electric grid present a substantial stumbling block.
That’s where Suntrica comes in.
If You’re Feeling the COP15 Burnout, This Is the Satire for You
COP15 Activists at Work
Don’t get me wrong, I am watching as eagerly as the rest of you. I’m thrilled that COP15 has garnered as much media attention as it has. It’s amazing. I don’t think that the consciousness of the world has ever been so fixated on a single environmental issue in my lifetime. It’s everything that I could hope for. But, I’ve been known to skim and article or two.
Who can blame me? There’s a ton of coverage, and not really much happening. David Roberts over at Grist put it best when discussing the non issue of the leaked Danish text:
Consider: Copenhagen maxed out on journalist registrations, at 5,000. (Supposedly there were more than 10,000 waiting in line after that.) The place is choked with journalists, not to mention folks from think tanks and NGOs who are supposed to be blogging. There are thousands of people crammed in a small area, all under instructions to update frequently with fresh news, all exhausted and stressed out, all hungry for something to write about.
On the flip side, virtually nothing of significance to an international agreement will be decided before the final days, perhaps the final hours, of the talks.
What are all those journalists going to write about?…. Most of all, they’ll report the hell out of it every time any representative of any government says anything about anything. Every bit of pre-positioning gossip and bluster will be blown up to billboard size. There is, in short, immense incentive to exaggerate the significance of every piece of “news.”
If you’re feeling the burn, this 2 minute bit of satire from NPR will be music to your ears.
California Small Businesses A-OK Under AB32
The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report today (full disclosure- they pay my rent, which is why I got a jump on writing about this great report) outlining the impact of California’s groundbreaking global warming legislation on small businesses. The long and the short of it? No big changes! The impact to small businesses is expected to come primarily from changes in the cost of energy, because the cost of producing cleaner energy, as required under AB32, will potentially be passed on to consumers. At least that’s the worry.
The report finds that it’s not a big concern. The percentage of revenue spent on energy for a typical small business will change from minuscule- 1.4% to mildly less minuscule- 1.7%. Even better, this is a conservative estimate, assuming that businesses do not invest in any energy efficiency upgrades. Companies that choose to invest in upgrades to reduce their energy consumption might even see decreases in their costs, but UCS wanted to focus on the worst case scenario for companies that do not pursue energy efficiency.
In addition to examining the impact to small businesses by sector, UCS conducted a case study on the Border Grill, an upscale Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles owned by the Two Hot Tamales of Food Network fame. The Border Grill was chosen because restaurants and bars account for the largest share of employment in any small business category, and restaurants also have relatively high energy costs– think of the gas used for cooking and the energy used to refrigerate, light and cool a typical restaurant. Energy costs are a pretty big concern for many independent restaurateurs. Plus the Border Grill was willing to open its books and share detailed information on its physical premises, equipment, lighting, energy use, and financial performance with the analysts. All of this was necessary to conduct a rigorous analysis, but don’t worry, the hot tamales are getting some nice PR out of it. Anyway, the analysts did their analyzing and it turns out that if the Hot Tamales were to do *nothing* but carry on as usual, all they would have to do is raise their typical check from $20 to $20.03 and their increased energy costs would be totally taken care of. Yes, that 3 cents will be passed on to the customer, but he can probably swing it.
Four Game-Changing Technologies You’ve Never Heard Of
Finland is a country that is very generous with its entrepreneurs. According to the representatives from Tekes, a publicly funded organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland, it’s pretty easy for most entrepreneurs to get low-interest grants and loans for 1 million euros or less. That’s obviously pretty appealing to many would-be entrepreneurs (one of the entrepreneurs we spoke to called Tekes the “Finnish rainmaker”), and in turn this easy access to funding makes it pretty easy for game changing technologies to have a shot at reaching the mainstream.
Here are four interesting startups we learned about during my visit to Finland last week:
Forests as Feedstocks: The Finnish Approach
Nuuksio National Forest on the Outskirts of Helsinki
I’m on the eve of my return home to San Francisco from a lovely time in Finland.
Our wonderful hosts at Finnfacts planned a special last day for us in Nuuksio National Park where we hiked in the woods, smoked our own venison sausages over the fire, and dipped ourselves in a frozen lake and then raced into the sauna.
It was amazing. I gained a new understanding for the deep connection Finns have to the natural world. Don’t get me wrong, Metso the biomass company still has some work to do on its environmental initiatives, but on my tour today I felt like the woods would never end and I saw them as a source for fuel and life-sustaining energy in a way I haven’t ever quite before.
The Importance of Being Earnest About Biomass
Finnish Bioenergy Power Plant
Metso Corporation is pretty confident in its green cred. The Finnish company calls itself “a global supplier of sustainable technology and services” and in a press visit today the company’s VP of strategic development, Michael Hoven, and communications manager, Sanna Rahikainen, when asked if they considered Metso a green company, said it was. They said they don’t greenwash and are proud of what they were doing for the environment.
Unfortunately the devil is in the details, and Metso has a way to go before this blogger would feel comfortable calling it a truly sustainable business.
The key to Metso’s self-proclaimed environmental credentials is its production of biomass boilers to replace those powered by coal and other fossil fuels. It’s true that biomass has the potential to be an energy source that is superior to fossil fuels from an environmental standpoint. There are at least three keys in my mind to ensuring that biomass is a real sustainable solution:
3p Bound for Helsinki: Five Fast Facts About Finland
Quick quiz: name five things about Finland.
I’ll go first: reindeer, vodka, snow, Nokia, and … saunas.
Pretty sad, right? For a bunch of world travelers we should know better. Luckily there is a group who is setting out to change all that. Finnfacts, the country’s PR agency, has invited Triple Pundit and friends from:
Sustainablog, Clean Techies, Clean Tech Blog, Green Dig, Leo DiCaprio’s blog, Mother Nature Network and German blog Cleanthinking.de on a tour of some of the country’s hottest clean tech companies and coldest national parks. Finnfacts is kind enough to foot the bill because they know bloggers are not known for their deep pockets. Sold!
We head off on Monday. In preparation for the trip, I’ve been doing my research. Yes, some of this time was spent doing experiential research in the sauna with a Finlandia on ice, but I also did some good old fashioned reading. Did you know:
- Helsinki was recently named the world design capital for 2012 Which is not a surprise to me because I have a thing for Marimekko designs
- Finnish is closer to Hungarian than it is to Swedish, linguistically
- During World War II, Finland fought the Soviets, unsuccessfully allied with the Germans to regain lost territory, then eventually joined the allied forces against Germany as a condition of peace, meaning they fought in 3 separate wars all told.
- Finlandization is the art of bowing to the east without mooning the west. (Hee! what an image.)
- It’s really cold there
If you have any fun facts to add, or questions for us to ask, leave them in the comments!
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