Green Marketing, Sustainable Branding, Environmentally Safe

Monsanto likes to think of itself as a sustainable agriculture company. They proudly trumpet their commitment to improving crop yields in the face of an ever-increasing human population, which they put forth as the very essence of sustainability. In truth, they are pursuing a sustainable objective in an unsustainable fashion. UCS senior scientist Doug Gurian-Sherman claims that Monsanto, “is producing more engineered seeds and herbicide and improving its bottom line, but at the expense of conservation and long-term sustainability.”

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Consumer boycotts and pocketbook pressure has been effective in the past in changing corporate behavior. How do we keep the pressure on to keep companies incentivized to do the right thing?

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Across the digital universe, brands are asking consumers to click for the good of the planet. Many social media-driven initiatives are naturally intended to build greater awareness of the brand’s own social responsibility positioning. But in asking consumers to create, vote, like, pledge and share online, can these tactics actually foster a change in attitude or even behaviour? Can social media help build a more sustainable society, one campaign at a time?

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By Amadou M. Cissé, EMBA 12, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland A few days ago, on my way home I was listening to NPR and I heard about yet another chemical spill in a river in China.  It turns out that seven people had been detained in connection with the toxic [...]

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Are people who care about CSR all only focused on environmental issues? It is important to investigate further what are the values that people care most about in corporate performance.

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Flyerzone is an online printing company that offers design agency quality services without charging design agency prices. Drawing on the talent of our international network of artists, we add new designs and templates to the site every day, offering our customers a huge range of choices all in one place, at a price they can afford.

We do this by integrating our environmental philosophy with our commercial model: by reducing waste, recycling and using vegetable-based inks, Flyerzone uses as few resources as possible without compromising on the quality of its work. By sourcing 99 per cent of our paper from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests, we ensure our business is sustainable in both the commercial and the environmental sense.

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The first month of 2012 is almost over, but it’s still difficult to envision how this year will look like, especially when it comes to the interaction between consumption and sustainability. One of the people who came for our help is Raphael Bemporad, the founding partner and Chief Strategy Officer of BBMG. He offered on Sustainable Brands a list of five trends that he believes will shape sustainable brands in 2012. This is a great list and we’d like to share it with you, adding our point of view as well as two more trends to watch for.

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Here are some tips for restructuring challenge campaigns to make them more successful.

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In 2007, Timberland pioneered eco-labels on their apparel, modeling them after USDA nutrition labels. The imitation was deliberate, said VP of Corporate Social Responsibility, Mark Newton. With the wealth of green information that is currently tracked, measured, analyzed and debated, the intent was to capture the essence of several large categories on a very small [...]

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Apple announced that it sold 37 million iPhones during the last quarter of 2011. That is equal to everyone living in California buying an iPhone during the holiday season. The Pew Research Center reports that during this same time period tablet (iPad) and e-reader ownership doubled, resulting in one out of three of us now owning this type [...]

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“Our business revenues are directly tied to winning competitive bids,” explains Elizabeth Barry, Chief Sustainability Officer of Marsh & McLennan Companies. “Over the last couple of years an increasing number of our customers are inserting into their bid packages questions that seek documentation of our company’s sustainability commitment.” Barry’s comments reflect the growth of the [...]

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Forget the triple bottom line: the folks at Clif Bar manage for five separate objectives. Find out how they manage it.

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With a “renaissance” in how companies, NGOs, and governments are collaborating to tackle some of our toughest challenges, this blog post looks in-depth at the specific new models and practices that are emerging in cross-sector collaboration.

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The greening of the supply chain is one of the economic engines of the global, $1 trillion revenue growth opportunity for companies selling sustainable products and services. KPMG reports that 95 percent of the world’s largest 250 companies now publish metrics on their environmental and social performance. This metrics-based focus upon environmental performance by the [...]

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Within the cavernous halls at CES 2012 were plenty of energy efficient, “green” and eco-friendly products along with OLED and smart TVs. Panasonic and Samsung led the pack.

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By Jacquie Ottman & Mark Eisen Our economy is slowly but surely heeding the signal that carbon is the new watchword. During the past few years, a steady stream of so-called “biobased” products have been making their way to retail shelves — compostable dinnerware made from corn, plant-based laundry detergents, and bamboo flooring among them. [...]

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The recession started a renaissance in how companies, NGOs, & governments collaborate. With governments and non-profits facing yawning budget deficits and business facing one of its biggest trust-deficits in history, organizations are coming together in unprecedented ways to tackle some of society’s greatest challenges. In fact, a distinct set of collaborative practices used by the “best corporate citizens” and their partners have emerged that others could adopt.

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By Jeff Klein Promoting ideas has been a principal focus of my work for the past six years, beginning with my work as Executive Director of FLOW and continuing today with Being Human, Conscious Capitalism, and Working for Good among others. Ideas are powerful. Napoleon Hill noted that “Ideas are the beginning points of all [...]

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The last piece of technology most carmakers have their fingerprint on is their internal combustion engines. Now, the rise of electric cars is threatening even that. But should car manufacturers be worried, or excited?

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Business exposure is a misnomer in art school, and that’s a shame. Without entirely compromising the integrity of the artistic process, I think there are opportunities for visual artists to maximize profits and reach a new audience of collectors. The process of creating editions is one approach towards sustainable production and profitable consumption.

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While QR codes have been in Asian markets for years, they have only recently begun to break into the mainstream U.K. and US markets.

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Throughout history there has been a great philosophical and fundamental divide in humanity. This divide affects our ability to communicate and find common ground with others of the opposite outlook

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In the end, if you want to get people fired up about something, evoking the idea of struggle and opposition will most likely help your organization retain its focus and keep the attention of those in media and the general public.

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Many people define world peace as an ideal.  One player in the National Basketball Association is attempting to promote world peace each time he is on the court.  How is he doing this? Is it for real? The Los Angeles Lakers basketball player, formerly known as Ron Artest, changed his name to Metta World Peace. [...]

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The following post is part of the course work for “Live Exchange” the foundational course on communication for The MBA Design Strategy Program at California College of the Arts. The rest of the posts are presented here. By Brandy Davis-Balsamo Wandering through a used clothing store, Jane pushes her way into a rack so tight [...]

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3p is proud to partner with the Presidio Graduate School’s Managerial Marketing course on a blogging series about “sustainable marketing.” This post is part of that series. To follow along, please click here. By Greg Kandankulam Search Engines and Social Media are integral parts of my life and probably yours, especially if you are reading [...]

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Heineken just seemed to be a beer company to me; one with a ripened value due to years of good reputation. I had never thought about the company’s ethics toward profitability or brand positioning until recently when I had dinner with Heineken USA’s VP of Corporate Responsibility and Ethics during a business trip to Washington, D.C.

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An opportunity exists today, with currently available technology to transform an advertising billboard as we know it, into an environmentally beneficial device that could roughly offset the greenhouse gas emissions of two passenger vehicles for one year, every year that it is used.

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3p is proud to partner with the Presidio Graduate School’s Managerial Marketing course on a blogging series about “sustainable marketing.” This post is part of that series. To follow along, please click here. By Griff Foxley In part 1 of this post, I explored some of the forces at play today that are creating a [...]

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The holiday season is the shopping season. It is also the catalog season, with tens of millions of glossy catalogs sent out to encourage people to shop. Although there’s nothing new about it, this year we can finally say there is a light at the end of the catalog tunnel. I’m talking about Catalog Spree, [...]

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