Sustainable Action Leadership

Green Product Design; Eco-Apparel Hangers

GreenHeart Global , an Oakland, California company, is a green industrial design company that creates products made from recycled or recyclable material. But they have one major hang-up.

“There’s nothing we hate more than seeing our products end up in the trash!”, says CEO and founder Gary Barker. “That doesn’t mean we think our products will live on forever. It does mean that once our product’s useful life is over it’s easily recyclable. All our products are made from highly recyclable and recoverable material. This keeps the product, and the material they’re made of, out of landfills and inside the environmental loop--where they belong.”

Their other hang-up is GreenHeart Global’s first line of “intelligently” engineered, environmental products, marketed under the name Ditto Hangers . Ditto Hangers are an award-winning1 line of 100% recyclable garment hangers that replace the old dry cleaner wire hanger and the much maligned plastic and wire hangers found in retail clothing stores.

Ditto Hangers have two lines that are made from two of the planet’s most recycled materials: 100% recycled paper and 100% recyclable PET plastic, the same plastic used to make water bottles.

“We designed our hangers starting at the end of their useful life rather than from the beginning.” says Barker. “That way we know they’ll have value on the secondary, recycling market--unlike the typical ‘invisible’ hanger found in most retail clothing stores”.

Created for retail clothing companies, non-toxic dry cleaners and green hospitality Ditto Hangers are 100% recyclable in the majority of recycling programs at the store level. They are designed to replace the estimated 8-10 billion polystyrene [PS] and polycarbonate [PC] plastic and wire hangers that are produced annually, only 15% of which are typically recycled. The rest go to landfills taking over 1000 years to break down leeching toxic benzene and bisphenyl-A into the ground water. 2

GreenHeart Global recently contracted with a large San Francisco based clothing company for their unique Ditto Paper and Metal Clip hanger for a denim roll-out. They have also been working with such progressive companies as Reebok/Canada on designing hockey equipment hangers and Adidas/Germany designing wide-shoulder paper hangers.

“We’ve found that companies are coming to us to design not only hangers but other products that use sustainable materials and that can be produced in our certified contracted factories” Barker noted. “We see a huge market creating beautiful products that are intelligently designed so that their end-of-life is engineered into the product. We don’t see consumption going down any time soon. That means it’s up to the industrial designer to design products responsibly. I don’t know of any other company out there doing what we do.”

About GreenHeart Global

Ditto Hangers is a division of GreenHeart Global, Inc. GreenHeart Global conceives, designs, manufactures, and markets products to meet the growing demand for goods that are less harmful to the environment. They focus on existing products and/or systems and redesign them so they are compatible with the increasing emphasis for “green” compliance. GreenHeart Global’s highly-designed products incorporate recycled, recyclable, rapidly renewable and/or bio-based materials, and replace toxic and non-sustainable materials with organic or natural alternatives, including inks, dyes, and adhesives. GreenHeart Global, Inc is a California based corporation with headquarters in Oakland, California and offices in Hong Kong.

Collaboration-Competitors Join Forces To Save Energy

Coke, Nestle, Others to Share Shipping Routes

as reported by Sustainable Life Media

June 19, 2008 – Some of the U.K.’s biggest food and drink companies, including Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Coors, have agreed to share space in shipping trucks in an effort to reduce the costs and environmental impacts of product transport, Food Production Daily reports.

The new Sustainable Distribution initiative, spearheaded by food industry think-tank IGD, has so far attracted 37 corporate partners. The program will remove about 800 delivery trucks from British roads and save 23 million liters of diesel fuel this year, IGD estimates.

"In a highly competitive industry, getting 37 companies working together in this way is very innovative and results so far are impressive," says IGD president and CEO of Nestle U.K. Alastair Sykes.

The truck-sharing scheme was piloted last year by Nestle and United Biscuits, which have boosted efficiency in their distribution networks by enlisting United Biscuits trucks to pick up a load of Nestle products each day, reducing the number of empty truck runs. The concept of supply chain collaboration – even among companies within the same industry – appears to be gaining some acceptance. A recent report from the Global Commerce Initiative recommends a new supply chain model in which companies work together to improve environmental and social performance while cutting costs and ensuring an uninterrupted supply line.

 

How Green Is Your Brand?

Posted here New York Times
How Green Is Your Brand?

Sustainable brands. A term soon to join the lexicon of perfect oxymorons, like jumbo shrimp and plastic glasses, but for now the title of a four-day annual conference in Monterey, Calif., referred to by those in the know as “SB08.”

The corporate-logo-covered banner at the conference entrance was straight out of NASCAR, as SB08 had garnered sponsorship from the likes of the Gap, Hewlett Packard, Advanced Micro Devices, Clorox, General Electric, Deloitte and Sun Microsystems, as well as smaller companies like Lunar Design, Mohawk Fine Papers, Seventh Generation and Fetzer Vineyards. Conference presenters touched on topics from safer fish to smarter supply chains, consumer attitudes to crowd-sourcing. This breadth of participation is something to applaud; many of these companies wouldn’t have seen the merit of attending, let alone sponsoring, a sustainability conference in years past.

One bit of information that was driven home by speakers again and again (though it offers a blinding glimpse of the obvious): most people say they want to do the right thing when making purchasing decisions but not all people actually do. Similar gems were offered, i.e., consumers make decisions based on price and convenience.

Now, no one needs to attend a conference to learn that. Do they? During many of the presentations, I was disheartened by the degree to which eco-aspects have to be separated and called out, rather than be built-in, integral and inherent to a product, service or philosophy. It would be great to see more products and services serve a true environmental need rather than see so many emerge from companies jumping on a savvy marketing opportunity.

I also wonder why so much sustainable stuff, from shoes to canned goods, still isn’t really allowed a true design sensibility; is some degree of (whole) grain of hippie-ness really necessary? Take the rugged footwear of one SB08 presenter, Keen: do they really need something called a vegan sandal? Even their own vice president of marketing admitted that Keen’s shoes didn’t match the dress she was wearing while presenting at the conference that day..

But wait, back to the positive stuff: the fact that companies like Dow Chemical willingly participated illustrates that the fear of even approaching the idea of sustainable design and strategy is evaporating. It is heartening to see that all manner of companies are paying serious attention to things like supply chain, packaging, distribution, authenticity and transparency in thoughtful ways.

Not to say that greenwashing (in which consumers are misled regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service) has gone away, because it sure hasn’t — though it was fascinating to learn in one study that 83 percent of consumers are unfamiliar with the term. When oil companies re-brand themselves as green companies, when hotels slap on sea-foam green paint (non-toxic, at least) and market themselves as “eco,” when car models are erroneously marketed as less carbon-emitting than they really are, that’s greenwashing.

So, sure, there was a little greenwashing going on at SB08 (gathering large groups of people from around the county in one remote location is a little less than green). But what I came away with after hearing about these companies’ myriad sustainable missions, goals and platforms is:

(1) Finally! Glad they are paying attention.

(2) Wow. The green envelope needs to be pushed further. A lot further.

Some 2,670 new green products were introduced in 2006; the number has almost doubled since then.

Huh?

Making more stuff — no matter how green that stuff is — will not really help combat global warming or reduce our collective carbon footprint. Companies need to produce things and need to make money by selling them — understood — but to me, the idea of simply creating more (albeit greener) product is pretty much on par with lowering gas prices as a solution to skyrocketing oil costs. When will we consider behavior? When we will commit to innovation?

Sustainable solution? That’s no oxymoron.

To read the complete article click on the link at the top of the post.

Greening Education........Part II of II

The Green Key to Corporate Sustainability Success

by Coral Rose

In part one Andrew Winston addressed the integration of higher education and its role in the education of tomorrows sustainability leaders.He also defined the groundswell of students that are interested in making decisions, of where they will seek employment  based on a mindset of good for business and good for the environment.

“A global talent strain and shortage is in the works across many industries. How will companies compete if they don’t attract and retain the best people?” Andrew Winston

The question is what do we do about today’s sustainability leaders those already a part of your team and organization?

How do you integrate sustainability into your organization as a ‘core’ business strategy?

The path to Sustainability is sequentially a four fold path;

1. Awareness
2. Education
3. Strategy
4. Action

A clear gap in the Corporate Sustainability Arena is the need for Executive Education. Companies are going green-in many cases without a clear vision, strategy and plan to execute where they are going.

This eco-opportunistic, un-educated GREEN rush to market by wholesalers and retailers in one case saw the retailer, Lululemon Athletica make unwanted headlines in the New York Times, about the validity/credibility of a new so-called eco/sustainable fabric. We have seen other companies shift rapidly from step 1. Awareness to step 4. Action with consequences.

The Executive Education Gap falls into four buckets:

1. Initial Sustainability training and education for current employees/associates.

2. Continuing Education programs for those retained employees.

3. Addressing employee turnover-continually educating 'new' employees.

4. A shift in recruitment, candidate screening and overall ‘new hire’ thoughts, ideas and practices.

Organizations can address 1-3, by integrating sustainability as a core curriculum to your existing training curriculum.. Organizations that do not have a ‘training' branch-the option is to hire sustainability professionals or utilize Executive Education Programs. Executive Education programs can also be utilized to 'train the trainer.'

Executive Education Programs:

• The University of Arkansas, Sam Walton School of Business Sustainability Leadership Program Is a program that I helped design, create and deliver, where participants  study the sustainability movement, and how ethical, social and environmental issues are being addressed and integrated into core business strategies by multi-national corporations.

The course examines the role of design in products and processes. Emphasis is placed on gaining new insights to the sustainability paradigm shift, creating  practical solutions and strategies for a sustainable future as experienced through the "lens" of sustainability.

Participants also explore supply chain issues with emphasis on sourcing transparency, product integrity, standards, certification & labeling regulations, consumer marketing and telling an authentic, compelling story.

• The Presidio School of Management has created  5-month (weekend) program modeled after their MBA program in Sustainable Managment; Executive Program in Sustainable Management to meet the specific needs of senior professionals.

Addressing #4- 'New hire’ thoughts, ideas and practices. Here I would suggest looking to the best practices in the industry.

What do organizations that already have sustainability ingrained into their organization do?

I have had several clients that fall into this area, and I can share with you some of what they practice.

The candidate selection and interview process is not only about skill set, experience, and past successes. The interview process digs deep into the values, beliefs and the big question are they practicing sustainability in their personal life--and in what ways? Specific examples of how they are practicing sustainability are key.

There is no distinction between who we are at home and who we are when we walk through the doors of our office, many people believe they are two people--one at home and one at the office? isn't that a bit absurd, unless you have multiple personality disorder. I have a newsflash---YOU ARE THE SAME PERSON--we bring our core beliefs and values to the office--it is at the core of who we are--but many people don't 'express' or perhaps are not comfortable expressing those values at the office.

That is the distinction--they are simply just not 'expressing' their values (why not? that is the topic for another post) Bottom line--this is NOT about being two different people.

Integrating Sustainability into your organization is a multi-faceted path-and requires strategic planning on how it is best executed in your company and culture.
 

Greening Education........Part I of II

Greener B-Schools, Greener Employees

Posted on Harvard Business Online: Living Green

by Andrew Winston on May 30, 2008 8:43 AM

As an opening post on Harvard Business.org, I figure no topic could be more appropriate than the change happening at Harvard, among other places. I’m talking about the big shift in what business schools are teaching students and, more importantly, what those future business leaders want from their employers. According to a recent article in Newsweek, B-school’s are greening their curricula. Students are learning how to weave environmental thinking into core business strategy and they’re looking to apply it in the real world.

This isn’t idle academic stuff. Top talent is increasingly demanding more from employers. As a survey run by Hill & Knowlton revealed, up to 40% of MBAs in some countries won’t take a great offer from a company with a poor environmental reputation, and half don’t even want to work in environmentally-challenged sectors like energy or autos.

My work – writing, talks, and advising corporations – focuses heavily on what’s driving companies to seek green strategies and how to profit from these forces. A big part of the story is about stakeholder pressure, from innovative NGOs to shifting regulatory environments to B2B customers greening the supply chain to shifting consumer preferences. But I return again and again to employees because I believe that no stakeholder group is more important. A global talent strain and shortage is in the works across many industries. How will companies compete if they don’t attract and retain the best people?

But companies should not think that the MBAs who are learning more about green business are only the ones with a deep moral commitment to the environment (and there are plenty), or that they are only looking to work for green-focused companies, such as Patagonia in the U.S. or IKEA in Europe. One of the most fascinating parts of the Newsweek piece is the opening profile of Ash Upadhyaya, a Stanford MBA from India. Even though he’s been studying sustainable business, Ash wants to work for a private-equity firm and says, "Am I really driven to do this by my values? The honest answer is no…It just makes good business sense to be sustainable."

This profound shift in perception from seeing green as a moral cause to green as good business is the real story here – it explains why b-schools are covering it so much more, and why large portions of the student community are on board. It’s a great thing for the planet that more employees see green as a core strategic issue, no matter what your company does (even perhaps private equity). I’m optimistic that planet- and market-changing innovation will be coming from these fresh new minds.

But I’m not optimistic for the companies that don’t make the shift and actively court the new talent. Another theme in my work is that green isn’t really optional anymore. With resource constraints a harsh reality, you get leaner and greener, or die. And that culling of the weakest in the herd will go much faster when the best people stop coming to work.

The lesson here is simple: without a clear commitment to sustainability, a strong message and tactics that bring that commitment to life, and measurable results, you will be unable to compete for talent in the coming years. In fact, you may already be at a significant disadvantage.

Andrew Winston helps companies use environmental thinking to grow and prosper. He is co-author of the best-seller Green to Gold.

What Does it Really Mean to Take a Stand?

We sometimes think of taking a stand as.......making a declaration for or against something, forming a resolution or perhaps choosing a side.

Werner Erhard distinguishes taking a stand from all of these.

He defines taking a a stand as:

“A powerful way of being that can enable an individual to have an impact in the course of humanity.”

With sustainability, more of us are integrating personal values into business, or should I say are not fearful of "taking a stand" for future generations-"taking a stand" is also more effective when utilized in creating teams.

......."We Can Solve It"  or The We Campaign is another way that Al Gore is taking a stand, his stand for Climate Change is the stuff of which Werner Erhards definition is made of.

"The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. Our ultimate aim is to halt global warming. Specifically we are educating people in the US and around the world that the climate crisis is both urgent and solvable."