GreenPepper Blog

The Green Rush

By Beth Starkin, GreenPepper

With the economy still shaky, and much of the country desperately needing new jobs as unemployment soars, it seems we are all looking at green as the best potential to find gold.  The $85 billion in stimulus funds have just added fuel to the fire, with everyone and anyone looking for the next great green opportunity to save us all.

It’s certainly refreshing to see so many individuals, investors and major corporations jumping on the green bandwagon, but it’s a little scary as well.  While there are some great ideas out there, there are also many half-baked ones, and with the mad rush to make all things green, it seems that we aren’t giving close enough attention to what is real and what’s just hype.  Unfortunately, the fall-out as we realize how much money has been wasted funding ineffective companies is going to ultimately make the road that much rougher for those with viable ideas and companies.

Take, for example, the recent ruling against Cello about fraudulent claims about their ethanol (it was actually entirely derived from fossil fuel, not renewable sources).  The rest of the biofuels industry is now left to clean up the mess, and convince increasingly skeptical officials, VC’s and consumers that the industry is in fact legitimate and holds promise.

So, while we definitely should keep the new ideas flowing and push funding to those that seem to have a place in our future, we need to go in with our eyes open and carefully pick the reality out from the hype. Otherwise, the industry as a whole is going to be negatively impacted by a few bad seeds.

Convenience and comfort before going green

It’s probably no huge surprise that while most of us like to talk the green talk, we’re a lot less likely to walk the walk if it’s inconvenient.  In fact, a study from the Shelton Group released this week found that when purchasing products, 38 percent of respondents would choose convenience, 35 percent would choose comfort, but only 26 percent would choose the environment when making a choice.

I’ve always been a strong believer that if you want people to go green and make environmentally sound decisions, you have to make it easy for them, and small steps should be rewarded and encouraged.  Green products need to be of equal quality to their non-green counterparts, or it’s just not going to work, and this survey shows that.

With this in mind, companies that are taking the steps to encourage greener behavior should be rewarded, not disparaged for not doing enough.  For example, Scott’s Naturals products only contain a portion of recycled paper material, a fact that has brought the ire of many environmentalists.  But if this keeps the TP softer and makes people more likely to buy the product, it’s a huge step up for someone who used to use triple-ply Quilted Northern, and a huge win for the environment.

Finding that sweet spot, in business and communication, where you pull at the environmental goodness heartstrings, while still selling a product that everyone can enjoy, is going to be critical if we’re going to make any real change for our planet.  It simply can’t be an all or nothing proposition.

Enough Packaging

By Ann Barlow, GreenPepper

This past weekend, I was at Safeway doing the usual biweekly (Triweekly?  Daily?) grocery shopping.  Cereal was on the list, so I picked up the usual Kellogg’s Smart Start for my husband, Bob.  I don’t like a lot of the mass-produced cereals, not so much because I prefer small, locally produced fare, but because I just prefer the taste. So I went to the ‘organic’ aisle to see if I could get some granola. At my local Safeway, the organics are relegated to their own section rather than being interspersed with the regular chips, yogurt, cereal, etc.  As if they could catch high-fructose corn syrup or trans fats if they came too close.

But I digress.  I bought a bag of granola, which had 12 oz. of cereal versus the 14 oz. box that Bob picked up.  The difference in the sizes of the packages, though, was laughable.  The granola bag was about a third the size of the Kellogg’s box.

That got me thinking.  The razors that I put in the shopping cart were so surrounded by plastic and cardboard that we would need an electric saw to open them.  The Oil of Olay night cream came in a box with two more plastic boxes inside, one above the jar and one below. The contact lens solution came in a large box and the spout was basically hermetically sealed against any tampering.

When, oh when, are we going to cut out this incredibly wasteful packaging, and who will lead the charge?  It’s absolutely unconscionable that we allow this to continue.

It probably won’t be the grocery store chains who call for change. Clearly they couldn’t care less, so long as the current packaging allows them to get as much as possible on the shelves and display them in the most convenient and attractive way.  And it probably won’t be the manufacturers either.  They’ll no doubt cite the Tylenol scare as reason to avoid eliminating anything that increase the public’s, and their own, risk.

But wouldn’t it be great if Johnson & Johnson, which became the de facto standard of safe packaging, led the way in creating new packaging that was less damaging to the environment?  And surely they have the kind of power necessary to convince grocery and drug stores to be more environmentally friendly, too when it comes to shelf-stocking?

Here’s hoping.  In the meantime, I’m going to start buying the less packaged stuff.  I hope you’ll do the same.

Green News is Becoming Just Plain News

By Ann Barlow, GreenPepper

Almost every day, the New York Times has at least one news item related to the environment – usually more.  But yesterday, I was struck by the fact that there were two such stories on the front page, and a third on the front page of Business Day. On the front page was an article about how China is reducing emissions from coal plants by employing new technology.  Alongside that news story was another about a video that is making its way through schools as a tool to teach about how our consumption contributes to the earth’s deterioration.  The third article was about venture capital investments in energy efficiency technology.

These stories’ presence, so prominent and in such numbers (there were more stories off the front pages), makes me believe that discussion around the environment is becoming mainstream.  Of course, there are plenty who still cling to the idea that all this emphasis on the environment is just a fad. But most people only have to look around and trust their gut to realize we are taking too much from the earth without replacing it and dumping too much on it that can’t be reused.  At the very least, we’re worried about depending on unreliable sources for our energy needs.

Within the next 12 months, I think we’ll talk about global warming the same way we talk about the economy or our health.  Some gimmicks and quick fixes will still be part of the conversation (lose 12 pounds of carbon in just 2 weeks!), but most of the discussion will be around real solutions.  We PR types won’t focus on our clients’ latest slightly greener packaging of their products but on the company-wide initiatives they are taking to stop contributing to the problem and start contributing to the solution.

When that happens, the news will probably still be front page.  After all, there’s a lot to do.  But we won’t see the news as specially segmented, green news – just as part of the issues we deal with each day.  And that is good news.