Sustainable Consumption

Timberland and Stonyfield Farms — Two Little Guys Showing The Big Guys How It's Done

Friday, May 02, 2008 / AS

This week, I hosted a panel at the Ceres Conference at which Jeff Swartz, the CEO of Timberland, the boot company, and Gary Hirshberg, the CEO of Stonyfield Farms, the organic yogurt company, answered questions about the role of business in society. Prior to the panel, I spoke with them about sustainable consumption.

I was very pleasantly surprised.

Rather than the usual canned answers one often gets from CEOs at these events, both these Red Sox fans proved to be deeply committed, not to selling less shoes or yogurt, but to sustainable consumption and enlightened consumerism as a potential way out of the ecological and societal quicksand in which we find ourselves.

Gary explained that only about half of what we eat is real food, in terms of its nutritional value. For him, sustainable consumption starts with optimizing the food value chain, which will reduce waste and create value simultaneously. The resources we now waste to make Twinkies can actually feed lots of people.

Gary believes that we need enlightened consumers, i.e. a critical mass of organic yogurt eaters to really change the equation. Twenty years ago, when Gary realized this, he started Stonyfield.

Jeff represents the third generation of Swartzes to run Timberland, and has a harder case to make with boots. But he and Gary are on the same program. Timberland's mission is "to equip people to make a difference in their world," which includes showing consumers, employees, other companies, and his children how commerce and justice can go hand in hand.

Timberland works hard to sell boots on the basis of its environmental and social actions. This is "cause marketing," yes, but also a deeper attempt to change consumer preferences by helping people "to be the change they want to see in the world." And, yes, quoting Gandhi is apropos here — Jeff is deeply motivated by spiritual and inter-generational concerns.

I know when I am being sold a bill of goods, and this time I was not. Both of these guys have thought deeply about their actions, and they're not just walking the talk, they're running it. When we finished the panel later that morning, they deserved the prolonged standing ovation they received.

As for me, like some other unenlightened "experts" in sustainability, I had wrongly assumed that smaller companies like Timberland and Stonyfield were sideshows to the main event that the GEs and GMs of the world would move us forward, not the little guyes. Now I see the role that deeply committed CEOs like Gary and Jeff are playing and I would not be surprised if they had more of an impact, in the long run, than companies that are hundred of times as big.

And that size gap may not last forever. Under Jeff, Timberland has grown from annual revenues of $159 million to $1.6 billion, and the company now competes directly with Nike and Adidas. And while organic foods represent only three percent of the food consumed in the United States, Stonyfield sells six times the amount of yogurt as Kraft foods and is growing every day.

Maybe the answer lies in one of my favorite lines from The West Wing: "They'll like us when we win."

The Shallow End Of The Pool — Ten Simple Footprint-Reducing Steps For Businesses

Thursday, April 17, 2008 / KW

In somewhat the same vein as the story we posted yesterday about reducing your computer systems' energy use, here is a nice little article about ten business practices that can lighten your footprint on the planet. It's from a site we just encountered called Ecopreneurist.com. No profound insights or amazing strategies here — just a collection of practical, down-to-earth tips you may find valuable if you're a business manager. If the concept of sustainable business is one you are just getting your head wrapped around — which we suspect is true of many visitors to this blog — this could be the shallow end of the pool that makes it easy for you to get used to the water. Enjoy!

Taming Your Energy-Hogging IT Department

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 / KW

Here's a neat little column on making your company's IT department more environmentally friendly. It's from Preston Gralla, editor of GreenerComputing, and it's filled with simply, practical steps that take relatively little time or money but can reduce your energy consumption significantly. There are also links to other sites that flesh out the details and describe various techno-tools that can save you even more. And it does it all in just a few hundred words. It's a model of fine, useful sustainability reporting. Great job, P.G.!

P.S. Oh, and when you're ready to delve a little more deeply into the same set of issues, check out this article and the set of related links. As you can see, the folks at GreenerComputing have done a lot of thoughtful research into the kinds of practical info needed to make sure that environmentally-friendly IT practices really work. A great source for companies that are ready to travel this path.

Transforming Human Desires From Part Of The Problem To Part Of The Solution

Wednesday, April 02, 2008 / KW

Mark Powell, a scientist in Washington state who blogs about oceans, fish, and conservation at Blogfish, writes here about the challenge of setting the right tone when it comes to conveying messages about sustainability. Key grafs:

... I think most environmentalists would identify human desires as a problem. In this view, people want more ... more money, more toys, more fun activities. And almost all of it means more conservation problems as we use more resources to satisfy the wants.

Do we really focus on trying to defeat human desires to achieve conservation? Yes, we do. We try, usually with minimal success, to scare or limit people to stop them from fulfilling their wants. We tell stories of impending crisis so they'll stop out of fear, or we try to make rules that stop the damage by denying people their desires. Conserve water or we'll run out and you won’t be able to flush your toilet! Stop driving your SUV or we'll all cook together on a warming earth! Etc., you've heard it before.

It's a reasonable way to go, but it isn't working. And perhaps even worse, it creates problems for the environmental movement. It casts us as the enemies of human desire, not a good role to be in. In fighting desire, we cast ourselves as grouchy preachers promising fire-and-brimstone for those who stray from the straight and narrow. That might be ok if it worked, but with this approach, our successes are often partial and short-lived. And it takes a toll on us; when we KNOW we're right but we still lose, our attitudes turn pessimistic, cynical or even bitter.

Powell goes on to talk about chef Barton Seaver who is trying to promote sustainable seafood using a different approach, one that harnesses desire on behalf of eating and enjoying fish (like sablefish) that are abundant and well-managed, rather than fish (like Chilean sea bass) that are scarce and endangered.

Of course Powell's overall point is well-taken and important. From a marketing standpoint, you never want to be in the position of defending negativity (fear, guilt, No) against positivity (optimism, pleasure, Yes). This is the mistake the Hillary Clinton campaign got boxed into a few weeks ago, when their candidate started mocking Obama's message of change and hope. Does Hillary really want to be identified as the "anti-hope" candidate? I don't think so.

Here is a crucial role for businesses involved in sustainability — to lead the quest for the right ways to market sustainable lifestyles and to make them feel cool, joyful, satisfying, luxurious, and self-indulgent. Because, let's face it, the vast majority of people in the developed world are not interested in developing new value systems (even if that might be a good idea). So our challenge is to show them how sustainable consumption fits into, expresses, and even fulfills their current value systems.

And after all, this is not really deceptive. Because, if we are going to frame the conversation in terms of "human desires," what do people actually want out of life? It certainly includes good food, cars, hot water for a shower, etc., etc. But it also includes clean air and water, thriving forests, vibrant coral reefs, abundant species, and all the other goods that only sustainability can guarantee to us and our grandchildren. Surely selling the fulfillment of such desires shouldn't be an insurmountable challenge for the greatest marketing civilization in the history of the world.

The Power Of Information To Nudge Us Toward Sustainability

Thursday, March 27, 2008 / KW

The notion, discussed here recently, that automated, easy-to-understand metrics are one key to sustainable consumption seems to be gaining traction. One straw in the wind: this article in the New York Times, which references a new book, Nudge, by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago.

The book is about how well-chosen, readily accessible pieces of information can be more effective than either financial incentives or government regulation in encouraging smarter consumer behavior. A key passage from the Times article:

"Getting the prices right will not create the right behavior if people do not associate their behavior with the relevant costs," says Dr. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics. "When I turn the thermostat down on my A-C, I only vaguely know how much that costs me. If the thermostat were programmed to tell you immediately how much you are spending, the effect would be much more powerful."

It would be still more powerful, he and Mr. Sunstein suggest, if you knew how your energy consumption compared with the social norm. A study in California showed that when the monthly electric bill listed the average consumption in the neighborhood, the people in above-average households significantly decreased their consumption.

Meanwhile, the people with the below-average bills reacted by significantly increasing their consumption — not exactly the goal of the project.

That reaction was avoided when the bill featured a little drawing along with the numbers: a smiling face on a below-average bill or a frowning face on an above-average bill. After that simple nudge, the heavy users made even bigger cuts in consumption, while the light users remained frugal.

Amazing, isn't it, how subtly powerful even simple-minded devices like smiley faces can be for nudging people in the right direction?

And please don't write in with indignant complaints about "the nanny state" manipulating us. Does anyone really think that smiley faces on our utility bills would outweigh the thousands of pro-consumption messages we absorb every day through television commercials, radio ads, billboards, print ads, and all the rest?

We already have plenty of nannies trying to manipulate us — and they are all sending the same message: "Buy, buy, buy!" A few nannies offering a gentle warning about the long-term dangers of over-consumption won't deprive us of our freedom.

Robert F. Kennedy On Sustainable Consumption and the Real Wealth of America

Wednesday, March 19, 2008 / KW

Robert Kennedy I thought about Andy's provocative post on sustainable consumption when I discovered that yesterday was the fortieth anniversary of this speech by Robert F. Kennedy. Speaking at the University of Kansas less than three months before his murder, Kennedy contrasted mere consumption with real wealth. Here's an excerpt:

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product — if we judge the United States of America by that — that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife [RFK is referring here to two notorious mass killings of the 1960s]. And the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

One of the big challenges of the twenty-first century for us Americans will be to figure out new ways of measuring our national well-being, beyond traditional yardsticks like Gross Domestic Product. It will be an even greater challenge for business people to figure out how to define success in an era when pushing more stuff out the warehouse door may be an increasingly non-sustainable strategy.

But can anyone doubt that, in the years since Kennedy's speech, the challenge he set forth has become more, not less, acute?

Update: Thanks to Caitlin for sending us an updated link to the video for Kennedy's speech.

Consumption — The Other Side of Sustainability

Tuesday, February 26, 2008 / AS

In this post, I want to deviate from my usual discussion about sustainability, corporations, and profits.

I want to discuss something that rarely gets discussed in the sustainability world but which I think is going to be a subject of increasing attention. It's the fact that sustainability is really a two-sided coin. On the one side is sustainable production, which is what all of us in business like to talk about — how companies can get leaner and greener. But on the other side is sustainable consumption, which is something that we don’t talk about much.

I want to frame this issues by talking about globalization — not in economic terms, but in environmental and social terms.

One of the most interesting and important aspects of climate change is that it is a global issue with global impacts. If China continues to burn coal at the rate it needs to sustain its economic growth, Manhattan, Boston, and Miami will be threatened by rising seas, and farmers in Kansas and Nebraska will have to switch crops or move. When farmers in Brazil cut down rainforests, the temperature in Boise goes up.

There is no place to run from climate change. Polar bears living at the North and South Poles are threatened.

Globalization has also produced social impacts that are worldwide. We've thrown out most of our toys that were made in China, even after China executed the official who was in charge of product safety. (And we complain about tough government regulations here!) We import so many products from China that their product safety issues affect us directly. To some extent, the same is true for child and slave labor. China's social issues are also our issues, whether we like it or not.

And resource issues have also become global. We are due to run out of oil and a number of metals that we need to feed the manufacturing infrastructure that supplies us with everything from building materials to cutlery.

Water is the most dramatic example of the coming resources crunch. The list of areas that are likely to run out of water in the next thirty to fifty years is scary, and it is already happening right here at home. Las Vegas, the fastest-growing city in the U.S., is built in the middle of a desert, and the lake that supplies it with its water is drying up from the top and silting up from the bottom. Similar things are happening in many large areas of the world.

Andy Liveris, the CEO of Dow, has said that "water is the oil of the 21st century." The Pentagon has conducted scenario planning around the idea that the world will be engulfed in a series of regional wars fought over water in the next century.

But in this globalized world, consumption has not yet become globalized. It's well known that the United States, with only five percent of the world’s population, consumes twenty-five percent of the world's fossil fuel. We have only one fifth of the population of China, but we account for more global warming than they do (although the gap is rapidly shrinking).

Jared Diamond recently observed that the average American consumes 32 times as many resources as the average Kenyan. When you consider that a billion people live on less than $1 a day, that my lunch cost probably $20 and I am already thinking about dinner, you'd think the ratio would be even higher.

Now put this in a global context. It has been calculated that if the rest of the world were to start living at the same standard of living as people in the U.S., it would take twelve planet Earths to support our collective lifestyle. When I think about how much stuff I throw out every week, that doesn't really surprise me either. But as far as we know, we only have the natural resources of one planet Earth at our disposal.

The papers are filled with articles about how people in the West are obese, but you don't read very much about the fact that the economies of the West are also obese.

And you certainly are not likely to hear this from corporations that are in the business of selling more stuff. To the extent they are focused on sustainability, they are focused on being more efficient in manufacturing and selling us more stuff. But if you look at the numbers, the kinds of efficiencies they can make are not going to reduce our consumption to a sustainable level, not by a long shot. We can all buy hybrid cars and low-impact fluorescent bulbs, but that only slows the growth of pollution.

The fact is that we need to practice sustainability on both sides of the coin: sustainable production and sustainable consumption.

It's rare to hear companies say, "Consume less," and rarer still to hear them say, "Consume less of our products." A few years ago, McDonald's in France ran some ads saying, "If you have a weight problem, don't eat here so much." The corporate PR guys on Oakbrook Illinois found the people who were responsible and sent them to the (corporate) guillotine.

There are a handful of industries that are just beginning to address the issue of sustainable consumption.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was just getting involved in environmental matters, Massachusetts passed a law that would pay electric utilities for getting their customers to use less energy. Under the new scheme, the utilities would get paid the same, and in some cases more, if they sold less energy by convincing customers to use less, or to use it during off-peak times.

This became a national program called Demand Side Management (DSM). It has the potential to revolutionize the consumption of electricity all over the world. We need to apply this model to other areas of consumption.

Reducing our level of consumption is going to be tough for us in the developed world to swallow, and I frankly don’t know how it is going to happen. We have the strongest military in the world, now unconstrained by any opposing force. And we have proved very willing to fight to maintain our life style, with the war in Iraq (motivated at least in part by the desire to guarantee access to that country's oil reserves) seemingly just the latest example.

I think sustainable consumption will come about — if it does — through a combination of five factors:

Market forces. If you've traveled recently, you know that our standard of living is down because of the weak dollar. Imported goods are also more expensive. At the same time, the prices of gas and other natural resource will continue to climb. All of this will tend to bring our standard of living down, closer to that of the developing countries.
Regulation. China legislated only one child per family, and although I don't think we will ever go that far, I do envision more consumption taxes and possibly the rationing of various commodities. We are already going down that road with water use.
Technical innovation. Science may help alleviate the resources crunch. I'm thinking about things like genetically-modified organisms, clean hydrogen or nuclear fusion, and cost-effective water desalinization. But technology will not solve the problem. We're not quite as smart as we like to believe, and there is no technological genie waiting to grant our every wish.
International conflict. The next century will see a lot of battles over resources, and the West is destined to fight a number of wars like the war in Iraq — wars we realistically cannot win. These military defeats may be a necessary evil to wake us up to the need for sustainable consumption.
Redefinition of consumer preferences. This is the hardest one of all. It requires redefining quality of life by understanding that "Less is more." The simplicity movement needs to go from a cult to a mass movement.

I think you can see now why this topic doesn't get discussed much in business circles.

I had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker with Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia at a "net impact" event late last year. He has done as much as any CEO to make sure that his company is respectful and protective of the environment. Yet in front of 100 net impacters, he said (I am paraphrasing), "I have talked to some serious scientists, and most of them believe we have passed the point of no return. We have no hope left to save the Earth."

We all want to think we can go on living this way forever, and that our children should have more than we did. But deep down we recognize that this can't be the case except for a smaller and smaller percentage of us. Not only are there billions of people who want to escape from grinding poverty — and obviously deserve a chance to do so — but in addition the world's population is still growing. By 2050, it is projected to increase from the current six billion to nine billion, and three-quarters of this growth will be in the developing world. So we are going to have a lot more mouths to feed, hands to wash, and people without homes or hope.

I apologize if this message seems like a downer. Maybe I need to find my Prozac. But the issue of sustainable consumption isn't going to vanish just because we prefer to ignore it. I think we're grown-up enough to start talking about it. What do you think?

Reality Check: How Cures From Nature Can Endanger Nature

Monday, February 11, 2008 / KW

It's a fascinating dilemma, and a bit of a Catch-22. Those of us who worry about human despoliation of the natural environment like to invoke, among other arguments, the long-term value of species survival for our own quality of life. "Who knows," we like to ask rhetorically, "What untold cures may someday be discovered among the obscure species of plants flourishing in the Amazon rainforest?"

It's a valid argument, but one that carries a sting in its tail. Because when those "untold cures" are actually discovered, it doesn't exactly guarantee the protection of the source species. In fact, it may be just the opposite, as this article from a German broadcaster's website suggests:

Drugs made from medicinal plants have become ever more popular among doctors and patients in Germany in recent years. Around 75 percent of customers in German pharmacies reach for a natural product when they buy non-prescription medications. In 2006, so-called phytopharmaceuticals accounted for around 2 billions euros ($2.9 billion) worth of revenue, or about a third of the total revenue in non-prescription medications. That translates into a high demand for the raw materials for these products — medicinal plants and their leaves, flowers, roots, and seeds...

... for this reason Germany has a special responsibility when it comes to protecting medicinal plants. Excessive harvest and unregulated trade pose a threat to the existence of 4000 medicinal plants worldwide. In Europe, around 150 types of plants are in danger of extinction.

The article goes on to explain that, for technical reasons, industrial production of most of these plants isn't feasible. For now, at least, the only hope is the establishment of strict protocols governing how the plants can be harvested in their natural settings, and in what quantities. The inevitable result is limitations on the size of the market and lack of availability of the natural cures for some people who could benefit from them.

Sometimes we in the sustainable business community speak as if sustainability requires no tradeoffs — as if, with sufficient ingenuity, we can devise solutions that offer wins all around, with no downside for anyone. And maybe, in the very long run (measured in generations), that will be true. But in the real world, in the short term — where we all live — tradeoffs are unavoidable. And one big reason is the sheer fragility of our environment.

Medicinal plants offer just one example. There are many others. We want America's national parks to remain as symbols and reposititories of natural grandeur, which means we have to limit the number of visitors. We want to take advantage of wind and water power wherever these are available, which means we have to tolerate the intrusion of windmills and generating stations into some of our most scenic landscapes. We want the peoples of the developing world to enjoy a standard of living comparable to the one we enjoy in the West without accelerating the production of greenhouse gases, which means we all have to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels — perhaps drastically.

In each case, a balancing act is demanded, weighing goods that are mutually exclusive against one another and requiring difficult choices.

One of the painful lessons of growing up is that it's just not possible to do everything — that hard choices and, often, sacrifices must be made. (I have recently come to accept the harsh truth that I will never be a starting pitcher for the New York Mets.) As an industrial civilization, we'll be facing a series of such choices over the coming decades. We in the sustainability movement have a responsibility to help the world focus thoughtfully on the kinds of tradeoffs that are necessary, so that wise decisions for the long term can be made.

Buying Our Way to a Cleaner World?

Monday, July 09, 2007 / MT

A recent article in the New York Times addressed the conundrum that increasing eco-consciousness among consumers has led to a buying spree of “green” products. While substituting organic, fair-trade, locally-made, or otherwise morally-righteous products for regular purchases is an incremental improvement over what we’ve been doing, many argue that it’s not enough. They say that buying less stuff is closer to the answer.

Another school of thought says that making it “hip to be green” is the only way to get sustainability out of the crunchy-granola niche and into the mainstream. And since buying less is a hard sell in terms of hip-ness, making cool new eco-products is our best shot at moving in the right direction. GOOD Magazine is an example of that zeitgeist.

So what’s a manager to do, in an economy awash with signals that growth is imperative?

For one, make sure that the environmental benefits you’re touting are both real and significant. Keep in mind the “if everybody did this” mentality; i.e., if everybody bought an “Eco-McMansion” where would we be in the long run? Certainly not somewhere clean and green and naturally preserved.
Use the fad-factor carefully. Generating an eco-buzz around a new product can be great for marketing and sales, but be sure to look at your message critically — before someone else does. Can activists accuse you of over-doing the hype for a fundamentally unsustainable product? Anticipate their stances early.
Combine eco-product development with meaningful actions to reduce your company’s environmental footprint — to save paper, energy, biodiversity, and so on in your business operations. If your company can go beyond the selling-more-stuff mentality, you’ll fare better with both consumers and environmental advocates in the long run.
Even in cleaning up your own house, keep in mind that product substitutions are not always sufficient. For example: rather than just buying offsets for corporate air travel, try to reduce unnecessary travel or to use trains between nearby cities.

Your green products may be selling great right now, but over the long run you’ll be glad you were ahead of the pack in going beyond green consumerism. Already, some environmental advocates are claiming that “green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,” and others are rejecting consumerism itself for alternatives like freeganism, community-supported agriculture (CSA), and gift economies like freecycle.

If managers do indeed want to keep selling more stuff, especially to the growing number of environmentally-aware “consumers” (or potential consumers), they’ll need to do more than simply make eco-themed products. They’ll need to find real ways to help would-be consumers reduce their own environmental footprints, and they’ll need to walk the talk in their own business processes.