A letter to the future

I wrote this letter earlier this week. Posted it today.

I want to buy an EV (Electric Vehicle). I got this little plan.

EV for the city = no emissions - no parking costs - no car tax - no noise.

Hirecar for holidays & big trips = state of the art economy - no tax - no maintainence - no hassle.

I can charge my EV with renewable energy from Good Energy - bingo, but where will I park it to charge it? I live in a terraced house and there are too many cars on our street already.

I want my local council to tell me how they will facilitate this because it brings up loads on issues from public safety to my own parking bay. Not neighbour friendly but future friendly.

These issues are being resolved with charging points in car parks and at meters for city visitors - but what about in residential streets where houses are broken into 2/3 flats and everyone has a car - how is that going to work?

I'll update with responses.

Its more than a pipe dream - it's inevitable.

Wake up... smell it.

I spend a fair bit of time recycling each week, our stuff, office stuff and other people's litter I pick off the street or on my walks. The public litter issue I never see as a problem or an inconvenience - in fact I quite revel in the opportunity to ensure that a can or plastic bottle goes back into the system - as its previous owner is never likely to buy into the culture. I actually see it as a little gift from a stranger that I can claim for some good - and it makes my environment better.

What is a problem for me and more than an inconvenience for society, is insanely wasteful packaging. On to exhibit 1... Kraft's comically ill conceived container for their "Cafe Noir" instant coffee range. Its thick black lid is presumably the outcome of many design and research sessions, and it is a most abysmally wasteful use of oil and a certain landfill sustainer for a good few centuries henceforth.

I long for a day when corporate social responsibility at Kraft extends to decisions over packaging as well as commodity sourcing. Maybe this post will help shuffle them an inch or two further down that road.

I recovered the bottle from our office after our resident caffeine desperado had consumed its contents. It is bound for the hard plastics section in my local recycling centre today.

Note to the Cafe Noir brand manager: Just because someone says it looked nice or "consumer research said it looked classy" and it supports your proposition - doesn't make it "right"... does it?

Update the "do good" mantra... recycle, re-use, refuse (as in don't buy - not putting it in the bin!)

Come in Nestle... your time is up.

Watching the Nestle Social Media debacle unfold earlier in the week, once more made me feel how completely inevitable major corporate change is in the face of co-ordianted, amplified consumer action through Social Media.

Whilst there was an appreciable drop in Nestle's share price on Monday the 22nd March, substantial long term impact from the brilliantly co-ordinated GreenPeace campaign still seems a little way off.

What's is beyond doubt now is these campaigns increasingly generate and leverage major global news coverage, driven by word of mouth connectors & influencers.

The frequency and reach of campaigns is expanding rapidly as people understand the impact collective engagement around a cause can have and this process is only going to accelerate with the growth of technology and connectivity.

Future campaigns will inevtably generate greater momentum that will start to counteract marketing efforts, impact on sales and a brand's market share and profit and Nestle cannot ignore this potential.

It's frequently said in my day job that corporates who do not monitor their social media presence will be seen as negligent in coming years. People have an appetite for transparency and no amount of Corporate Social Responsibility handwringing/greenwash will cover up or deflect those seeking and communicating the truth through Social Media.

Yet the harsh free market economic realities of modern globalised business mean a large scale controversy free supply chain is an extremely challenging goal for most brands. The fact is there is practically no purchase in the present unsustainable energy and profit hungry system we create wealth through in the west, that is guilt free.

In the present system Nestle management cannot simply switch off the supply of a key component of many of their products, even if it is un-ethically and destructively sourced at present.

They need to understand that they cannot continue to produce raw materials wrecklessly and un-sustainably - I'm sure (privately) they already realise this. But maybe there also needs to be a mentality shift in the just world of green and environmental activism from destroyers of corporate reputations – to rewarders of “do-good” busines?

In an eco-fued, it's easy for both parties to sit in their righteous bunkers (shareholders v activists) and remain entrenched in their comfy postions. It's much harder for both parties to recognise that both have a huge role to play in positive change... together.

It's a very big ask for Greenpeace to have resisted beating up Nestle so visibly when they have a just cause and a dynamic, hugley influential network network to broadcast the message, but I wonder whether amplifying a direct and prominent competitor brand alongside a more considered and rational critique of Nestle's alliances with rainforest vandals would have had a more virtouos long term effect?

This campaign leaves me with the usual bad taste about Nestle products, but Greeenpeace could spell out some alternatives for people? Do we buy Cadburys (Kraft) chocolate instead? Maybe they cant align themselves overtly with commerce (?) but overt positive engagement with a competitor, helping to change consumer buying habits and apply economic pressure to Nestle is surely a viable strategy too?

Brands need to understand the paradigm shift going on through social media and rapidly prepare for a very different relationship with their customers in the future, but activists should also see the opportunity for rewarding genuine attempts to make positive change in corporations, because it too will bring about positive change.

Real, lasting, sustainable, profitable change.

Doing a world of good?

I am ashamed to say I didn't really know about World Of Good until this morning, and it makes me wonder what on earth have I been doing for the past 5 years to remain ignorant of a business like this? (another post - another blog)

A totally inspiring story of social responsibility combined with entrepreneurialism and (presumably) a great education, took founder Priya Haji on a 6 year journey to connect developing world producers with mainstream business markets in the west.

Selling the World Of Good brand to eBay, to me makes perfect sense and the potential of expanding her Fair Trade empire to a mainstream audience is really exciting.

The more seamless the connection between mainstream consumerism and good quality, sustainable, ethical brands and businesses the quicker those businesses and critically their brand values become the mainstream.

Just keeping "do good" business as a private club that's the sole preserve of ethical and environmental purists is completely detrimental to the bigger picture.

In the UK's current (consciously miseducated) consumer economy, I don't expect mainstream shoppers to suddenly see the "sustainable" light and convert to consciously buying good overnight. But invisibly making the sustainable purchase the mainstream option pays the ethical producer a much bigger dividend and re-enforces the fact that "good" can be (is) profitable. Very profitable.

It's only this scale of change that will make sustainability an inevitability rather than a "fingers crossed behind the back" pipe dream.

Great move Priya. Now eBay, get busy doing your economies of scale "thing" and make World Of Good an immensely profitable part of your business, driving growth and dividends for your shareholders and "the market" (whatever that really is).

Whilst you are at it - let the values of World Of Good infect the rest of your business. Welcoming this change will equip you for the future where the relationship between business and consumers is radically different, where corporate values are the only effective marketing strategy and transparency is something businesses welcome.

Green is a beautiful game

Another miserable Saturday defeat for my football team.

I'm a shamefully lapsed supporter, a combination of little spare cash and less time made me cease my countrywide wanderings a few years back. Latterly a nagging sense of guilt about the potential emissions during each trip, both oral (yes I confess to being a potty mouth at matches) and those from the burnt rubber & diesel, kept me yet further away.

As is customary after each defeat, I casually wonder what it would be like to support a good club, one that won things and with my blog in mind it led me to look for the greenest football club? Who won that title last year?

David James and Jurgen Klinsman aside, I don't ever remember having read anything about a player that gives a damn about anything green (apart from the obvious playing surface).

That combined with supporter's road trips, the players muscular motors, the billions of hours TV watching, makes a quest for "world's greenest football club" is a bit of an oxymoron doean't it?

Yet along with everything else, I know there's going to be one that is greener than the others.

A momentary "green search" turfed up a feature from the Guardian earlier this year that bestows Dartford FC with that championship... that world title. Turfed stand roofs, solar panels and their own lake for rainwater recycling, combined with few trips beyond London's outer orbital M25 motorway for matches, all make them the eco standard bearers of football. Be proud Darts fans, be proud.

The admirable Arsenal and Netherlands' Vitesse Arnhem also boast eco stadia that make match days more sustainable for the myriads who watch season by season, without the fans even knowing. Just as with any really impactful eco or ethical change, subtlety and profitability are, in my opinion, the best ways to get really serious improvements stitched into toxic consumer habits.

I'm not seriously suggesting that I would change my allegiance to my club because another is greener, that strange addiction to a very specific supporters pain runs too deep. But there are those in football that do it more ethically and more environmentally than others, just like with everything else. I for one would like to know who they are and what they stand for, so that I can make a choice about how I spend my money with that "choice" in mind.

That's my money, that helps (in an unfortunately small way) to make the world the way it is... good, bad and ugly.

I love the beautiful game and I know that if I spend my money the right way, as a real "prosumer", I can help to keep the world the same way.

The sweet taste of change

During today's lunchtime trip to the local market I stopped to do a scrape of the local sweet shop shelves for sustainence to keep my work mates mid-week PM ticking along.

Having grabbed my now standard bar of Fair Trade Cadbury's Dairy Milk I spotted my first bar of Rainforest Alliance certified Galaxy chocolate. Cue small tingle of excitement and a big smile.

I've always adored Green & Blacks for their balance of quality and ethics and they along with other specialist brands should be congratulated for setting in train what is seemingly becoming accepted best practice for parts of this industry now.

But to me these two big brands slugging it out for ethical hearts & minds takes the game to truly meaningful and significant levels. The simplicity and (comparative) perfection of the change to favour socially responsible alliances is quite breathtaking and it's all down to future economics.

I'm less familiar with The Rainforest Alliance than I am with FairTrade, but the organisations credentials seems wholesome enough. The effective stewardship of the planet's precious natural resources through commericial neccesity is wholly sound, as is the process of fair payment to sustainable cocoa bean growers.

The benefits of these commercial engagements will impact on local and ultimately national economies, working towards a futue built through responsible trade not aid.

The world is the way it is because of what we buy, whether we think about it that way or don't. The coup for these mainstream brands maybe short term PR, but I am convinced that further cultural change in big organisations becomes inevitable once the benefits of "doing good" profitably & sustainably are seen on the bottom line.

It's good for business and good for us all... now to do Fairtrade with the environment in mind?

(More) work to do...

Joi de vivre... Montpellier

Took a Carbon Neutral trip to my favourite French city earlier in February.

Montpellier has always struck me a future facing place, not scared to re-model and re-new itself based on the needs of its citizens.

From the graceful and considered re-work of the central "Place de la Comedie" for the tram system built in 2000, to the traffic free weekends (aided by it's public bike hire system), it's a city I admire for joined up thinking.

On a cold tourist free weekend it was a vibrant hub of commerce, culture and humanity of every sort.

Sadly we missed an exhibition of Eco Friendly Architecture at the town hall, but it did make me dream of one day living in one of Europe's oldest centre's of education.

Radical change can be graceful, ecological and commercially sustainable with brave and effective planning.