Kissmas

Covent Garden is famous for wowing tourists with its extravagant Christmas decorations each year and currently stealing the show is a sustainable Christmas tree. The innovative tree, from designer Paul Cocksedge, lights up when two people kiss underneath. It works by channelling the electricity generated from the kiss into powering 50,000 red and white LED lights! So for all the lovers out there this Christmas head to Covent Garden and create some magic…

Inspired marketing

A speech I gave recently at a Carbon Trust event - thought it was worth sharing given the number of conversations I've had with people in the last couple of weeks on exactly this topic.

"I sit before you today as a marketer. My first job was in marketing – firstly as a graduate at Cadbury Schweppes, then with the Saatchi brothers honing my skills, and finally in 1997 I set up my own business, Good Business, which I still run today.

At Good Business we have spent the last 14 years helping businesses become more sustainable and successful.

We are not a sustainability consultancy, nor a marketing consultancy but a marketing sustainability consultancy!!

How? Well it comes down to three basic steps. First, helping them understand what they need to do. Second, helping them change their business to do it. And finally – and this is critical– helping them explain what they’ve done, how it differentiates them from their competitors and why it’s special.

And in the past 14 years we have seen many big businesses go down this route and made a big success of it – from Santiago’s Unilever to M&S to John Lewis.

But when i survey the landscape I have a tendency to get rather down hearted because the most striking thing is not how many companies have done this but how few.

I don’t mean that few have become more responsible, because actually, while CSR / CR / sustainability has its critics and allegations of greenwashing will always fly, most businesses have taken it on board and changed in the past years, and they are, broadly, taking the steps they need to be taking.

But what most businesses haven’t done is effectively tell anyone about what they’re doing in a compelling way – through their products and services.

And – and this is where it gets really depressing - that’s because of marketing.

Because what’s marketing been doing while all this activity is going on? Well, generally, nothing. Nine times out of ten marketing hasn’t been involved at all. And if they are pulled in – and it’s normally under duress – they find one hundred good reasons why they can’t possible integrate these responsibility factors into the marketing of the products and services they relate to.

And of course this means that the whole equation falls apart – because if consumers don’t know about the things the company has done which differentiates it from its competitors of course they don’t become part of the brand and, ultimately, consumers can’t buy it as a result of them.

In fact, of all the silos in businesses, be it hr, ops or anything else, the one area that has held back sustainability the most is marketing.

And if i am honest, it makes me ashamed to be one. We have an endless stream of people come through our offices saying they just can’t get marketing engaged.

It doesn’t really seem to make any logical sense to me.

When I was going into marketing it inspired me because I thought it was the exciting bit of business. It was about being the real guardian of the brand – and this meant being future-looking, it meant seeing the big picture of people’s lives and figuring out what will make them easier and better and happier and more fulfilling and then finding the right role for the brand within this future.

To be sure it would have a future. And it meant working with innovation so that the product and service development was in place to ensure the brand could deliver against these future needs.

And it meant working with communications to make sure it was all expressed in the best possible and most positive way and really got through to people and inspired them.

And then it meant immediately thinking further and harder and wider about the next steps that need to be taken to keep guiding the brand successfully into the future.

And yet what i have seen in the last twenty odd years is marketing becoming smaller than this in some many ways. It’s been becoming more and more short term in its outlook – focusing on the next quarter and the numbers – instead of taking the long term view.

It’s been becoming a dogged follower of consumers – only daring to give them what they want right now – rather than a leader, pre-empting and even shaping future consumer wants and needs.

And it’s been trying to become more and more scientific – as if it’s trying to take the management consultancies and finance directors on at their own game.

So while once the language of marketing was filled with words like vision and values and stewardship and foresight, now its vocabulary is all metrics and analytics and performance reports and technical skills. And the words are the window on its world.

It’s all about value. Not values.

It has become sales communications.

All of which means that when sustainability comes into the picture marketers can’t fit it onto their agenda. Sustainability is inherently values-oriented. It’s all about the bigger picture of how we do things and the way that we do things and why we do things. So it doesn’t plug neatly into the newly scientific marketing model. The latest market research report has indicated that the consumer isn’t directly motivated by this right now ,they say, and that means it’s irrelevant to us.

Well, if you ask me this is all a real pity. I want marketing to rediscover its long term view, rediscover its role as the real guardian of the brand and rediscover the accompanying need to look not just at where we are now but at where we are going.

Stuart Rose speaks of needing to be 1 ½ steps ahead of the consumer (not two or you will lose them). I think that’s right. I also think consumers have to trust your brand and business before you can lead them anywhere. They have to believe in you.

And while it might not fit into the numbers obsessed model of marketing, I really passionately believe that marketing can and should and must play a big role in making this happen.

When I talk to businesses – people in every department – what they all want is to be inspired by what they do, be proud of it, and feel good about it. And that is best delivered when sustainability and marketing come together - and it’s really vital that both are involved – and work out what role the business has in society, what its purpose is, what it can do and how it can do it better. And how they can in turn use this to say something about the organisation – to its people, to its customers, to society.

And when it works, when this all comes together, as it has at M&S and John Lewis and timberland and innocent, you can feel it. It feels real and human, it has genuine direction and most importantly it feels like something you can trust, because you get – on an intuitive and easy level - what it’s doing and how and why.

So what next?

Well, I don’t think sustainability should pander to marketing – I don’t think it should try and make itself fit into the scientific, numbers-based, short term model and endlessly churn out the ‘business case’ for it.

Instead it should show the business, show marketing, how the company’s sustainability strategy can put some life into the vacuum that currently inhabits most corporate and brand values. It can provide the personality and the leadership to prove that the business is on a journey – and it is going in the right direction.

Let’s inspire marketing to be inspiring.

That’s what I joined the marketing world for.

And I believe it will lead again. It will be exciting again."

Fuel efficiency for free

Fiat have just released details of the first ever large scale real life study into eco;driving, gathered from their eco:drive system, and it makes for interesting reading. The stand out fact for me, beyond the impressive 6% average improvement in fuel efficiency, was that although journey distances remained the same, journey times actually decreased. Counterintuitively, eco-drivers turned out to be speedier drivers, getting to their destinations quicker, due to an average 13% decrease in stop time. So drivers are saving money, reducing emissions and getting there faster - where's the catch!

The big difference between this and other studies is that this was not based on test conditions, but real life. Car companies have spent billions achieving a 20% improvement in average fuel efficiency over the last 15 years years. Here's a way of getting another 6% average improvement, in a matter of weeks that doesn't cost a thing. Car makers are waking up to this; as Andrew Humberstone, Fiat UK's MD said at the forum on Wednesday, even the most efficient cars can be driven poorly, so if the question is "how can we improve the vehicle's fuel efficiency then we can no longer avoid the fact that the answer must include driver behaviour."

For eco-driving to fulfil its potential though it needs to be publicised to a wider audience and to be factored into everything from driving tests to road planning, sat-nav systems to arcade games. Fiat made a commitment on Wednesday that the launch of the data would mark the start of a forum to try to bring these different ideas together and coordinate activity across different sectors. Sounds like it could be the start of an interesting dialogue.

More details about the report here.

FTSE4Good not quite so good

BP has been taken out of the FTSE4Good Index, however in contrast to United Parcel Service, DuPont and Bridgestone, it has not simply been ‘deleted’, it has been ‘suspended’. The difference is purely semantic, as, in order to qualify for re-inclusion, BP has to go through the same assessment as the other companies. So, with this ‘unprecedented’ measure following, the index is simply making a point.

Fair enough? Perhaps BP does deserve to be singled out for the failings that led to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. However, by making such a show of suspending BP, the index is also highlighting the problems inherent in its criteria for inclusion. According to David Harris, Head of Responsible Investment at FTSE, the FTSE4Good committee had taken the decision following a review of the number of past events that had taken place and BP’s poor response to their aftermath. Therefore, why is it only now that BP’s inclusion has been called into question?

Perhaps the FTSE4Good committee should also consider suspending and reassessing its own criteria to ensure that it maintains its credibility and continues to contribute to the development of responsible business practice worldwide.

We bonus against sustainability...until it looks like we won't get our bonuses

One of the key questions when it comes to true business sustainability is whether it is part of the way a company remunerates its staff. If all the drivers related to the way you pay and bonus your staff are short term in nature, it is fairly likely that the only results you will see emerging from your staff will be short term. Just take a look at the financial sector if you need a clue to what happens when you reward short termism!

So when you see a company who has incorporated sustainability metrics into the way they reward their staff, it may make you think that they are on the right track. Surely once you have made a public commitment to a metric you should stick by it.

Not so if you are Shell. This is taken from their 2009 Sustainabilty Report:

"Shell uses a number of key indicators to evaluate the company’s overall performance across financial, operational and sustainable development (SD) areas.This evaluation is then used to determine bonus levels for employees, including members of the Executive Committee. Sustainable development accounted for 20% of the scorecard for 2009. As in previous years, safety was the key measure,supplemented by other aspects of HSSE & SP performance.For 2010, an assessment by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes of our performance in sustainable development will account for half of the SD element in the scorecard for members of the Executive Committee.Successful delivery of major projects will be part of the scorecard for all employees, with early engagement with communities one factor considered."

Having just been dumped out of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Shell is now believed to be reviewing whether this is used as a bonus metric, with claims that the rejection from the Index was subjective. I'm sure if they were not out of the Index and the bonuses got paid we would not be hearing complaints about how subjective it was. Rather than kicking up a fuss about how subjective the measure is, surely they should be working hard to get back on the DJSI.

I, for one, would certainly have more respect for Shell's corporate sustainabilty commitments if they stood by them accepting that perhaps this year bonuses weren't going to be as high as previous years, but this has flagged that there needs to be more real focus on the long-term impacts the company has on society and the environment.

Missed our last e-bulletin?

Where's the world's biggest windfarm? Who's the most generous giving nation? What's the future alcoholic fuel source for our cars?

These, and many other questions, are all touched upon in our latest e-bulletin. Missed it? Fear not, you can check out all our previous e-bulletins here.

Fixing the leaks in a global debate

Water is storming its way up the sustainability agenda – and with good reason.

Almost one billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation – that’s well over a third of the world’s population.

Last week, the UN insisted that unless we pay attention to the global water crisis, the Millennium Development Goal for environmental sustainability will be missed.

Surely such water issues don’t have anything to do with soggy Great Britain! Well, they do actually. Water is a local issue on a global stage – affecting our economy, our security, our environment and our global impact. Why? Because it’s not just about the liquid in our taps. It’s about the water used by other countries to produce the goods we buy, the food we eat, the bottled water we enjoy. It takes 3 litres of water to produce your 1 litre bottle of water. No wonder water is being called 'the new oil'. The team at The Story of Stuff have created this brilliant video about the issues.

Raise a cheer, then, for Paris. The city has unveiled its latest tactic to persuade Parisians off bottled water: a public drinking water fountain offering free sparkling water. It's called Petillante - "she who sparkles". Let's hope it sparks similar innovation across the Channel.

Lessons from climbing

We have come to expect the new from California, the exciting from Silicon Valley, the ambitious from the Middle East...but from Leicester in the UK - that hot bed of innovation, technology and finance. Well think again. Leicester is the home of Riversimple, the most ambitious hydrogen car project in the world - why? Because its bottom up - it didn't start with an existing car like BMW, it didn't start with an existing structure like every business, it didn't start with any expectations (because it’s in Leicester, UK) like every other innovation project in the auto sector. And here lies its brilliance and why it is doomed to failure.

The clean sheet has enabled it to redefine the car, not put a new engine in a heavy existing car structure. It has made hydrogen a more attractive solution in the medium term than electric. It has proved that it can work and the pilot phase to be rolled out in Leicester with 30 cars is making it a reality. And it is getting lots of airplay (witness the article in the Wired this month) because it is doing it differently in structure and makeup of the organisation itself and this unfortunately is why it will fail itself but provide the impetus for other companies to succeed through their inspiration.

A friend once told me of a climbing analogy - the key in climbing is to never take more than one of your hands or feet off at any time - and so is true in business. If you try and take all your hands and feet off at the same time i.e. do something totally new in a new way the likelihood of reaching the top is put in peril. Others will take from your inspiration and race past (and sometimes that's job done). But if you want to succeed with your breakthrough invention it sometimes makes sense to do it within the existing structures of business so that there's never more than one hand off the wall at any time. Then you can race to the top. Good luck Riversimple.

The future of art

You've heard of Speed-dating, well now comes Speedarting.

This initiative, which launched yesterday, is trying to demoncratise the buying and selling of art. By making buying art more accessible to the everyday punter and by giving up and coming artists a channel to reach potential buyers (beyond the expense and effort the a gallery can require), this certainly has a lot of appeal.

Could this be the new route for more artists to make the jump to a successful future? Could this be a new route for a more accessible way for all of us to own real art? And most importantly, could this be one solution that will help those rising stars inthe art industry survive the inevitable cuts that are no doubt on their way?

The Dung Beetle: A poo-powered eco car

The most recent breakthrough in the drive to encourage sustainable power in cars hasn’t come from the usual Prius or Hybrid, but from a Water company in Bristol. The testing of the new poo powered car has caused quite a stir with the locals, as its being powered by methane from the local sewerage treatment plant.
GENeco, part of Wessex Water, is behind the concept and their experts reckon that the waste flushed down the toilets of 70 homes is enough to power the car for a year. The car still produces C02 (3 tonnes compared to the average cars 3.5 tonnes) but it’s basically carbon neutral as all the C02 would have been released into the atmosphere anyway, in the form of methane.
It’s a clever sustainable idea for utilising the waste product of treating sewerage. In fact, the plant in Bristol produces enough of the stuff to power 9540 of these cars each year. The Dung Beetle is currently only being tested, however if successful, GENeco plans to convert its whole fleet of cars to run on the waste that they treat at their plant.
It’s obviously a great marketing ploy for the company, the tag line ‘powered by your waste!’ quickly connects consumers to the car but the concept behind it really is a right foot forward for businesses who want to become more sustainable. Taking the nasty by-product of its operations and turning it into a carbon neutral fuel, GENeco have created a platform for companies to really start thinking about how they can utilise waste. I am sure other companies will follow suit; Supermarkets could use leftover rotten vegetables to power their home delivery services or pampers could even design a nappy bin that powers a nightlight.
The world is full of ways that companies can take what appears to be waste and turn it into something positive, and who would have thought, that it would be a car powered by poo that led the way!

Long live 'good collaboration'

I’ve always hated businesses collaborating, even when it’s on purely social grounds. In the end I’m a capitalist at heart and whilst it has its problems, it’s not as bad as all the rest. And collaboration fits in the rest. When companies who do similar things get together, whilst on the outside they may look like they create change, the collusion is almost always a stitch up. Yes a stitch up because, as they are not competing with each other so the need to go further disappears, and so the more they talk the more watered down it becomes – and the less change that actually happens.

Take the booze industry. Has all the collaboration of all the drinks manufacturers really optimised what could have been achieved? Well it’s done enough to stave off more regulation, but has it actually worked? Go out to Cardiff city centre on a Friday night and tell me that the responsible drinking message is getting through loud and clear to the public – oh no it isn't!

If each of those businesses had had to find ways to out-do each other in the area of responsible drinking, we would surely be light years ahead. So let's ban all industry collaboration initiatives and watch competition re-enter businesses approach to these issues.

But stop - not so fast - is all collaboration wrong? Absolutely not. In fact collaboration across sectors should be demanded. Whilst it’s great for a single company to want to be sustainable, it’s impossible to be so if no-one else is doing it around you. That doesn't just mean a company's supply chain either (because at least you have more control of that). No, I mean things like if there is poor public transport around your offices how can you persuade your staff out of their cars. Which is why we must all collaborate with any organisation except the ones in your own sector. Water companies and energy companies working together to make more sustainable cities in partnership with local authorities. All have got something to add, something new to help each other - a positive creative way forward.

And perhaps if the Coalition Government is really going to work it should embrace the concept of coalition fully. Let's get groups of people together with lots of divergent experience and see if together we can work out a new way of doing things, that works better, utilises innovation wherever it may come from and costs us all less.

Long live 'good collaboration'.

Not in my back yard

This morning I was listening to the Today Programme on Radio 4 when I heard an interview with a research scientist who was being interviewed about the recent BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Having heard the recent confirmation from US government scientists that this was the world's worst oil spill of all time, I was amazed to hear one of the facts from the research scientist. He stated that if the Gulf of Mexico was scaled down to the size of an Olympic swimming pool and the oil spill was scaled down by the same amount, the oil spill would amount to one gram of oil in that swimming pool. Now that fact does not diminish the impact that the spill has had on the lives of the families of those that were killed in the accident, the fishermen and their families who depend on the coastal fishing industry, and the many that rely on the tourism in the region. It does, however, make one think about the scale and press coverage that this corporate irresponsibility has received in comparison to other corporate irresponsibility - it seems to just depend where in the world it is happening.

The one example that springs to mind is the spills that are taking place on an almost daily basis in the Niger Delta. These may not be one single vast spill like the BP spill, however in cumulation they are huge. The Nigerian government estimates there were over 7,000 spills, large and small, between 1970 and 2000, according to the BBC. That is approximately 300 spills a year, and some spills have been leaking for years. Vast swathes of the Delta are covered with tar and stagnant lakes of crude. By some estimates, over 13 million barrels of oil have spilled into the Delta. That’s the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez spill every year for 40 years, according to The Independent. How often do we hear about what is going on in the Niger Delta - I wonder how many swimming pools these spills would fill.

Now all of this certainly does not belittle what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico, or dim the light of what BP has done. What the spill there has done has raised the issue in everyone's mind because we are all hearing about it - so that must be a good thing. Hopefully the result of this high profile spill will make us all more concious and unaccepting of corporate irresponsibility wherever it is happening in the world.

Beauty and the beast (of climate change)

Could the latest beauty craze that is apparently reaching our shores be something that helps us address climate change? According to an article in the Times today (although reported some time ago in the Daily Mail) the latest beauty craze, something that might eclipse Botox, is encouraging us to inject carbon dioxide into your skin to make you look young and beautiful again.

Not sure I have any desire to inject CO2 into my skin, but perhaps if it really takes off it could be more successful than carbon capture and storage? Move over E.ON and Scottish Power - here comes some really beautiful CCS!

Colour invasion bringing smiles and tears

There's a zesty new trend emerging, and it's trying to change your mood.

I, like a couple of thousand other Londoners, wander across Jubilee Bridge on my way home from work each day, enjoying the view of London sprawled along the Thames. The scene is uplifting, but it’s undeniably grey. Except, that is, for the bright yellow staircase of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on southbank. There’s something about dazzling and unexpected colour that makes me smile – and apparently I’m not alone.

Italian architect Renzo Piano recently shocked London by unveiling what he felt was the perfect coating for the new sustainable offices at Central Saint Giles (pictured). It’s an effort to show that sustainability isn’t just about what a building does (or, in terms of carbon footprint, what it doesn’t do); it can also be about how it does it. The zesty orange, yellow and green shine out in an effort to create a “joyful heart” in the city and “make a positive contribution to this part of the West End”.

It’s not just London that’s getting a colourful makeover. In March, Dulux launched a new chapter in its green agenda, with an international outreach project to help us “live our lives in colour”. The idea is to equip enthusiastic community volunteers with brushes and cans of paint to splash more colour into the world. So far they’ve colourfied communities as far apart as Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Jodhpur in India. This week they’re in Istanbul.

Not everyone’s a fan of this colour invasion. The Guardian recently suggested that looking at Central Saint Giles, you’d be forgiven for thinking that giant mutant radioactive chewy sweets had invaded the world. Perhaps that’s a little extreme. At least we know that if the good weather doesn’t last, we have something else to dazzle us this summer.

Orange wellies hit festivals

Summer is here and the festival season has kicked off. Every year you hear of a new sustainable initiative from eco festivals that aim to be carbon neutral, eco tents that are recyclable, through to recycling incentives of beer and chocolate for festival goers who pick up a bag of rubbish during their stay.

One of the brands well known for sustainable festival gadgets, is Orange, helping to power mobiles when conventional power is lacking. They introduced the dance powered mobile phone charger at Glastonbury and their latest addition thermoelectric wellies that charge your mobile are bound to be a hit in the English, not always so sunny summer!

So with your wellies on, your bin bag and eadible tent to hand, you're ready to minimise your impact and have fun at the next festival near you.

'Because that's how Piers sees it'...but is it enough?

If anyone could bear to sit through Piers Morgan’s World Cup South Africa programme last night with its African chanting in the background and Piers Morgan fighting back the tears as he listened to clips of Nelson Mandela’s famous inaugural speech from 1994, then you are perhaps a more tolerant person than I am. However, Piers Morgan firmly aside, the programme was actually delivering a really important message about the role of sport within South African communities. Sport, and particularly football, is so much more than a game – it improves the physical and mental wellbeing of the population, it brings people together, it provides a platform for the delivery of vital public health message, it teaches tolerance, fair play, discipline and valuable leadership and teamwork skills and for many it is what keeps them going from one day to the next. Today, many agree that sport could be a very effective means of achieving the Millennium Development Goals that Kiri mentioned in her last post.

Sport as a tool for social change is not a new concept - organisations such as the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation have been funding projects worldwide that are delivering and promoting sport for development for many years. However, although there has been a lot of talk, there are still very few governments, donors, NGOs and businesses that are actually taking action to recognise, invest in and advance sport for development. Will the World Cup in South Africa change this? There have been lots of discussions about the social legacy of the tournament and the responsibility of different stakeholders to ensure that the benefits don’t end when the final match whistle blows, but is it enough? It would be nice to think that Piers and even Glee’s Sue Sylvester talking about the benefits of sport is a sign that times are changing but I am understandably sceptical. The World Cup is a rare opportunity to influence attitudes and opinions, a chance to put sport firmly on the agenda – let’s not leave it up to Piers to make this happen.

Virtually impossible to pick one... but let's see...

I've been keeping my eye on The Global Poverty Project for a while now. As we all know, our new Prime Minister Cameron, along with the world's leaders, will be gathering in New York in September to assess the progress in achieving The Millennium Development Goals. If you're not familiar with the eight goals, here they are:

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

2. Achieve Universal Primary Education

3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

4. Reduce child mortality

5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development

This project is asking us to choose which goal we feel needs the greatest attention. Now some might say this is an exercise in futility but seeing the general consensus could be very revealing. All the issues since 2000 have had major improvements but it's evident that some areas are still failing. The new government has said that they will "create new mechanisms to give British people a direct say in how an element of the aid budget is spent." So by making a choice through The Global Poverty Project we can all make our voice heard. And this may make for a very interesting Review Summit.

A glass ceiling worth smashing?

Last Thursday, Abigail Hofman and Tracy Hofman, writing in the Financial Times, asked us to consider “whether it matters that women are under-represented on the boards of financial institutions”. At first glance, this might seem like rather an un-PC question. Today, a wealth of legislation and conventions recognise gender equality as a right – even if not quite a reality.

I don’t know whether Hofman and Hofman were aware of the ironic timing of their controversial question, but last Thursday also happened to be the opening day of the 2010 Global Summit of Women. As City folk perused the Financial Times over their morning coffee, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping was opening the Summit in Beijing with the proud declaration that China, like other global powers, is dedicated to the development of women’s careers.

So, gender equality in business is high profile – but does it matter? The FT article was a response to the recently-published report by the Treasury Committee, ‘Women in the City’, which sought to explain how gender diversity (or rather, a lack of it) might have played a role in the Banking Crisis. According to the latest Female FTSE report, only 9% of boards of FTSE 100 banks are women. “We believe the lack of diversity on the boards of many, if not most, of our major financial institutions, may have heightened the problems of ‘group-think’ and made effective challenge and scrutiny of executive decisions less effective”, the Treasury report concludes.

You may well be wondering if there’s much hard evidence to back up the claim that gender diversity in management is a stabilising factor for business. Well, yes, there’s rather a lot. Detailed research by Catalyst, for example, found that U.S. Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams secured a 35% higher Return on Equity and 34% higher Total Return to Shareholders compared to companies with lowest women’s representation. Interesting research has also been published by The Conference Board of Canada and the Aziz Corporation, with the latter indicating that many CEOs themselves blame the financial crisis partially on a ‘macho’ culture of risk taking.

This is all more than an interesting discussion for businesses that are looking to secure good corporate governance and clear financial oversight – the ones that are looking for sustainability. Certainly, we know consumers are going to keep sustainability and ethics firmly on the agenda, as recent news of customers flocking to the ethically branded Co-op bank reminds us. But businesses don’t need to wait for their customers to push them to be more sustainable, more diverse, more forward-thinking. Gender equality is a good bandwagon to jump on. Not just because “it’s right”, but because it the smart thing to do.

One step forward...

Most of the stories we read about supermarkets and ‘green’ products are positive ones – about new innovations reaching our shelves. Unfortunately, things have recently moved in the other direction at Waitrose, where eco milk pouches and jugs – a smart innovation that uses 75% less plastic than traditional bottles and much less energy in production – have been withdrawn from the shelves after poor sales. Even though the pouches are marginally cheaper than traditional milk bottles, but Waitrose believes its consumer preferred the convenience of the old-style containers.

This raises an interesting question about how consumers can be persuaded to try, and adopt, new products that are better for the environment but differ from what they are used to. And not least because Sainsbury’s has had quite a different experience – its milk pouches and jugs have flown off the shelves during trials in 50 stores, and are now being rolled out nationwide. Sales of bags at Sainsbury’s already account for one in every 10 two-pint containers of semi-skimmed sold.

So what did Waitrose do wrong? Are Waitrose and Sainsbury’s customers really so different? Sainsbury’s attributes its success to spending time educating consumers about the new product, starting with handing them out to all employees so that they would become ambassadors for it. Perhaps Waitrose's mistake was to assume that its customers' appetites for greener products were so strong that the pouches would fly off the shelf as soon as they appeared.

The lesson here might be that, whilst consumers consistently express interest in seeing more environmentally friendly alternatives on supermarket shelves, this appetite is something that needs to be carefully cultivated into a willingness to change purchasing habits and accept doing things a little differently. Retailers taking the time to really talk to consumers about green choices, and educate them about new products, can only help. Manufacturers and retailers are doing well to introduce more and more ‘eco’ alternatives into their product ranges, and it would be a real shame if that hard work is undone because consumers haven’t been persuaded to give them a try.

There's a buzz in the air

As an endangered species it's a real benefit having that 'cute' factor for this will help you no end getting your survival cause firmly on the map. Luckily, this is just the case for our British bees, who have recently seen a sharp rise in food retailers and manufacturers in particular, taking on the fight to help save their numbers. They are also instrumental to the food industry producing honey and helping pollinate other flora, so it's a win win situation.

Helpers include no less, Fortnum & Masons who now have their own bee hives on their roof through to Sainsbury's, who have recently set up a number of 'bee hotels' and the Co-op with Plan Bee, which includes support of bee documentaries and amateur beekeeping.

Here at Good Business we are proud to have helped Innocent with their quest to reduce declining bee populations through their latest smoothie range "Buy One get One Bee", helping to introduce 2 million more bees into the UK.

Isn't it nice to think that more bees will be in our skies, not only diong the important job of pollinating millions of plants but doing what bees do best, make honey!

Erupting Mount Sustainability?

Unless you have been living on another planet you'll have noticed that there aren't many planes in the sky over the UK at the moment. The volcanic cloud of ash that's rising above the Eyjafjallajökull crater, which has reached heights of 36,000 feet, has brought Europe's airspace to a standstill.

It has not been easy for many - with estimates of over 150,000 UK nationals being stranded abroad, there have been some Herculean efforts made by travellers to get home - check out some of these stories from the BBC.

But it's not just the human cost. There are some serious financial costs to our, already fragile, economy. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates that airlines are collectively losing £130m per day in lost revenues. Some have estimated that if the no fly zone continues there is a risk of a drop of between 1% and 2% for some European economies.

With all this doom and gloom I was trying to see if there might be one or two silver (sustainability) linings to this ash cloud. Here are a few things that I thought this adversity might remind us of...

• ...what is seasonal - it might only be 1% of UK trade that actually relies on air transport, but with even only some of those unseasonal products missing perhaps we might make a switch
• ...how tasty UK fruit and veg can be - perhaps it will be a Cox's apple rather than a mango
• ...how many tonnes of CO2 have been saved from the Earth's atmosphere - this website estimates 194,109 tonnes per day!
• ...how fun the train is - assuming you can get a seat and the services are running on time
• ...how a holiday in the UK might be a more attractive option - certainly given the last few days of sun we've had
• ...how we haven't lost that great British spirit of adventure - assuming you have managed to get home and you are still in one piece (and I admit this last one has nothing to do with sustainability!)

Okay, so there may be a few caveats in there, but its fun to think there might be a few positives to spring from the Eyjafjallajökul crater.

2010 - the year of brand responsibility?

Last month Giles spoke, as part of a panel discussion, at the Business and Sustainability Event (base). Below is an extract from his speech and also a link to read the full piece. Is 2010 going to be the year of brand responsibility? Are we about to reach a tipping point? Only time will tell, but it certainly feels like an exciting time to be in the world of brands and sustainability.

"I believe that in years to come we will look back on 2010 as the year that marketing and sustainability departments finally got it together, and started working together. This moment has certainly been a long time coming – when I started Good Business over ten years ago, people thought I was crazy when I suggested that marketing could be the vehicle for delivering sustainability goals and objectives, but it looks as if the rest of the world is finally catching up. So, what’s behind this sea change? Well, looking closely, I think we can identify four main drivers.

First, in most large companies, corporate responsibility, or sustainability teams are well established and embedded, and are doing a good job of managing social and environmental risks effectively.

The second factor is the way that climate change has shot up the agenda over the last five years or so.

The third is our emergence from the recession. The recession has held back many companies who might have been ready to move further and faster over the last two years.

And the forth and final driver is consumer desire for values, even in the face of a recession.What’s been interesting is that although the importance that consumers place on value for money has, unsurprisingly, increased, there has been no marked reduction in their desire to see companies put values at the heart of what they do, even if it means the products and services they buy cost a little bit more.

There is still some residual nervousness amongst marketers about whether they can legitimately talk to consumers about social and environmental issues. A little nervousness is no bad thing if it curbs some of the more excessive claims we have seen in the past. But that aside, I do firmly believe we are reaching a tipping point. A point from which there will be no going back. If the successful brands of the 20th century were built upon a strong consumer proposition, the successful brands of the 21st century will be built on a strong consumer and social proposition. Those brands that can demonstrate to customers that they take their responsibilities seriously will be rewarded. Those brands that can demonstrate mutual benefit will be the ones that survive and flourish.'

Click here to read the full speech.