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If you are a corporate responsibility communicator, “you are your CFO’s best friend. Because 30 percent of a company’s stock value is intangible; it is the g-word: goodwill.”

These were the opening remarks of Clark Dumon, senior vice president of corporate communications for MGM Resorts International. He was moderating a discussion at the CommitForum about the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) storytelling in brand management. Joining him on the stage were Jenny Robertson, director of citizenship and reputation management for FedEx, and Debra Benton, director of community programs and engagement for Southwest Airlines. Both shared examples of stories that boosted their brands' reputations.

FedEx tells the love story of two seals

In January, FedEx was contacted by the Seattle aquarium to donate a cargo flight to a northern fur seal named Commander. There were only nine northern fur seals in the United States, and Commander was supposed to travel from Seattle to Boston to visit the last breeding-age female, Ursula. The hope was that Commander would charm Ursula, one frisky thing would lead to another and soon there would be seal pups.

The FedEx citizenship and reputation management team pondered what angle to put on the story in order to engage people. A lightbulb flipped on when they realized the timing was around February, and they turned the story of Commander and Ursula into a fun Valentine’s Day piece. Awwww. 

https://youtu.be/iiEPAuD8NkM

The story of Commander and Ursula received high engagement on social media. So, FedEx approached several news outlets, and the story was picked up by 41 broadcast outlets. "Good Morning America" featured the love story in its trending now section, and from there it went on to "ABC World News Tonight." That’s a lot of publicity for such a small donation. It’s a fantastic return on investment. Well played, FedEx.

Southwest tells the story of a little boy with a medical disability

Every year Southwest Airlines gives over 8,000 tickets away to patients who need to fly somewhere for treatment (that’s over $3 million worth of transportation). This is done through Southwest’s Medical Transportation Grant Program which has been running for about seven years.

The program donates transportation to hospitals that in turn provide the airline tickets to patients. It’s a wonderful program but a difficult story to share with the public because HIPAA laws dictate that the patients’ information not be disclosed.

However, the Southwest community programs and engagement team got a break when they met the family of a young boy named Toby who needed to fly and receive treatment. His parents gave permission to tell his touching story.

https://youtu.be/eJ6rOCOhY5g

In addition to increasing brand reputation among the public, another benefit is derived when stories like these are shared internally with employees. When they see the good things their company is doing for others, they will feel pride in the company and the work they do.

Your story

Those are great stories, but what about your company’s story? When thinking about how to tell your story, you might want a refresher on what makes a good story. Clark Dumon from MGM shared this hilarious short talk from acclaimed author Kurt Vonnegut about how to craft the perfect storyline. Good luck!

https://youtu.be/oP3c1h8v2ZQ

Image credit: FedEx

A fire has been slowly burning underneath a landfill in the St. Louis, Missouri, area for five years. The Bridgeton Landfill, part of the West Lake Landfill, is less than a quarter of a mile away from 8,700 tons of radioactive barium sulfate.

This nuclear waste is left over from the federal government’s Manhattan Project, a program that developed nuclear weapons (think: Hiroshima and Nagasaki). According to the Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCFE), the waste was “illegally dumped” at the landfill in 1973.

Last weekend, an above-ground fire occurred at the landfill: On Oct. 24, the Bridgeton Landfill notified the Missouri Department of Natural Resources of a small grass fire. Although the fire was contained and distinguished, it highlights the problems that exist at the landfill. In 1990, it was listed on the EPA's National Priorities list, which makes it a superfund site.

The EPA does not seem very concerned despite the fact that the landfill is near nuclear waste deposits. In an assessment released on Oct. 16, the federal agency acknowledged that the “surrounding community is concerned that the fire will reach the radioactive waste areas leading to additional contamination in the air and groundwater.” However, the EPA’s assessment concluded that the level of outdoor radon, a radioactive gas produced from nuclear waste, is “well below radon concentrations associated with elevated lung cancer risks.” The assessment also dismissed concerns about groundwater contamination.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster is fighting a legal battle to get the landfill site cleaned up. He even filed a lawsuit against the landfill’s owner, Republic Services.

In September, Koster released a report from expert witnesses in the case. The testimonies regarding the underground fire include one from Drs. Joel Burken and Shoaib Usman, professors of environmental and nuclear engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Burken and Usman detected both radiological and organic contamination in trees on the property of landowners near the landfill. The report states that their findings “indicate the off-site migration of RIM [radiologically impacted material], either in groundwater or aerial transport of particulate matter.”

After the recent grass fire, Koster released a statement. While the attorney general expressed relief that the EPA’s “studies do not show an immediate danger to the general public,” he pointed out that the grass fire “reminds us, flames can surface in unexpected places without warning.” Koster recommended that the EPA move “toward a final protective remedy ... without delay.”

Local officials are concerned about a possible emergency situation occurring because of the situation at the landfill. Last year, St. Louis County created an emergency operations plan, which acknowledged that there is a “sub-surface smoldering event” that has been occurring for “several years” at the landfill. The plan states that if the so-called event “reaches the radiological area, there is a potential for radioactive fallout to be released in the smoke plume and spread throughout the region.”

The emergency operations plan also acknowledges that the release of radioactive fallout “will most likely occur with little or no warning.” For that reason, the plan was created to create “guidelines for conducting efficient, effective, coordinated emergency operations involving the use of all resources.” In other words, the county is not waiting around to plan for the worst-case scenario.

So, what can and should be done to prevent the worst-case scenario of radioactive fallout? The MCFE suggests a number of things, including that the St. Louis Army Corps of Engineers “be put in charge right now” because the corps has “the technical expertise and track record for the safe cleanup of radioactively contaminated sites.” The MCFE also suggests that the radioactive waste be safely removed from the landfill to avoid the “constant threat” they pose.

It remains to be seen whether the MCFE’s recommendations will be acted on. For the sake of the people in the St. Louis area, we can only hope so.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

What’s in my SpaghettiOs? Should I assume there’s no dog in my hot dog? We all want to know what’s buried in the food we eat. We also want to know about the welfare of any animals involved in the process.

Last week the CommitForum hosted a panel entitled, “What’s In My Food? Exploring Transparency in the Supply Chain.” TriplePundit founder and CEO, Nick Aster, interviewed Niki King of Campbell Soup Co., and Stewart Leeth, assistant vice president of environmental and corporate affairs and senior regulatory counsel at Smithfield Foods.

Campbell Soup makes the chicken noodle soup you eat when you’re sick and the tomato soup that you sip with your grilled cheese sandwich. Smithfield Foods is the world’s largest producer of pork products (think: bacon, hot dogs and sausage).

People have strong feelings about what they eat and feed their kids, so transparency and communication about what’s in food is crucial. Sadly, food companies haven’t always been transparent, but Campbell Soup and Smithfield are plodding along toward the goal of complete transparency. Here are some of their recent initiatives and stances.

Campbell Soup Co. created whatsinmyfood.com

Campbell Soup took its first dive into transparency by doing research and asking consumers what they wanted to know about their food, Niki King, senior manager of the CSR Program Office at Campbell Soup Co., said at the panel.

“We’re not looking to be perfect. We’re just looking to be open and honest,” King said, summarizing the the goal of the project. “We want to tell you what’s in our products, why we use the ingredients we use … where they come from, what’s in our packaging, so you can make informed choices about what you buy.”

To its credit, Campbell responded and created a website to establish a forum for an “open, honest and meaningful” dialogue with customers. The website launched in July and has information about eight of the company's most popular products. It answers questions about what goes into the food, how the food is made and the choices behind determining what ingredients to put in the food. “At the end of the day, transparency is about being accountable,” she continued.

Campbell’s goal is to add the rest of its U.S. and Canadian products to the website by the end of the year -- and to list every product it makes globally in three years. The website is a work in progress, but so far the feedback has been positive, King said at the panel.

There hasn’t been a big marketing push to promote the website. Campbell could lovingly be called conservative and a push like this is seen as a big risk. King explained that they started with a soft-launch of the website and are still hesitant to create a large communication campaign to promote it. However, once some initial customer feedback is received and the company has an opportunity to make necessary changes, King said Campbell will likely promote it more in about a year.

Perhaps the company will continue down the path of increased transparency and a discussion about food nutrition. It has acquired two healthy food companies within the past few years. Both smoothie manufacturer Bolthouse Farms and baby food producer Plum Organics have joined Campbell.

Smithfield shares videos about pork production

Aster asked Stewart Leeth, assistant vice president of environmental and corporate affairs and senior regulatory counsel at Smithfield Foods, if the company would create a whatsinmymeat.com website.

It doesn’t look like that will happen in the near future. However, Leeth did say there are videos about Smithfield’s pork production on its website. Smithfield is trying to create “glass walls about what’s going on so it’s no big mystery,” Leeth said at the panel.

That sounded good, but when I went to find the videos it took me five minutes of clicking around on the website before I finally found them. It was far easier to learn about Smithfield’s sponsored car-racing team than it was to learn about the production of pork and ethical treatment of pigs. The videos are well done, though, and definitely deserve a more prominent place on the website.

Smithfield started to focus on the environment around 15 or 20 years ago, when it had problems on the environmental side. Leeth has firsthand experience in the ordeal, as he prosecuted Smithfield on behalf of the state of Virginia in his former role as assistant attorney general.

“But things changed,” he said at the panel. “Leadership took a [180-degree] turn.”

However, he also said that “customers are the ones that drive our sustainability program.” He's not referring to customers like you and I, but massive customer companies like Walmart that buy millions of pounds of Smithfield's meat every day. “We want to make sure our brand doesn’t tarnish their brand,” Leeth explained.

However, one is left to wonder: If the sustainability program is supported by Smithfield’s leadership, then why are customers the ones driving it? And why is there concern about tarnishing another company’s reputation? I would think Smithfield would be more concerned about tarnishing its own reputation, no?

Leeth said it’s hard to draw people in to look at its production of pork because “we don’t make Apple products.” True, hot dogs aren’t sexy like Apple products. But I think I’ve seen more videos about the pink goo that gets turned into hot dogs than I have the technical hardware components of iPhones. After all, I’m not eating my phone. Why should I care what’s in it?

Smithfield does not support ag-gag rules, which is good. In case you haven’t been following the response of companies to undercover videos documenting the mistreatment of animals, some companies have successfully advocated for “ag-gag” laws that punish people for undercover reporting. It’s the opposite of transparency.

Leeth said thousands of family farmers are doing the right thing to care for their animals and unfortunately one bad video can hurt the reputation of the entire industry. “Bad news sells and outnumbers good news. And good news is boring,” he said bluntly.

Another good thing Smithfield has done is that a few years ago it improved how sows were housed and gave them more space to move around. Leeth also said you can make your own Smithfield foods sustainability report with a few clicks, which sounds like a cool feature.

Both Campbell Soup and Smithfield appear to be taking positive steps toward transparency in the food chain. But if you really want to know what’s in your food, grow it yourself. That’s always the healthiest decision, and it makes the planet happy

Image credit: The Campbell Soup Co. 

By Jay Berstein

With sustainability becoming today’s mantra, it is a contradiction that society has yet to embrace all the technologies that allow us to, you know, live a genuinely sustainable lifestyle.

Hybrid cars have caught on, and the governmental incentives tacked onto them have favorably catered to the profit-margin for companies that manufacture and sell them. Who doesn’t want to drive alone in the carpool lane on LA’s 405 freeway at 4:30 pm? Often times, all it takes to spark an inadvertent sustainability revolution is to provide the final user with incentives.

But low and behold, many other pieces of technology, whose necessity cannot be exaggerated enough, have yet to become a household commodity.

Take grey-water recycling systems, for instance. Grey-water recycling has been around for over a decade. Implementing a grey-water recycling system not only reuses perfectly good water for its fitting purpose, but it also simply makes sense.

Instead of allowing reusable water (and your money) to literally go down the drain, use it for toilet flushing and irrigation purposes. It effectively reduces a household water usage by 30 percent, which surpasses California’s government declared water cutbacks due to drought.

The biggest issue is this: There are no real incentives for implementing these systems (other than maybe looking like you care), and the red-tape that comes with installing a system is reminiscent of any other diplomatic inconvenience. There are no sort of tax breaks for having a system for your home, as where you can implement a certain shower-head or sprinkler-head and get write-offs. The issue then becomes: What saves substantially MORE water and is not being given governmental incentive to become a household commodity?

Other complications for installing grey-water systems come from improper piping. Without the necessary connections (and a crawl space), implementing a grey-water recycling system isn’t the seamless process that it is more than capable of being. With the potential of future mandates deeming grey-water recycling systems a necessity and a construction boom, the process of utilizing new structures to their fullest potential is extremely easy, and we won’t have to rip the floors up or do any drastic reconstruction of a home’s plumbing to effectively install a system. It is through governmental mandates that grey-water recycling systems can become part the American household vernacular.

What’s most enticing is that the golden state is the perfect place to implement and showcase this sort of technology and its startling efficiency. California is the ideal guinea pig. For one, the drought is not exactly news. Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for California’s water supplies back in April 2015, demanding a statewide cutback in water usage. The lack of rainfall since has only made the necessity for grey-water technology more prevalent. That being the case, why not demand that new buildings in California be equipped with grey-water recycling systems, or at least be piped so the installation of a system is seamless?

As of early August 2015, it became known that commercial construction activity in California has risen to its highest level since 2001. Thanks in part to available financing, low cap rates and other incentivizing factors, the industry boom for California construction has been as unprecedented as the mandatory water cutbacks.

Grey-water recycling systems are not only a necessary part of today’s infrastructure, but the inevitability of a beneficial profit margin is evident. The technology is more than suitable for reusing and saving one of our most valuable finite resources. With all the above taken into account, it’s time we look into grey-water recycling technologies and how they are a genuine game changing solution that satisfies all three Ps: people, profit and planet.

To find out more about grey-water recycling systems, and the successful implementations of such systems, take a look at Water Recycling Systems, LLC.

Here is a showcasing of one of our bigger system installations in Santa Monica, California. Yes, we're proud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LEdn8nJJk8

Jay Berstein directs social media marketing for Water Recycling Systems, LLC. 

If you ever want to one-up someone in a conversation about corporate social responsibility, all you have to do is toss in the words “Unilever” or “Paul Polman," and it’s over. It’s done. Unilever and Polman can’t be topped. You win.

But you know what would even be an even bigger win? Becoming a company like Unilever or a CEO like Polman. Well, today’s your lucky day because I interviewed the CEO of everyone’s favorite Unilever brand, Ben & Jerry’s. Part man, part dessert god, Jostein Solheim has a merry disposition that will make you suspect he eats ice cream all day. If I counted the number of times he laughed during our conversation, it would probably be about 500, give or take.

However, as this conversation will prove, he does in fact do more than eat ice cream. He shared with me how to integrate social good into your business model, measure impact and recruit more brand fans … all vital components for a successful brand.

Solheim is personable, savvy and authentic -- everything you’d want in a CEO. He’s excited about businesses that are "trying to do more than just sell more stuff.” His work jives with his outdoor Norwegian heritage, where weekend activities included hiking, skiing, boating, catching your own fish for dinner, and doing anything and everything in nature.

Today, he still has “an enormous relationship with nature” and is sad to see it destroyed.

Solheim loves to see his team win and do amazing things. He would love it even more if he could help other companies and CEOs join forces and change the world together. Here are his words of advice, caution and inspiration. You’re welcome.

TriplePundit: How do you combine innovation and scale in your CSR program?

Jostein Solheim: At Ben & Jerry’s, we don’t really have a [corporate social responsibility (CSR) program]. It’s an integral part of our business model itself. It’s not really a separate thing. Our social impact is built into the core business model of linked prosperity, where we look to maximize the benefit along the value chain for all the key stakeholders. Having that built into the business model means that, as we innovate, we directly impact the whole system. As we grow our business, we also grow our social impact.

3p: How do you measure the impact of your socially responsible initiatives?

JS: There are multiple ways we measure. Measurement is critical for any business. What you measure is what you get in many ways.

For me, transparency is the first step toward measuring impact, because it allows people to contribute and give you feedback. We invite people like yourself to visit our company, meet the people and have free access, because we believe that stakeholders should be treated like co-owners and have access to the information that they need.

But we are also real data nerds. We love to have fun, but we’re nerdy when it comes to social impact. We have an index with a 200-point scale where we measure all the direct impacts -- from the way we buy dairy to the Fair Trade ingredients, to the well-being of our employees, to the size and scale of our campaigns. The index is audited by a third party. They issue a report that you can see on our website.

But then, we’re not happy yet. We’re a B Corporation. So, the third measurement step we use is completing the B Impact Assessment. That is also audited. It covers employees and environment, the whole works.

3p: Can you tell me about a time when you took action on a stakeholder’s suggestion?

JS: Many of our great ideas, new products and campaigns actually come from people contacting us and saying, “Hey, why don’t you do this or that?” We get a lot of suggestions. The famous flavor, Cherry Garcia, was suggested by a fan.

We also get a lot of suggestions from NGOs. We treat those not as criticism but as opportunities to look at how a program or initiative looks from their perspective and what we can do to improve. Vegans have been contacting us for a long time … and we’re now launching a range of nondairy vegan Ben & Jerry’s -- which, by the way, reduces our carbon footprint significantly.

3p: How do your social impact initiatives affect your brand image?

JS: We refer to the people that like Ben & Jerry’s as “the fans,” because you treat fans differently than you treat consumers. So, we have brand fans, and we have a responsibility to them to maintain standards and fight the fights they want us to engage in.

There’s nothing stronger than a relationship that’s built on shared values and passions for the greater good of society. I think our social mission plays a huge impact on our relationship with our fans. When you buy a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, you’re buying caring dairy: Fair Trade, non-GMO. It’s at the core of our relationship with our customers.

3p: Many companies have trouble convincing people to care enough to buy their eco-friendly products. What are your thoughts?

JS: I think people care more and more. People are looking at their actions and whether they’re buying things that make a difference or just buying the cheapest whatever.

Building a fan base is not only done through advertising. You do 10 things that will make the world a better place, and then you talk about one thing. But don’t do a little thing and expect everyone’s going to love you for it. Because, actually, doing good is what’s expected of you as a good company, and it’s not really newsworthy. The point is the doing, not the talking. Other people will do the talking about you.

If you look at the latest Nielsen survey, families across 60 countries were asked whether they would pay more for a socially responsible brand. It went from 50 percent who said “yes” in 2013 to 66 percent in 2015. Now when you think about it, that’s covering a population of [400 million or 500 million] people. That’s a huge shift.

So, a lot of companies are now saying, “I need to market to this.” My message to them is: “No, you have to act on this. Then your actions will be noted and people will find out, but don’t spend your resources on trying to get the message out there. Spend your resources on acting and doing the right things.”

3p: What advice would you give to a company wanting to create social impact?

JS: Oh, there are a lot of things you can do and a lot of great organizations to help you do it. The key is to find the right people to help you … to give you advice, reflect with you, look at your business, etc.

A great starting-point is the CEO Connection, which works with the social impact unit at Wharton business school. You can quickly meet a whole group of people who would help you look at your business and where the opportunities are. You can also talk to other companies going through that journey.

If you want to look at your whole business model, then [the next tier is] looking at the B Impact Assessment and the B Corporation. Ask: What do these companies do? How do they operate? Then you can either join them or pick out the elements that work for your business.

The key to all of this is to organize a broad coalition inside your company. This isn’t a CEO thing. This is a team effort. The broader a base you can [give social good] in the company, the better program and bigger impact you’ll have.

The last piece of advice is: Don’t overthink it. What matters are not your words but your actions. If you decide to go west, start walking west while you work out exactly where your destination is. Grab the first things that are in the right direction and act on them, and from those actions you will learn, get feedback, and then you can fine-tune. Don’t try to work out on paper how to save the world.

Game-time

Well, I hope you’ve taken Solheim’s words of wisdom to heart as much as I did. Hopefully they infused you with passion to shower the world with goodness like confetti, and maybe to join Solheim’s CEO Connection to collaborate on social impact. Go forth and conquer with kindness. Peace out, readers.

* Dialogue edited for clarity.

** Image credits: 1) photo of Jostein Solheim, life cycle chart 2) cute penguin illustration via Ben & Jerry’s website.

Did they or didn't they? Exxon and its decades-long research on the implications of fossil fuel technology continues to garner input from experts around the country. Among those who are calling for Exxon to be investigated is a former Department of Justice prosecutor who helped win racketeering convictions against tobacco industry execs in 2006.

Sharon Eubanks was a DOJ lawyer on the tobacco case when U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Co. and other tobacco manufacturers had conspired for decades to mislead consumers about the dangers of smoking.

Last week, that landmark finding was resurrected as a reminder of the potential impact of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and the power it can wield when it comes to corporations and industries that don't live up in action to the research they conduct about consumer risk.

The fact that Exxon knew there was an increased risk associated with its product, but allegedly chose to hide that information from the consumer, merits investigation by the DOJ, Eubanks told ThinkProgress earlier this month. According to a Los Angeles investigative report, Exxon may have known for decades that global warming would be exacerbated by the carbon emissions associated with oil and gas products.

“I think a RICO action is plausible and should be considered,” Eubanks said.  “The cigarette companies actively denied the harm of cigarette smoking, and concealed the results of what their own research developed. The motivation was money, and to avoid regulation.”

While the tobacco companies were convicted under RICO, they weren't required to pay for smoking-cessation for victims, citing a 2005 appeals court ruling that disallowed penalties for past conduct. It isn't clear whether Exxon would be required to pay for past actions.

Meanwhile, oil and gas industry advocates are fighting back. A senior fellow from the Heartland Institute, which frequently speaks out against climate change science, attempted to deflate the issue by alleging that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' "false and incendiary" call for investigation was really meant "to divert [public] attention from his bumbling performance" at a recent presidential debate.

What's interesting is: The data the author, James Taylor, used to assert that the reason why Exxon didn't disclose its 1970s research to the public (or modify its stance toward oil and gas production to fit that research) is that "[some] Exxon scientists believed global warming was a serious concern while others did not, and [ultimately], Exxon’s top management sided with those scientists concluding humans are not creating a global warming crisis."

Translation: The company made a decades-long bad call on interpreting its own research.

To defend this point, Taylor notes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's scientific projections for global warming actually overshot the amount that the atmosphere's temperature was expected to rise per decade. Instead of rising by 0.30 degrees Celsius between 1990 and 2010, says Taylor, it only rose by 0.10 degrees C.

Among the many sources of data he doesn't mention is the temperature spike that occurred during that same time at the North Pole. The mean temperature he offered as proof didn't reflect the jump in temperature in the Arctic in the 1980s, that later increased in frequency starting around 2006 (to see this data, pull down the menu at the top right and pick North Polar).

For disclosure, Taylor is careful to mention that Heartland Institute has been a benefactor of Exxon's success in the past, as the company served as a "minor donor to the lobbying organization." In fact, its donations were substantial for the period of time it provided funding. According to Sourcewatch, Exxon's "small" donations amounted to $765,500 over an eight-year period, and have averaged most years, around $100,000.

"[The] oil industry has little to fear from carbon dioxide restrictions," says Taylor, who maintains that many oil companies actually fuel global warming alarmism to their own benefit. It's one accusation for which Exxon, with its previously undisclosed data on the elevated risks of climate change for the 21st century, can probably prove it isn't guilty.

Image credit: Matt Trostle

I love watching Tom Cruise movies. They don't ask too much of me and are always guaranteed to be a great popcorn movie full of entertainment. One of my recent favorites is "Edge of Tomorrow." For those who haven't seen it yet, it's about a guy who gets trapped in a time loop -- repeating the same day somewhere in the future while battling aliens who want to wipe out the world. Sound familiar? Well, it is a bit like "Groundhog Day" but with Tom fighting aliens to save the world.

It might also remind you of climate change negotiations. We've been repeating the same thing since 2009. Let me run this by you and see if you recognize the script. Sit back and have some popcorn while I paint you a picture.

• A bunch of people will run into the streets in New York, but no one will notice outside of a few people who really care ... a lot. If we're lucky, it will hit the news on a few channels but unlikely to get past the 11 p.m. news.


• A handful of companies will make commitments to reduce their emissions, increase use of renewable energy, [fill in the blank], etc.


• They might even start a new organization or initiative to show how aligned they all are. Names like "Companies Love Initially Making Awesome Targeted Emissions (CLIMATE)." They love fancy names.


• The U.S. government will raise their voice and say that this is it: the line in the sand. No more playing around as we will now get serious about making serious commitments. And a few other important governments will raise their voices, too -- China, Europe, Brazil, India etc.


• Everyone will agree that this time it will be the real thing. The change we were waiting for. And it couldn't have happened soon enough because it is almost too late.

Sound familiar? It is exciting, isn't it? Oh wait, I forgot one more thing...

• Everyone will get excited as we gather in some major city in the world. And then the negotiations will turn into another slog with, at best, marginal commitments and nothing done to stop climate change. Everyone will call the deal a good deal even though everyone knows it is a pretty crap deal. Nothing changes except the climate. And that is not a good thing. And we will shrug our shoulders and keep on fighting.

The only difference between Tom Cruise and our yearly round of climate change time loop negotiations and agreement? Tom Cruise actually learns from his mistakes and improves constantly. And at a pace that meant he eventually slayed the aliens and saved the earth.

And that is why it is called science fiction.

We do the same in climate negotiations: We have the science to show we need to do something serious right now, but treat it like fiction when it comes to the actual agreement and commitments.

Rinse and repeat. The life of climate change. Loud voices make big claims, but nothing will happen to slow down what is killing us.

Just stop it.

Stop believing the hype. A few people in the streets is not a movement. A movement happens when the public has bought into it every single day.

Stop applauding boring commitments. Making a commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 is not leadership. That is 35 years from now. Everyone involved will be either dead or retired. And you will get fired if you set any other business goal for 35 years from now -- think: product development, growth etc. None of those have 35-year goals.

Stop thinking herd mentality is leadership. Yes, businesses should herd together to pull the laggards, but true leadership is for those who look ahead and set their own big, hairy and audacious goals. Leadership is lonely and way ahead of where everyone else feels comfortable.

Stop thinking that science will convince people. It hasn't, and it won't start fast enough -- think: obesity, smoking etc. People know what is right but will still not do what is required fast enough.

Stop creating another organization. We have so many of them already. Climate change must be one of the most organized and well-funded nonprofit movements ever. Pick a name with climate in it, and we have it. We don't need more. We need better.

Just. Stop. It.

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -- Albert Einstein

What should we do? Let's first start with what we shouldn't be doing before we worry about that. I promise you, rinse and repeat won't do it. Next time I will focus on what we need to start doing. But lets not create another idea -- let's stop with the stupid ones first.

In the meantime, we will always have Paris.

Image credit: Flickr/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Siren is the name of the new marketing and PR company launched by Annie Longsworth. I bring this to your attention because Longsworth has been a pioneer on how to win customers through sustainable branding. Her presentation at the 2007 Sustainable Brands conference sparked my research on the potential for a Green Economic Revolution driven by consumers seeking “cost less, mean more” solutions to their “in me, on me and around me” concerns.

Longsworth named her new company Siren for the word’s double meaning. A siren can be a warning -- as in: global warming is real, it is manmade, and it is having a costly impact on the environment and human health. Siren can also mean an attractive person or proposition. Leave it to Longsworth to capture the essence of how to sell sustainability through one word with a double meaning.

Climate change, the obesity epidemic and commodity price volatility are just a few examples of the legacy 20th-century disruptions created by unsustainable business practices. Sustainable solutions to these legacy issues are emerging as the 21st century’s greatest business opportunities. Today the Green Economic Revolution generates several trillion dollars in annual global revenues, as companies from Unilever to Tesla to Apple align their brands with the consumer’s search for more sustainable products and companies.

Win customers by making them heroes

Longsworth is now at the forefront of another marketing and branding revolution. She is among a group of pioneers that are figuring out how to sell sustainability by shifting the sales message from a problem focus to a focus on the consumer as the hero. This new messaging approach centers around branded story telling, in which the customer’s actions have meaning beyond the self.

The consumer hero is a difference-maker. His or her decisions on what to buy and who to buy from solve problems that help people and the planet. This type of brand-storytelling was the basis of Dove Beauty Bar’s pioneering Youtube video entitled “Real Body Sketches” that garnered over 66 million views.

How can this type of sustainable brand messaging impact business sales? Dove Beauty Bar is one of Unilever’s Sustainable Living products that now account for 50 percent of the company’s annual revenues.

Selling more vs. selling less

This emerging branding revolution is challenging the ingrained business mantra for selling more. Selling more places the company in the role of the hero. It is a hero for getting the customer to eat more, spend more or burn more fossil fuels. After 50 years of this type of marketing, the baby-boom generation is now in an obesity crisis that threatens their health, their ability to pay the soaring healthcare costs tied to their weight gain and their generational desire to “live more.” Decades of implementing this business strategy has now delivered global warming. The business consequences of making heroes of business CEOs that push unfettered sales growth include increased government regulation and stagnate consumer interest in products and companies that fail to solve their growing health and environmental concerns.

“Selling less” is the radical branding message where the consumer is the hero. It is a growing path for winning customers by aligning with their values and quest for value. Patagonia pioneered this branding concept with its ad campaign, “Don’t Buy This Jacket,” on Black Friday in 2011. Chipotle has used a similar strategy of only selling sustainably-sourced food. Under this strategy Chipotle has suffered short-term revenue loss because it could not source sufficient quantities of sustainable pork. What the company won was intense customer loyalty, continued sales growth and a stock valuation that has made Chipotle the most valuable restaurant chain in the U.S.

Branding success is getting weird: Messaging that tells consumers to buy more to save money is now lost within continuous competitive price promotions that corrupt business profits without winning customer loyalties. McDonald's and similar fast-food companies are losing the key market segment of urban millennials that view super-size-me food promotion as unhealthy and uncool. While full-size pickup trucks are still the sales rage for auto manufacturers, their sales future is being disrupted by the millennial generation’s embrace of urban living, digital connectivity and shared-vehicle programs like Zipcar and Uber.

The emerging, and more sustainable, marketing paradigm is to enable the customer to win through sustainable decision-making. This customer-as-hero strategy wins new customers, builds customer loyalty and captures competitive advantage. It delivers sustainable sales growth.

A video interview with Annie Longsworth at Sustainable Brands 2015

If your business is looking for branding insights in this new marketing paradigm, then the following video interview with Annie Longsworth, CEO of Siren, is a must-watch. Hear in her own words how to win customers by making them the hero.

https://youtu.be/5xHWrKB7gHM

Image credit: Flickr/JD Hancock

By Adam Weinger

Workplace giving is good for companies. It is good for communities. It is good for employees. It is good for charities. It is just downright, all around good.

With workplace giving, which is often referred to as corporate philanthropy, companies have an excellent opportunity to increase employee engagement. Unfortunately, many companies drop the ball on this front.

Why does corporate philanthropy increase employee engagement? Well, borrowing from the reasoning of Ockham’s Razor, noting that the simplest answer is often the correct one, workplace giving raises employee engagement for one main reason.

Workplace giving programs show employees that their employers support their interests and charitable endeavors outside the four corners of the office space.

There’s a strongly positive correlation between employee engagement and company performance. In fact, when comparing companies with actively engaged employees to companies without, companies with engaged employees outperform the others by over 200 percent.

Given the general benefits of improved engagement, how then can companies with these philanthropic programs increase employee participation?

There is so much unrealized potential in workplace giving, it is a shame how often it is overlooked or missed entirely. For example, the median employee participation rate in matching gift programs, a subset of workplace giving, is a measly 9 percent. That percentage should be considerably higher.

One solution to this disconnect — the one which this article will be addressing — is working to up Millennial participation in workplace giving programs.

Why do we need to target millennials for workplace giving?

To start, millennials recently surpassed Generation X to take the crown of largest generation in the U.S. labor force. And their numbers are only growing.

In terms of workplace giving, this population dominance indicates where companies should start targeting.

Millennials, who cap out at around age 35 at the moment, are phasing into higher leadership positions and, as such, they can start to set a corporate philanthropy participation precedent for the younger members of their generation.

Millennials also grew up in a different philanthropic world than those before them. Millennials' charitable instincts and those of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have some inherent dissimilarities. Millennials grew up in the age of the Internet and cell phones and increasingly pervasive technology, and that has shaped the way they think about charity.

Nonprofits are leaning full tilt into securing donations from millennials, and corporations need to follow with their workplace giving programs.

Follow the three tips below to crack the code on attracting millennials to workplace giving.

If you’re looking to increase employee participation in corporate philanthropy programs, you need to be in it for the long haul. That being said, by targeting one employee age group at a time you will see results quicker. It’s a quality over quantity approach. And starting with the youngest generation in the workforce can only help stabilize participation as Generation Z rises behind millennials.

1. Raise awareness

By far, the largest obstacle in the way of employees taking advantage of workplace giving is lack of awareness.

Nonprofits do their best to face the challenge of minimal awareness head on, but if your corporation wants your workplace giving program to succeed, it is going to need to do the same.

The current culture is such that if someone wants to donate to a charity or volunteer, that person can figure out how to do so with a few swipes on a smartphone’s touch screen. If you want employees to think of your programs in that five minute window, your workplace giving opportunities need to be front and center in employees’ minds.

Promote workplace giving during onboarding, on your website, in your company newsletter, through Facebook pages if you have them, and so on.

2. Simplify the process

Life with the internet is easy peasy. Do you want to know who that actor is in that one movie? Look it up online. Wanting to wish a friend a happy birthday? Send an e-card. Everything is unimaginably accessible because of the Internet — we all know this. That luxury reverberates in our daily culture.

We not only crave immediacy, we feel like it is a given. Since that is the case, if the process for any of your workplace giving programs is overly complicated, they’re less likely to be used.

There are great options out there for companies who want assistance managing workplace giving programs. If you’re looking for inspiration, Apple’s and Microsoft’s respective corporate philanthropy programs are good places to begin.

Whether an employee is eligible for a matching gift or a volunteer grant, if the process to receive that funding is arduous and complicated, they’re probably not going to submit a request. At that point your program is being wasted and nonprofits that could have benefited are out of luck.

3. Keep causes at the core

Millennials are strongly cause-focused and less attached to specific nonprofits. As such, your workplace giving program should emphasize causes. Last year, two of the largest charitable subsectors were education and human services. There’s clearly a trend in that direction, so ensure that your workplace giving program addresses causes in those two categories.

If we consider the path of a traditional giving pattern of a millennial, it would look something like this:

Learning About a Cause → Growing Interest in a Cause → Finding a Way to Get Involved → Donating and/or Volunteering with a Nonprofit that Serves that Cause

A workplace giving program’s organic point of inclusion for this millennial behavior pattern is usually going to be one of the last two phases.

Communicate to employees the fact that the causes that they are interested in serving can be helped through the nonprofit organizations that your corporate philanthropy program works with.

According to one study, 87 percent of millennials give money to nonprofits. That’s a high percentage. Workplace giving and nonprofit giving can work in tandem, so participation in corporate philanthropy programs has the chance to rise to levels like that 87 percent.

Workplace giving programs have incredible philanthropic potential, but they need to be handled appropriately to thrive. Start by getting the largest population in the workforce involved, and then expand your aims to more and more employee groups.

Image credit: Pixabay/StartUpStockPhotos

Adam Weinger is the President of Double the Donation, the leading provider of matching gift tools and services to nonprofits. You can connect with Double the Donation on Twitter, LinkedIn, or personally contact Adam.

By Erin Shipley

Some of the most impactful and disruptive companies of the 21st century sprung from the minds of young, first-time entrepreneurs. Creativity, hard work and the Internet have helped turn young people with radical ideas — from Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook to Brian Chesky with Airbnb — into some of the most influential figures in the world.

While this demonstrates to young people that the act of creation isn’t separate from them, it has also changed the way more established companies approach business. They now see how fostering a corporate culture of independent and dynamic employees is a way of harnessing the entrepreneurial drive and creativity necessary to promote business growth.

These are great shifts in mindset on the individual side as well as the corporate, but much more remains to be done. This mindset needs to be cultivated and promoted in schools. Fostering from a young age the skills that help the most successful entrepreneurs triumph creates a virtuous cycle of gritty, creative and motivated young people who can help today’s companies grow and create the companies of tomorrow.

Promoting success

These ideas aren’t theoretical. I recently saw this firsthand as a judge at the Youth BizCamp Entrepreneurship Challenge in Los Angeles, a summer program organized by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship. The NFTE is an international organization that recognizes and promotes the value of an entrepreneurial education in empowering young people.

As part of the competition I judged, young students created business plans and presentations that addressed ideas as complex as order fulfillment, market sizing, and app development. Students were so inspired when developing ideas that they taught themselves techniques like coding, simply to take a purely theoretical project and make it a reality.

This speaks directly to the need for youth entrepreneurship. You want employees motivated by independence, creative thinking, and ownership of their work, so you need candidates who have been taught the importance of these attributes. An economy driven by the creation of new, dynamic companies needs early infrastructure to promote this possibility. One way to instill this is through entrepreneurship programs for young people.

Empowering the future

Working in venture capital, I’ve seen the huge impact that can be made by an individual — be it a startup founder, a lead engineer, or a fantastic content marketer — and how necessary it is to support a corporate culture of driven, independent, and dynamic employees. As companies strive to create working environments and corporate cultures that cultivate this kind of employee, externally promoting these same values is a way to contribute directly to improving their future employee bases. This is why companies should actively participate in a bottom-up approach to entrepreneurship education.

To assist and involve your company with one of these programs, I suggest the following:

1. Make an organizational commitment

Though everyone’s busy juggling a variety of personal and professional responsibilities, just a little bit of time from a company can go a long way toward promoting entrepreneurship among young people. Consider making an organizational commitment to dedicate one or two days a year to youth outreach efforts. Even sponsoring a workshop or seminar can inspire young entrepreneurs to pursue their goals.

But you needn’t be a business to get involved with outreach. Many professionals volunteer their time outside the workplace, such as a 30-minute phone call to talk through a business plan with aspiring entrepreneurs. That advice can be hugely valuable to young entrepreneurs’ futures.

2. Partner with programs that align with your mission

As with any other outreach effort, it often makes the most sense to find programs that fit with your company’s mission and culture. This allows you to draw upon your employees’ strengths to promote youth entrepreneurship.

Technology companies could host an event with an organization that holds hackathons for young entrepreneurs. Manufacturers could volunteer to sit on a panel to talk about manufacturing advancements or hold tours of their plants for young entrepreneur programs. Check out the NFTE, #YesWeCode or the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for opportunities near you.

3. Build a young entrepreneurship program

If you can’t find a program that directly appeals to your company or fits your needs, build one yourself. Think creatively about how you can contribute to engaging and motivating young people.

That could mean establishing a mini-internship program in which students intern for a day in one of your company’s departments to see how coding can build real products. Or you could institute a mentorship program in which employees work with students in a local science, technology, engineering, and mathematics class. The possibilities are endless.

4. Offer summer job opportunities

It can be incredibly valuable to source the fresh perspective of an ambitious student for a stint of summer work. These opportunities can be massively influential for young people in their future career prospects.

But jobs aren’t beneficial just for youth entrepreneurship. A survey by Ernst & Young found that 86 percent of entrepreneurs found improvements in their businesses from hiring young people. Of those entrepreneurs, 47 percent saw these improvements through innovative ideas that came from young hires, while 40 percent experienced improvements as a result of younger hires introducing smarter ways of working.

Young people today will be the business creators and rock-star employees of tomorrow, so it’s important to encourage youth entrepreneurship. By promoting skill-based education and programs that directly promote entrepreneurship, businesses can help empower the next generation of dynamic business leaders.

Image credit: Pixabay

Erin Shipley is a senior associate at Karlin Ventures, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm that focuses on early-stage enterprise software and marketplaces. Follow the company on Twitter.