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Imagine cars as "cool" as an Apple iPad or iPhone where you play games that generate real cash rewards or that can connect you with that hot-looking person driving next to you. That is the future I saw at the 2013 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). Almost every manufacturer at this show was launching new cars equipped with electrification technologies that will turn driving into a digital engagement delivering value by saving money at the pump, reducing tail pipe emissions and potentially hooking you up with your future significant other.

Farmville for a dashboard?

Unlike past car shows, the biggest trend at the NAIAS wasn't about horsepower. It was about morphing the dashboard into a game center experience. Think Farmville or Angry Birds next to your digital speedometer. This digital engagement will influence how safely or fuel efficiently you drive, rewarding your efforts with real money saved through lower fuel consumption and, probably some day soon, insurance rates. Or even imagine driving by your favorite retailer and having your car search for special offer sales!

Find me someplace romantic

How far could this go? Ford is now following the digital mobile world and opening their SYNC® central-console computer to third party app developers. Beyond today’s GPS map displays, this screen will offer voice-activated app searches. “The future has arrived” with enabled Ford car owners now being able to perform searches like “What are some good date ideas nearby?” through a third-party-developed app called BeCouply.

Fun, fuel-efficient and green: Ford C-Max Energi Plug-in Electric Hybrid

Ford flew me up to their Dearborn headquarters to test-drive their new fleet of cars built around electrification technologies. I had a blast. Here’s a 2-minute video of my test drive of the C-MAX Energi with Ford’s Global Electric Fleet Manager Julie D'Annunzio as cameraperson. If you dig cars or digital tech, you really have to get in the driver's seat of cars like the C-MAX Energi to see how much fun these cars really are. If you are praying for technology solutions to climate change, then take some assurance in the fact that car companies like Ford are investing heavily in electrification as a solution to both pain at the pump and tail pipe emissions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8GXdGnUiRc

This is the last of a four-part case study on how Ford is going green. Their best practices can be used by every business to grow revenues and win customers. The first article in this case study series profiled Chairman Of The Board Bill Ford and CEO Alan Mulally on Ford’s CSR vision and how it is driving sales. The second article profiled Ford’s Go Further brand messaging tied to sustainability. The third article profiled the range of Ford’s electrification technologies.

Travel and accommodations to NAIAS in Detroit were covered by Ford. Opinions are my own.

Bill Roth is an economist and the Founder of Earth 2017 He coaches business owners and leaders on proven best practices in pricing, marketing and operations that make money and create a positive difference. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles business case studies of pioneering best practices that are proven to win customers and grow product revenues. Follow him on Twitter: @earth2017.

Hmm...not so sure if this says something good about IKEA or something not so good about their domestic competitors here in the U.S., but as a matter of fact it looks like a foreign company has just laid claim to being the biggest solar power owner in our Sunshine State of Florida, other than utilities.

Aside from who gets bragging rights, that's an interesting development on at least two levels. The era of big-box stores like IKEA is far from over, and solar power gives these retailers a great opportunity to squeeze extra value from their real estate. The era of stuff is also far from over, and generating or using clean energy gives stuff-happy retailers - and of course, we consumers - a chance to offset the pressure we're putting on the Earth's resources in the face of skyrocketing population growth.

IKEA solar power in Florida

The global home furnishing giant IKEA gets to be the non-utility King of Solar Power in Florida by virtue of its newest solar power installation, a 1,057 kilowatt (kW) array on the roof of its store in Sunrise in South Florida.

When you add in a 967 kW solar array at IKEA's Orlando store and a 1,189 kW solar array at its Tampa store (both completed last summer), according to the company it is now the largest non-utility solar owner in the whole state.

The fact that all three installations were engineered by the U.S. company REC Solar, Inc. doesn't quite take the sting out of it. There are plenty of American based, big-box retailers in Florida. Where are they hiding when it comes to solar power?

Energy independence for IKEA

The Florida installations actually a drop in the solar power bucket compared to IKEA's U.S. operations overall. The Sunrise installation is the 35th solar power project it has completed on its U.S. stores and four more are in the works, adding up to a grand total of 38 megawatts.

All together, the 39 installations will account for 90 percent of IKEA's U.S. facilities, but that, too, is just the tip of IKEA's renewable energy iceberg. By way of comparison, the three Florida installations total a little less than 13,000 solar panels, and IKEA has already installed a total of 250,000 solar panels worldwide as well as owning and operating about 110 wind turbines in Europe.

The company's ultimate goal is to be energy independent by 2020.

Sustainability and consumer loyalty

Aside from gaining access to low cost, renewable energy, that's the kind of sustainability initiative that could lead to an uptick in business. According to some surveys, consumers are already showing a strong preference for products made with wind power, so solar power and other forms of renewable energy can't be far behind.

Along the same lines, IKEA has also undertaken a long string of other consumer-friendly initiatives. Here's a brief rundown from the company on its U.S. efforts:

"...recycling waste material; incorporating environmental measures into the actual buildings with energy-efficient HVAC and lighting systems, recycled construction materials, skylights in warehouse areas, and water-conserving restrooms; and operationally, eliminating plastic bags from the check-out process, phasing-out the sale of incandescent light bulbs, facilitating recycling of customers’ compact fluorescent bulbs, and by 2016 selling and using only L.E.D. bulbs. IKEA also has installed electric vehicle charging stations at nine stores in the West."

[Image (cropped): IKEA merchandise by stellar678]

Follow me on Twitter: @TinaMCasey.

 

 

What do you think is the top issue women feel pressured about? Being thin? Getting married? Making sure their children do well at school? No, no and no. Women, apparently, mostly feel pressured about being environmentally conscious. At least, that's what you can learn from a new survey that was conducted for Clorox Green Works.

Where is this pressure is coming from? Shekinah Eliassen, Green Works brand manager, explains that “women are feeling this pressure because somewhere along the line green became a status symbol, now everyone has an opinion about how you aren’t doing enough to be eco-friendly.” On its Facebook page, Green Works added that it found “that consumers have been overwhelmed by green, and that’s mostly because they feel like they can’t do as much as the eco-fanatics and the rich in time and resources.”

So let me see if I got it right - eco-fanatics and rich people have made “green” into a status symbol that makes many women frustrated because they feel the bar is too high and they do too little, which doesn’t really count and hence they’re still part of the problem rather than the solution. Sounds a bit odd? Not to Green Works, which built an entire marketing campaign around these findings, proclaiming that “You Don’t Have to be Ridiculous to be Green.”

Worried about all these women that are out there worried sick that they’re not green enough, Green Works’ new campaign is “trying to alleviate that pressure with a little bit of humor, with the goal of making everyone feel like their green efforts count.” It started with a “green housewives” video clip, which is a parody on the “housewives” cultural phenomena, presenting Michon “Anxious Eco-Snob,” Jamie “Eco-Socialite” and Elyse “Queen of Green.” The three are making a trip to a local farmers market and you can see what happens there in the clip below. Let’s just say that they provide a perfect example of what an extreme, obnoxious or ridiculous green persona is exactly.

While the use of humor can be a great way to make your point in a green marketing campaign (remember SunRun ads?), it seems that here not everyone thought the housewives theme was smart or funny. “This is actually really offensive to women. I'm so sick of the 'housewife tv show' kick. Poor choice,” or "The 'green without the ridiculous' message is drowned out by the portrayal of women as being excessive shoppers and party throwers who are only concerned with 'out housewifing' other women through fashion and appearance. What message does this send?” were some of the messages on Green Works’ Facebook page.

In fairness, there were also many others that found the video hilarious, but in any event, it did seem that this campaign got some people irritated and the reason, I believe, is the message rather than the messenger.

Here’s how I see it: Clorox Green Works has a great advantage – it provides very affordable, eco-friendly cleaning products. The company decided to characterize the choice in its line of green products as the choice of reasonable people who want to do the right thing for themselves and the planet. So far, so good. The problem starts with the decision to do it by creating a storyline where “green” has become a status symbol with high standards set up and maintained by eco-fanatic and rich people that all the rest feel pressure to meet, but mostly can’t, and hence feel like they just don’t do enough to be green.

While this is an appealing story, I’m not sure how realistic it is. First, the whole pressure to be green doesn’t make much sense. I haven’t found any other research or study that will back up the finding that being green is on the top of the list of issues women feel pressure about. In addition, if this was the case, wouldn’t we expect to see greater adoption of practices, which are as green as it gets as well as affordable, like sharing-based services?

And what about Green Works itself? If this is really a green "working class hero," why does it sell relatively so little in the first place ($60 million in 2010)? Why did this line of affordable green cleaning products fail to become a hit if the market includes so many women under green pressure looking for affordable alternatives?

The answer to the latter might come from the Regeneration Consumer Study  that looked into consumer attitudes and behaviors of consumers worldwide. While the study agrees with Green Works’ finding on affordability being an important factor for consumers when switching to greener products, it also explains the following:

Making a product that’s good for our planet is important, but, for consumers, it’s not enough. Aspirational consumers crave what we call 'total value’: products that deliver practical benefits like price and quality but that also negate buyer’s remorse by providing societal and environmental good and provide “tribal benefits” that help them feel connected to a larger community that shares their values.

So Green Works got it right when it decided to focus on the tribal benefits, but for some reason it chose to portray it as the best way to reclaim green from Tesla owners and Portlandia residents rather than focus on its positive attributes. Doesn’t it look ridiculous to you?

[Image credit: Clorox Green Works]

Raz Godelnik is the co-founder of Eco-Libris and an adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware’s Business School, CUNY SPS and Parsons The New School for Design, teaching courses in green business, sustainable design and new product development. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

By Anne Michelsen

“Green” is rarely black and white. More often, it comes in multiple shades of gray. And in the case of one “green” product, those shades of gray come in every color of the rainbow.

The demand for soy-based ink is rising as corporate sustainability moves into the mainstream. First developed by the newspaper industry in the 1970s in response to rising petroleum prices, soy and other vegetable-based inks offer a healthier, environmentally friendly alternative to conventional ink.

Or do they?

There are many popular notions surrounding soy ink. Some may be true. Some are blatant misconceptions. And most fall somewhere in between.

Is soy ink really a good environmental choice? If so, could it be better? This article is an attempt to shed some light on the matter by exploring four common myths about soy ink.

Myth #1: “Everything in soy ink comes from soy.”

In Reality: “The biggest misconception people have is that all of the components of soy ink are made from soy,” says Gary Jones, Vice President EHS of the Printing Industries of America.

 

Oil is just one component of ink.  Other ingredients include pigments, resins and film formers, and various additives to lend desired characteristics to different kinds of ink.

Some of those other components may come from renewable resources, but many do not. Pigments, especially, are generally mineral in origin and it’s not uncommon for them to be toxic. For instance, carbon black is widely used as the pigment for black ink and is classified as a Group 2B carcinogen.

What may come as a surprise to many people is that most veggie inks contain substantial amounts of petroleum.

“In order for an ink to use the American Soy Association’s Soy Seal logo, it only needs to contain the specified amount of soy oil or soy oil derivatives. No other specifications regarding the other components of the ink are identified,” explains Jones.

“For example, in order for a heatset web offset lithographic paste ink to be considered a ‘soy ink,’ it must have 7 percent soy oil content. Therefore, a heatset litho ink that contains 7 percent soy oil and 93 percent of other ingredients such as methyl ethyl death would be considered a ‘soy ink’ and can carry the Soy Seal logo.”

Depending on the type of ink and its intended use, an ink’s oil content must be a minimum of 6 percent to 40 percent soy in order to qualify for the Soy Seal logo. The most common use of soy oil in ink occurs in offset lithographic ink – the kind most commonly used in commercial printing. Black offset litho ink must have at least 40 percent soy oil content to qualify as a soy ink.

Mark Nelson, Web Press Advisor and Director of Manufacturing at the John Roberts Company, a commercial print shop in Minneapolis, explains why: “If you don’t get the percentage correct it won’t dry properly. It’s a lot like adding ethanol to gasoline – too much and it won’t work well.”

Myth #2: “Soy ink emits fewer VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) than conventional ink.”

In Reality: “It’s important to realize that VOC content and VOC emissions are two different things,” says Jones. “The EPA has a specific test method (Method 24) that is required to be used to determine VOC content. Using that method, there’s less VOC in soy ink.

 

“However, vegetable oils will absorb oxygen from the air, which cross links in the vegetable oil to cause it to dry. When the vegetable oils cross link, they produce and emit VOCs. So even though the actual measured VOC content may be lower, it’s not uncommon to see a higher veggie oil content resulting in more VOC’s actually being emitted.”

While this may be true in the lab, those who use the inks on a daily basis have a different perspective.

“One of the wonderful side effects of (switching to vegetable inks) is that (our shop) doesn’t smell like a print shop anymore,” reports Dee Bisel, owner of Minuteman Press in Overland Park, KS, who has switched exclusively to using vegetable based inks in her commercial printing franchise. “We have reduced our VOC’s 22 percent and HAP’s (hazardous air pollutants) by 93 percent by switching from petroleum-based ink to soy and vegetable ink.”

Bisel adds, “Once you switch to the soy inks, you have to go to new cleaners and solvents – they all have to change.” She believes the switch to less volatile solvents is a major contributor to the improved air quality.

Nelson agrees. He also notes that John Roberts (which, like Bisel’s shop, is certified as a Green Printer through the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership) has reduced the total volume of solvents used on a daily basis. “We recycle our solvents through a distilling process. We don’t order in nearly as much fresh solvent as we used to. I can guarantee it’s half as much.”

Myth #3: “Soy ink facilitates paper recycling.”

In Reality: “That’s a case of “Don’t believe everything you read online,” says Jones.

 

You may have read that soy ink is easier to remove from paper pulp than conventional ink. This observation is based on a 1991 laboratory study done at a major Midwestern university.

There is no reason to doubt the validity of the study; however, it was conducted using ink that had been aged for only 4 weeks. Industry experience reveals a different truth. It turns out that once veggie ink is truly aged in the field it can be much harder to remove from paper pulp than conventional ink, due to the increased oxidation and crosslinking that occurs when vegetable oils dry.

Myth #4: “Soy ink is good for the environment.”

In Reality: If only it were so simple! The fact is, no ink is good for the environment. The question is: Is soy ink truly a better choice?

 

Soy is one of the major crops used in conventional agriculture’s monoculture system, which severely limits biodiversity and inhibits ecosystem resiliency. Over 90 percent of U.S. soy fields are planted in genetically modified soy; GMO’s present a range of environmental concerns. And, the increase in global demand for soy products contributes to large scale deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere.

Soy may be a renewable resource. But it does take diesel to grow soy, so thinking that each drop of soy ink used is a drop of petroleum saved is a fallacy. (For comparison, one reliable estimate for biodiesel production is about 2.5 gallons of soy biodiesel per gallon input of standard diesel fuel.)

On the other hand, soy beans require minimal chemical input compared to many other crops. There’s no denying that even vegetable inks containing mineral components are usually far less toxic than conventional inks. And, veggie inks are proving to be more biodegradable as well.

So are soy and other veggie based inks really better for the environment?

Nearly all sustainability experts say, “Yes!”

But perhaps Jones puts it best: “From a global sustainability aspect, the more (renewable content) that’s incorporated the better, because that way you’re at least moving in the right direction.”

What do you think? Has your company made the switch to veggie ink? What drove the change, and what’s been your experience?

***

A freelance copywriter and principal of Green Ink Copywriting, Anne Michelsen helps companies  promote their sustainable products and services while remaining compliant with green marketing guidelines.  She also enjoys writing about environmental issues. Anne publishes a monthly newsletter of green marketing and compliance insights.

Image credit: Pixabay

Coworking is hot. In a recent TriplePundit article, Lonnie Shekhtman talks about an inspiring example of coworking at The HUB. Coworking spaces are popping up all over the world, each with a specific set of services, targeted population, and physical design. The website, Deskwanted, allows workers to find coworking spaces in their city, and WNYC, a New York City public radio station, created a map of New York’s coworking locations.

Before the rise of coworking spaces, coffee shops with free wi-fi, and libraries were the de facto workspaces for the office-less worker. Now, some innovative librarians and enterprising libraries are redesigning their spaces to create their own, official, coworking environments. Meg Knodl, a Minnesota librarian and coworking advocate, developed a librarian position at CoCo, a coworking space with locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Knodl also educates librarians about how coworking can fit inside libraries.

The timing seems perfect: libraries are struggling to maintain relevance as more material is available for free online, and workers are looking for space to plug in their laptop, meet with collaborators, and even host events. A Sustainable Economies Law Center article on Shareable notes that libraries have long been centers for the sharing economy and with digitization, libraries can be more creative with physical space.

Thomas Scott, a member of CoLab Nashville, says that a good coworking space should be:

Flexible - Offering multiple workspace options for different types of businesses and accommodating businesses as they grow and change.

Collaborative and inspiring - With spaces that encourage conversation and interaction between workers.

Affordable - Coworking is attractive to startups, freelancers and artists, groups who need pricing options that fall below a traditional office space.

Just this month, the Brooklyn Public Library’s central branch opened the Shelby White and Leon Levy Info Commons. This new addition to the library features workspace for 70 laptop users, meeting rooms with flat screens (including one room that doubles as a recording studio), and a training lab for classes and workshops. Creative entrepreneurs are looking for ways to save money, connect with their communities and thrive in inspiring workspaces. Could this be the future of libraries?

[Image Credit: Wordshore]

We would be remiss in writing about the sharing economy without talking about Wheelz. And not just because they, as Chief Sharer, have done so much to make this series possible. Wheelz’ innovative peer-to-peer (P2P) business model and their use of technology puts them right out at the cutting edge of this rapidly evolving movement. There is no need to put any extra spin on a company that is already ahead of the curve.

Self-described, not as a company, but as, “a peer-to-peer car sharing community that connects drivers who need a car with owners who want to share their cars with those around them,” Wheelz is serving both college campuses and cities.

Most new ventures start from a basement or back room and try to get from there to a better place. The founders of Wheelz actually started at Better Place (the swappable battery company) and went from there to helping other people get to where they needed to go without buying a car that would only end up sitting still most of the time.

CEO Jeff Miller told me that “one of the things you think about when you’re working on EVs is how often cars are parked, since that’s the only time you can recharge them. It’s a horribly inefficient use of resources. It seemed like there was a real opportunity to make the transportation ecosystem a lot more efficient by applying a similar approach to vehicles and vehicle ownership that Airbnb was applying to homes and home ownership. So we spun this out of Better Place: Aaron Platshon bringing his automotive marketing background from Tesla and Akhtar Jameel who had spent a lot of time at Mercedes Benz thinking connecting automobiles to the web.”

They took that vision and turned it into truly new way of thinking about getting around. The Wheelz P2P platform, together with its DriveBox^TM in-car technology and mobile access, offer a simple, efficient, P2P rental experience that turns idle cars into grocery runs, coffee dates and weekend getaways. As they like to say, “We’re not reinventing the wheel, just how you use it.”

Says Platshon, “When you’re working in transportation, user experience is critically important and one of the areas we’ve focused on is our custom Drivebox^TM which gets installed on all vehicles in the program. It makes it more convenient for drivers because they can find and access the car on the go, from their mobile device. You can find it because of the GPS signal and you can unlock it because it wires directly into the car’s door system. You can honk the horn and flash the lights to make it easier to locate, which makes it a much easier experience for drivers. It’s also very convenient for car owners, too, because they can rent their car out whenever they want, and don’t need to take the time to go meet up with the renter to facilitate the transaction.”

Wheelz has raised more than $15 million to date, including a $13.7 million round of funding led by investors Bill Ford’s Fontinalis Partners, and Zipcar, their lead investor, which was recently acquired by Avis.

I asked Miller what the main differences were between Zipcar and Wheelz, in their customers and in their reach.

“I think that peer-to-peer (P2P) is something that can appeal right now, especially in the early phases of its development to a younger generation that’s more familiar with Facebook and Airbnb and have a greater level of trust for these P2P type transactions. As it goes more mainstream, I’d expect that age to increase while more of the older generation is still looking at the options and saying I’m going to stick with Zipcar for now.

Zipcar’s model differs in that they own their cars which you rent from them. Some people, like CV Harquail, have suggested that Zipcar is not really sharing at all, but rather just a really well-implemented car rental service.

Sometimes sharing is co-owning and sometimes it is renting, both concepts which have been around for a long time. The thing that makes it “sharing” in the business sense, or collaborative consumption as it is perhaps more accurately labeled, and therefore new, is a customer experience that is so transparent, so effortless, courtesy of mobile and social technology as to have transcended the boundary that once existed between the transactional and the personal. I mean we share and borrow stuff with members of our own family, right? So the question is can ubiquitous mobile computing make the whole world, one big family?

Not exactly, but in certain cases, it can take us one step closer. Close enough to create what you might call the “economic intimacy,” that I think is really the key to the sharing economy.

Yes, Zipcar is, in fact, a well-implemented car rental service. It certainly goes well beyond what Hertz #1 Gold and their imitators ever dreamed of, in not only doing away with the retail counter, but putting the car right in your neighborhood where you can walk to it, open it and drive away with nothing more than your smart phone and a reservation. The thing that makes it sharing, really, is the fact that according to UC Berkeley, every shared car replaces 13 owned cars. This means that, in essence, by participating in a Zipcar transaction, you are essentially, co-owning that car with a number of total strangers and we have taken one tiny step closer to the world-as-family idea and away from what we might look back on someday as the ownership economy.

Wheelz then, takes this all a step farther, combining all the convenience of a technology-enabled service like Zipcar’s with the community building potential that only peer-to-peer can deliver.

According to Miller, “One way of thinking about this is that we’re in the consumer behavior change business in the sense that most people historically would not buy a new car and share it with complete strangers. What they are wired to do is to share it with people that they already know. What we’re hoping to do is to formalize that and extend it to a broader definition of community than what people currently share with. That will take time to become pervasive. But it doesn’t have to become totally pervasive to have a massive impact.”

Because, he says, “if only 1 percent of car owners were to put their car into a P2P community, that’s 2.5 million cars, which is more than double the traditional car rental fleet and the existing car sharing fleet combined. So with 1 percent consumer adoption, you’ve introduced maybe one of the most disruptive factors in the transportation space, because now you’ve got a car available on every block in every major metropolitan area, that you can access from the palm of your hand, with complete diversity of vehicle choice, anything from a sports car to a truck, no matter where you are.”

What blew my mind, perhaps most of all the things we talked about, was when I, as a more or less traditional business traveler, suggested that airports would remain strongholds for the traditional car rental model for years to come, Miller agreed, but then added, “You can imagine a swapping service where you go to the airport and pick up somebody else’s car and somebody else picks it up yours so that instead of paying for parking you are getting paid for the use of the car.”

If nothing else did, surely that impressed upon me that this is really a whole new ball game.

Photo Courtesy of Wheelz

RP Siegel, PE, is an inventor, consultant and author. He co-wrote the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water in an exciting and entertaining format. Now available on Kindle.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

Last week the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco hosted a headliner for sustainable business enthusiasts: Chip Bergh, CEO, Levi Strauss & Co. and Rick Ridgeway, VP of Environmental Affairs at Patagonia in conversation with Greg Dalton, Founder of Climate One. The subject of the talk was Clean Clothes - What lies ahead for product labeling and making the $200 billion U.S. clothing industry more sustainable?

Both Patagonia and Levi Strauss boast impressive, sector-leading environmental initiatives to lower their industry's impact. However, it turns out that both companies' green stories are tightly interwoven with their customer engagement.

Levi Strauss and Patagonia engage with consumers on sustainability issues and incorporate their feedback into future iterations of their sustainability programs. Through this customer engagement each company has found the key to ensuring that that sustainability initiatives boost the bottom line. Here's how they do it.

Include customers in conversations about the products you make

Two Black Fridays ago, Patagonia made headlines the world over with its full page ad in the New York Times urging customers: Don't buy this jacket, which asked consumers not to buy new when old would do. When questioned about the impetus for this campaign, which would seem to be at odds with the retail apparel business's drive to sell more product, Rick Ridgeway said, "The recession was starting to hit hard. It was an important shift. People were investing in more expensive products that would last a long time, rather than disposables. We wanted to engage with these people – these were our people. Engaging around quality products is a great way to lower the impact of our products." Patagonia was able to find a core segment of their customer base who values high-quality, well made goods and strengthen their relationships with these consumers. They also managed to educate that group and the larger population of NYT (and blogs about the NYT) readers about the environmental dangers of fast fashion.

Levi Strauss found cause to engage with consumers when they conducted a life cycle assessment of their products and realized that 60 percent of the embedded energy and 40 percent of the embedded water use in a pair of jeans came from washing them at home. Levi Strauss has been able to parlay that information into a few cool initiatives designed to engage with customers: back in 2009, they released updated care tags to encourage people to wash their jeans in cold water, line dry them, and donate them at the end of their natural lives. More recently, they launched the Water<Less campaign, pairing a product line which boasts drastically reduced water usage with a consumer education campaign.

Both organizations have used sustainable products and timely advertising campaigns as a medium for connecting with consumers about their products. They walk the fine line between educating and engaging and, in both cases, have managed to create some loyal fans along the way.

Reduce environmental footprint while maintaining performance

Patagonia, in particular, struggles with providing high-performance gear that contains potentially harmful materials. When speaking about Patagonia's Footprint Chronicles, which showcase the good, the bad and the ugly within Patagonia's supply chain, Ridgeway said, "We started to wonder if we should even been making a product because it’s that bad... This is a tension that goes on every day in our company. There isn’t an apparel company in the world that considers environmental issues that doesn’t face this issue. We like to dialogue with customers because some of these issues are so thorny that you can’t address them without help."

In the case of Patagonia, a particularly toxic waterproofing agent caused these introspections. The company used the Footprint Chronicles to share the information it had gathered about the negative environmental impacts of this substance. Customers agreed that the best course of action is to continue using it, while searching for a better solution that will provide the same performance.

Consider brand value at product end-of-life

It can be difficult to talk about what happens when a treasured object becomes a piece of garbage. Moderator Greg Dalton wondered if a focus on material re-capture would have a negative impact on the brand. Said Chip Bergh, "I don’t think so. I think it enhances the brand because it speaks to the long-term quality. Many consumers feel good about the program because it speaks to the long term value of the product." Consumers appreciate that their goods are so valuable they are worth talking about when they become closer to trash than treasure.

Both organizations have initiatives dedicated to collecting products at the end of their useful lives. Patagonia has the Common Threads Initiative, to make it easier to repair, recycle or regift. Levi Strauss has the Goodwill initiative mentioned above - each care tag includes a reminder to donate products at the end of their useful lives.

Encourage transparency for all

Both leaders spoke highly of a growing European movement to create nutrition-style labels for apparel which showcase the environmental and social impact of that garment for prospective buyers. Levi Strauss was recently part of a trial in France. "We’re believers in it," said Bergh. "The more transparent we can be with consumers, the more they’ll care about these issues. The key for us is that it be based on science." The metrics used to create the labels must be clear, consistent and replicable for companies to get on board.

But when it comes to government enforcement, Bergh wasn't so enthusiastic. "The issue is that every government may mandate something different and then you have chaos. The industry should take the lead on what’s the most effective way." Industry leadership will mean that the label is something that is streamlined and manageable.

Ridgeway agreed. "Labels are inevitable. The challenge for us is to work with government so that the solutions that they end up with are not necessarily watered down or weakened. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition is advocating for something robust. But, it needs to be something realistic for companies to follow. A consumer-facing label that allows consumers to understand environmental social health impacts of the product is crucial."

Since TriplePundit spent a few days in Detroit for the Auto Show earlier this month, I thought I would share some of the positive trends that are underway in the Motor City. It is easy to focus on Detroit’s negatives: the derelict buildings; the crime and grit; and a dysfunctional city government that maintains an infrastructure supporting two million people when its population is now just over 700,000. But, out of crisis comes opportunity for those who want to retrofit an incredible home, enjoy Michigan’s natural beauty and Midwestern grace and hospitality.

To that end, let me share some developments pointing to why I believe Detroit’s transformation is turning the city into an exciting sustainability laboratory:

Urban Farming: We have covered urban farming in Detroit in the past, and the movement is still growing. The local planning commission also approved a new urban farming ordinance last month, which will recognize the scores of farms and orchards that have sprouted across the city. Meanwhile a local entrepreneur who has been deeply involved in the movement, John Hantz, has pledged to purchase over 140 acres, clear out the debris and plant 15,000 trees.

Food Deserts are Blooming: One of Detroit’s must-sees is Eastern Market, a public market that boasts Michigan’s bounty throughout the year. This market has been around for decades, but business has boomed since Dan Carmody took the helm a few years ago. Eastern Market’s growth is important because finding fresh food can be difficult for Detroit’s citizens; and even though some drugstores try to fill the gap with milk and fresh fruit, the pickings are slim and most of the produce is packaged and imported from afar. Carmody is working on developing a network of food hubs throughout the city as well as a community supported agriculture (CSA) program to bring food to residents instead of them having to take a long bus ride or taxi to suburban supermarkets.

Public schools going green. As 3p editor Andrea Newell points out, Detroit’s public school system is attempting to “go green.” So far the results are mixed, but the beleaguered school system is making gains in six areas of impact: energy and water; waste and recycling; transportation; the outdoor environment; the indoor settings; and nutrition.

Automakers getting a clue. Hopefully, some of those Detroit public school students will end up having meaningful careers at one of the Big Three automakers. Ford is making strides from having a climate scientist and futurist on the payroll to ramping up its electric vehicle offerings such as the Ford C-MAX Energy plug-in hybrid. Meanwhile, GM has made progress on meeting solar energy targets, has a booming recycling business and even goes so far as to compost . . . coffee grounds. Now even trucks are going plug-in! At last week’s North American International Auto Show, some of Ford’s speakers talked about how the Detroit infrastructure could become the Silicon Valley of transportation. Let’s hold them to their word.

Green building: With all the brownfields in Detroit, the jump on LEED points is an easy one to make. The local U.S. Green Building Council (USGSB) chapter in Detroit is an active one--buildings from those on Wayne State’s campus to the first LEED certified project, Lithuanian Hall, are emerging as some of the Motor City’s staunchest advocates are determined to groom Detroit as a 21st century sustainability laboratory.

Renewable energy: Did you know over 140 buildings in downtown Detroit are heated by district energy? Detroit’s huge cogeneration system, fueled by 3300 tons of municipal solid waste, is now expanding midtown to the Wayne State University campus. Detroit Thermal’s system is more efficient than each individual building having its own boilers and furnaces.

Bicycling: It may seem odd to talk about bicycling in a city that is the birthplace of the automobile, but Detroit is a great place to explore on two wheels. The symptoms of the city’s economic decline: empty roads and reemerging woodlands add to the city’s bike paths. Earlier this month, a local advocacy group organized a bike-a-thon to raise money for a local nonprofit bike shop. The Hub of Detroit and Back Alley Bikes are among the businesses working to turn Detroit’s residents and visitors onto bicycling.

Green jobs: Just a few miles from downtown Detroit near the city’s museum district is Tech Town, one key towards transforming southeastern Michigan into a 21st century greener economy. Housed partly within a 1920s Chevrolet factory, dozens of startups, including those in the clean energy sector, is a buzzing hub of entrepreneurship.

Bio-fueled public transport? Detroit’s public works, including its bus system, is a basket case, but some are attempting to fill the void. The Detroit Bus Company is attempting a privately-run approach and is currently seeking residents to fill out surveys on potential routes. A bus loop connecting Hamtramck, a thriving town surrounded entirely by the Motor City, and downtown Detroit is set to launch soon.

Hope for Michigan Central Station: Once a glorious transit center, this Beaux-Arts beauty has been derelict since the last trains rolled out in the 1980s. Matty Maroun, the building’s current owner, as well as the trans-border bridge that links Detroit to neighboring Windsor, Ontario, has caught plenty of heat over the years for leaving it empty--though in fairness there is huge risk in retrofitting the building into a facility no one will visit. Anyone can send a suggestion, however, to talktothestation.com. We applaud one tiny step, however: the Maroun family spent some coin illuminating the station over the holiday season.

Take our photo tour to see what Detroit offers and its future potential.

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This is Leon Kaye's 750th article on Triple Pundit. Based in Fresno, California, he is a sustainability consultant and the editor of GreenGoPost.com. He also contributes to Guardian Sustainable Business; his work has also appeared on Sustainable Brands, Inhabitat and Earth911. You can follow Leon and ask him questions on Twitter or Instagram (greengopost). He will explore children’s health issues in India next month with the International Reporting Project.

[Image credits: Leon Kaye]

KPMG's recent research, tellingly entitled The Transformation of the Automotive Industry, observes that, “The global automotive industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation due to increasing consumer preferences toward vehicles with a lower carbon footprint.”

This growing consumer focus upon carbon emissions is now being reported from Beijing to the Jersey shore. China has seven of the top ten most polluted cities in the world because of their growing fleet of fossil fueled urban vehicles and their use of coal to generate 75 percent of their electricity. A reported dark joke among Beijing citizens is that the measure of a day’s air quality is whether you can see your feet when you step outside.

American consumers are increasingly linking weather volatility events like Hurricane Sandy to the higher air and ocean temperatures created by human emission of green house gases. Today, approximately 65 percent of citizens between the ages of 18 and 65 view climate changes as a serious or somewhat serious problem. In search of solutions, governments and consumers are looking at automobile manufacturers for answers.

Auto industry climate change strategy

The auto industry is pursuing the following three-part strategy for making price competitive, lower emissions cars and trucks:

Fuel Efficiency. Automobile manufacturers have linked fuel efficiency and tail pipe emissions as their climate change target metric. In response they are introducing at a record pace new cars and trucks that achieve reduced emissions through increased fuel efficiency.

Alternative Fuels. Automobile manufacturers are growing their product offerings that use natural gas, or biofuels like ethanol that can be blended with gasoline, to reduce the consumer’s pain at the pump while also emitting fewer tailpipe emissions.

Electrification. Electrification is the auto industry’s ultimate solution to tailpipe emissions. The auto industry has seen an explosion of new hybrid and plug-in hybrid car launches. Consumers are responding by buying cars equipped with electrification technologies at record rates for this market segment . The Prius is the top selling car in California. General Motors sold three times as many Chevrolet Volts in 2012 as it did in 2011, which was the car's first full year on the market.

But the sales volume for cars with electrification technologies are still only at a fraction of the size of the gasoline fueled car market. To grow sales, the auto industry is focused on a two-part strategy. The first part of their strategy is to grow consumer acceptance of electrification technologies and their benefits. They are doing so by integrating cost effective electrification technologies into gasoline fueled cars like auto start and stop engine technologies that turn off a gasoline engine at stop lights. The second part of their strategy is to make electrification cost competitive with gasoline and diesel technologies. This will be a maturation process as the car companies introduce consumers to electrification technologies while investing in research to advance next-generation electrification technologies that hold the promise of being price and performance attractive to the mass market of consumers.

Ford’s electrification car technology

Ford is now emerging as an auto industry leader in car electrification. Over the last 12 months, they have introduced a range of hybrid, plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars. In the following 2-minute video, Julie D’Annunzlo, Ford’s Global Electric Fleet Manager, outlines how electrification technologies will soon be delivering 3-10 percent fuel economy gains for many new Ford gasoline cars and how Ford car buyers are now being offered electrification technologies that will save money and reduce emissions by delivering 40 to 100 mile per gallon fuel efficiency.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4LwoY7cAdI

This is the third article of a four-part case study on how Ford is going green. Their best practices can be used by every business to grow revenues and win customers. The first article in this article series profiled Chairman Of The Board Bill Ford and CEO Alan Mulally on Ford’s CSR vision and how it is driving sales. The second article profiled Ford’s Go Further brand messaging tied to sustainability. The final article will be a test drive of the Ford plug-in electric C-MAX Energi and how digital technologies are re-engineering cars to be fun to drive, cost less to operate and mean more in terms of reduced tailpipe emissions.

Travel and accommodations to NAIAS in Detroit were covered by Ford. Opinions are my own.

Bill Roth is an economist and the Founder of Earth 2017 He coaches business owners and leaders on proven best practices in pricing, marketing and operations that make money and create a positive difference. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles business case studies of pioneering best practices that are proven to win customers and grow product revenues. Follow him on Twitter: @earth2017.

Petitions come in all sizes and on all topics. The right to petition the government holds an elite status in the American political system. After all, it’s one of the few methods that the average citizen has to capture the attention of, say, the White House administration when he wants something.

These petitions also say an awful lot about our priorities.

The White House takes on the Death Star

Take for example, the now-famous death star petition that was filed last year on the White House We the People website. The petition not only met the government's requirements of 25,000 signatures within 30 days, it exceeded it. In so doing, the petition forced the administration to come up with a formal answer as to when - if ever - it would finally build a real death star. For some readers, this exchange was better than watching old reruns.

Not surprisingly, the administration turned down its unenviable new role.

“Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?” Paul Shawcross, Chief of the Science and Space Branch queried in his response to the petition.

Ale to the Chief

Or, the petition that called for the administration to release the time-honored recipe for the White House Ale.

“Following in the footsteps of great men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, Barack Obama has reportedly been enjoying the rewards of home brewed beer,” the petition notes. “In keeping with the brewing traditions of the founding fathers, homebrewers across America call on the Obama Administration to release the recipe for the White House home brew so that it may be enjoyed by all.”

Indeed, homebrewers were delighted when the Obama administration released not only a recipe for the White House Honey Ale, but one for the White House Honey Porter, along with a four-minute video on tips and how-to’s.

The petition was submitted last August before the Obama administration had raised the minimum threshold for signatures from 5,000 to 25,000. Still, the Ale to the Chief petition, as the White House giddily referred to it in the response, had met the requirement by more than double that number, clocking in with 12,240 signatures.

Don't hold your breath

And while the petition to impeach Obama was submitted in a somewhat lighter vein last November, the White House still managed to find a spark of humor in the topic.

The petition “We Request that Obama be Impeached for the Following Reasons,”  probably didn’t need all of its 49,980 signatures to grab the attention of the Obama administration. But as it had met the newly minted requirement of 25,000 signatures, the White House was keen to reply.

“(The) short answer is that we won't be calling for the President's impeachment – and given the fact that you made your appeal to the White House itself, we doubt you were holding your breath waiting for our support.

“The key is that we can disagree without being disagreeable. That's the kind of public dialogue Americans deserve.”

White House: The new threshold

In January, the White House announced its decision to raise the minimum signature requirement again – this time to 100,000. Its reason?

“(It's) exceeded our wildest expectations. Through the past year, interest in We the People exploded and we're closing in on 10 million signatures,” explains Macon Phillips, director of digital security for the White House. Petitioners will still be held to the same time frame of 30 days in order to meet the requirement for a formal White House reply.

But even if the new threshold sounds steep, Americans don’t appear to be daunted.

The touching and long-sought-after, request to provide military service animals the dignity of a soldier’s burial, (the current petition was created less than a week ago) already stands at 1,519 signatures, while a another equally moving petition to recognize the health needs of veterans who were exposed to toxic substances at Fort MacClellan has less than 500 signatures, but is growing. So is one requesting that paid maternity leave be federally mandated.

And, of course, in keeping with Americans’ passion for the stars, there’s also a petition to the White House to award Kennedy honors to William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, George Takei, Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nichols. With an expiration date of February 23, and only another 99,915 signatures needed, anything is possible.

Image of Death Star courtesy of Ryan Vaarsi.