Last weekend I went to my 30th high school reunion (yes, I’m that old).  I was blown away by how good everybody looked.  Earlier this spring, I went to my 20th business school reunion and I have to say that not everyone aged so well.  Why the difference?  Is there something in the water up in my hometown of Croton-on-Hudson that makes people age better?  My husband pointed out that the reason everyone looked so good was probably because the folks who didn’t look so good decided not to come to the reunion. The whole point of a high school reunion, after all, is to show up and say “look how great I look and how well I am doing!”  The motivation behind attending a business school reunion, on the other hand, is likely networking and business opportunities – regardless of how you look.  So I’ll venture to say there was a bit of self selection going on at the high school reunion.  What on earth does this have to do with anything??  Well it got me thinking; I wonder how much self selection is contributing to our environmental crisis?  At the risk of sounding like a simpleton, here’s my theory:

Business and the for-profit world attract people who are motivated primarily by money.   Non-profits attract people who are motivated by making a difference and trying to change the world.  Business has more power that non-profits, so efforts to curb pollution, conserve our resources, and save the environment take a back seat to profit making ventures.  The government is led by politicians who are either also motivated by money, or seem to be so distracted by their secret sexcapades and scandals, that they can’t effectively get anything done.  Sad state of affairs we are in.  Oceans are in crisis, climate change is upon us, landfills are overflowing, children’s asthma rates are soaring, and cities are running out of fresh water.

So what do we do?  We change the face of business.  Those of us motivated by social good need to infiltrate the business world.  While social entrepreneurship is not brand new, it is still in its infancy.  When I went to business school 20 years ago, my choices for a “major” were: Finance, Marketing, and Management/Operations.  The “Social Enterprise” program is maybe 10 years old, if that.  There was no “Green Business Club” back then, and this was the first year that the Earth Institute at Columbia (my alma mater) offered a Masters in Sustainable Business Management.  This is our future, our hope, and our best bet for change.  I’m not saying that non-profits don’t have their place, they are extremely important and play a crucial role in counterbalancing big business.  And so are those politicians who are fighting for change against the pressure from big oil and the powers that be.  But the more we marry business and social good, the better off we will be.  Kudos to pioneers like Gary Hirschberg of Stonyfield Farms and Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation. They have made incredible inroads as environmental activists and successful business leaders. They are my heroes.  But we need more folks like them to choose this path.  We need to realize that the most effective way to make change is by solving social crises with business solutions.  As those businesses succeed, their leaders with a conscience will hold more and more power in our society.  And we will have self selected our hope for change.

Here are a few of my favorite social ventures:

TerraCycle

RecycleBank

Wearable Collections

What’s your favorite “Social Enterprise”?

As I’ve mentioned frequently, a few years ago I was clueless about environmental issues. I didn’t even know about the effect of cow farts on climate change. But then I had my “AHA!” moment and became keenly aware of the effect that my actions (and my eating habits) had on the environment. I changed my behavior and tried to preach as much as I could about it. Problem was, I was preaching to the choir. My mission to convert the unconverted, to get them to see the light and have their “AHA!” moment was falling upon deaf ears. What I failed to realize was that the majority of people are not going to have an “AHA!” moment and completely change their lives like I did. There needs to be a shift among mainstream consumers, which includes buy in from business, government, and constituents. I can imagine the frustration amongst the folks who have been environmental activists for years, banging their heads against a wall while the rest of us carried on with our wasteful ways. I’m sorry! I wish I knew then what I know now.

The good news is the tide is finally turning (can I use any more cliches?) and I think my job is going to be easier than the one that the veteran environmentalists had in front of them. Thanks to Al Gore and others, at least the issues are out there, whether or not people decide to take action. But there is another big catalyst in play: we are no longer having a party with ourselves. What do I mean by that? A decade ago, Seventh Generation refused to do business with Walmart – just on principle. Fast forward to 2010, Seventh Generation is all over Walmart. (OK, the fact that founder Jeffrey Hollender was later ousted by the company board definitely puts a skeptical spin on this – but try to set that aside while I attempt to make my point). Why the shift? Because Hollender realized that the only way to make a dent was to reach out to people where they were. Another pioneer who has been given a hard time for dancing with Walmart is Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S. Yet thanks to his efforts he has brought personal sustainability practices and awareness to hundreds of thousands of employees nationwide.

About 6 months ago, I was approached by someone in the sports world who wanted to partner with EcoPlum to promote sustainable purchasing to their fans. My initial reaction was to decline associating with a sport that, well, wasn’t exactly green. No way! However, as I started to learn more, it started to make sense. The sports teams were, in fact, taking steps to incorporate sustainability into many aspects of their operation. And while not perfect, we have the opportunity to get EcoPlum’s message out to so many, many more people about how they can live a green lifestyle and we can encourage them in making good purchasing choices by offering a great array of sustainable products for which they can earn EcoChipz.  Am I selling out? Absolutely not. I could continue to sell green products and publish green living articles to the already committed, but we’re not going to change the world by throwing a party for ourselves. We need to reach people where they are. Fans will go to these spectator sports and spend money on products promoted there whether or not the green companies get involved. So let’s bring our message to where people are already hanging out – whether or not it is a place with which we are altogether comfortable.

Can you think of a few examples of green companies that are reaching the general public without greenwashing?

It’s been almost a month since my last post. Why the radio silence? Well at first I was just overwhelmed by the Gulf Spill and I wasn’t quite sure I could write a post that would do justice to the whole awful situation. Then I finally pulled together what I thought was quite an excellent post about someone I knew who was from New Orleans. She had lived in NY on 9/11, moved back to New Orleans only to lose her house in Katrina, and now she is living through this disaster. But my husband pointed out that I should really get her permission before publicly plastering her story on the internet. Problem is I hadn’t spoken to her in years and didn’t know how to contact her. I sent her my draft post via the only email address I had for her and haven’t heard back. Then, this week, I have been dealing with an unthinkable tragedy at my son’s school, so my focus has been on supporting him, his classmates, and his school community.

So, since I find myself at a loss for words, which doesn’t happen very often at all, I think I will just post the article anyway, with the personal details deleted. My hope was to bring the whole situation a little closer to home by including an incredibly touching personal story, but use your imagination – think of the family of the charter boat captain who just committed suicide, and realize there are thousands of other stories that are just as tragic as his and my friend’s.

{DELETED PERSONAL GULF STORY – INSERT YOUR OWN HERE}…

It’s mind boggling that the BP well is gushing about 60,000 barrels of oil a DAY into the gulf (this estimate as of last week is twice as large as earlier reports) and nobody has yet figured out exactly how to stop it. It has been called the largest environmental disaster in US history and its ongoing effect will be economically worse for the Gulf region than Katrina. So where does this leave us?

We should all do whatever we can to help in the clean up efforts. MatterofTrust.org is collecting hair, fur, fleece and feathers from hair salons, farmers, schools and individuals to make booms (the hair soaks up the oil). As of last week, they had collected enough fiber to make 25 miles of boom! So far 10 miles of boom have been made and deployed on gulf beaches to clean up oil, but funds are needed to make and deploy the other 15 miles of boom. To help get this these booms made and out to the gulf beaches, EcoPlum is donating $10 for every new customer through this cause marketing campaign. Check out 10 more suggestions on ways to help from Care2.org.

Take responsibility. The blame for this disaster lies with many: the government agencies that turned their heads and did not enforce regulations, BP management’s ignoring of warnings from employees about unsafe conditions, as well as our own addiction to oil. It’s easy to point the finger at others, but we must also look at our own habits that contribute to the need to drill for petroleum in the first place. You and I can’t give back to {Insert Name Here} all that he/she has lost in his/her life, but we can try to make him/her and his/her family’s future a little brighter. So when you go about your business today, try to walk, bike and use public transportation, don’t buy disposable plastic water bottles, don’t use plastic bags, turn off your lights, reuse your coffee cup, and just do your part. We can all help us move away from the likelihood of something like this occurring again and affecting so, so many lives.

I have to share something that has driven me absolutely crazy for a while. At the risk of exposing too much information, I’m letting you know that am still taking the birth control pill at age 46. Anyway, I get my three month supply from Medco every, well, three months. Included in the package are three refills – the soft plastic package that has all the pills lined up neatly in a circle with foil on the back for the pill to “pop through” when I push on each little individual section. OK, but here’s the really annoying part: Medco also sends me 3 more hard plastic dispenser cases! What? Kudos to the person/people who invented the refillable dispenser package design but isn’t this TOTALLY defeating the purpose??? Shouldn’t I be able to have ONE REUSABLE plastic container that gets REFILLED once a month?

To be honest, I have not called Medco to complain. I guess I’m just assuming that I’ll get somebody in customer service who will just think I am a nut. If anyone knows someone who might be involved in the decision making around packaging medications at Medco, let me know and I will be sure to contact them. So I wanted to know if other people were experiencing similar frustrations around inefficient packaging and I placed a query on HARO. Here are some of the responses I got:

Nicole DeRuiter on migraine medication packaging: “I had a prescription for Maxalt MT for a while and it was crazy – there was an outer cardboard box, and inside of the cardboard box were 3 or so plastic boxes and in each of the plastic boxes were (I think) 5 pills, each wrapped in their own foil wrapper that was probably 10 times larger than the pill itself. Inside of the foil, the pill was in a plastic blister!!! Drove me nuts.” Nicole has since switched to Imitrex (for medical reasons) and she finds the packaging much less of a headache….

Jimbo Harris on memory cards for digital cameras: “For a product the size of a quarter, you purchase a plastic hanging display package nearly the size of a sheet of paper.” He also finds the free adapters for other size readers wasteful. I agree Jimbo – I have so many extra memory card adapters in my drawer that I could build a little plastic house.

Jillian Myers on tequila packaging “I used to work at a bar. When we ordered Patron Tequila from the distributor (4-6 cases/month), each bottle of Patron comes in the case individually boxed in a nice green gift box with green tissue paper. It would make me sick to throw out all that wasted packaging.” Hmmm…and the margarita drinkers never got to see the pretty boxes…can someone at Patron tell us what’s the point?

Finally Dean Cycon of Dean’s Beans says: “If you really want an example of waste, look at the infamous Keurig coffee system, or K-Cups, that is owned by “Green Mountain Coffee Roasters” of Waterbury Vermont….the little containers that each cup comes in are not recyclable or biodegradable or compostable. They are an ecological disaster. Last year alone, I believe that Green Mountain was responsible for about fifteen million of these little monsters going into landfills around the country.” Wow! That’s just bad design and bad implementation. But I guess it’s good for business. According to Dean, “This technology has become the biggest growth engine of Green Mountain and its stock has tripled this year, largely on these sales.” Green Mountain, what say you????

Thanks for these great examples, folks. As consumers, we have only so much control over our waste reduction efforts. We can stop using plastic bags and paper coffee cups and plastic water bottles, but we can’t stop taking our medications, storing our digital pictures or drinking our margaritas (OK – maybe we can). My point is that we often feel helpless when some big company is involved. But each individual is part of a greater community, and as a group we can make our voices heard. Let’s work together to stop this excess packaging madness!

Anyone out there have any contacts or ideas or comments?

For almost a year, I have been planning an event with the Columbia Business School Alumni Club called Making Green from Green: Corporate Environmental Sustainability Programs.  Well that event is finally happening tonight, and I just can’t wait.  I really can’t wait to hear what Professor Heal from Columbia Business School and the three panelists: Jeff Hollender of Seventh Generation, Dr Beth Sauerhaft of PepsiCo, and Steve Boston of CA, Inc. have to say.  Obviously a lot of other people feel the same way because the event sold out with over 200 registrations earlier this week.  Why so much interest around this topic?

In my case, being a business school graduate, entrepreneur, and a passionate (but only recently well informed) environmentalist, I’ve questioned whether corporations would ever care about anything other than maximizing profits for shareholders.   I was particularly harsh in my rant about how companies would only start to act responsibly after consumers stopped accepting toxic and environmentally damaging products.  While consumer driven demand will be a huge driver, another big consideration is that corporations are starting to realize that they have financial incentive to be “good corporate citizens.”

I’m not just talking about things like saving money from energy conservation, smart waste management, lower emissions, etc.  This low hanging fruit will certainly help get companies on board.  But what is happening is a shift in the corporate mindset too.  Companies like Stonyfield Farms, Seventh Generation, Patagonia, and Burt’s Bees have always shown that profitability and responsibility can go hand in hand.  But the more traditional corporations are also getting a clue that a truly sustainable and profitable future must come from big picture, long term, systems thinking.  The days of making a quick buck at the expense of quality, safety and sustainability are starting to be a thing of the past.  I’m not saying that the greed driven myopic corporate executives are going away altogether – oh no – look at the oil companies – the “um, let’s deny climate change science and make as much money as possible while we live on this endangered and dying planet we call earth – to hell with our children and their children and the stupid polar bears” kind of person.  They’ll always be around unfortunately.  But what I am seeing is that they are not so popular anymore!

When I was in business school in the 80s, it was all about making money, at whatever expense.  There were no programs in “Social Entrepreneurship” and “Clean Tech” and “Green Marketing.”   Now Green MBA programs are extremely popular.  People like Adam Werbach, Gary Hirshberg and Jeffrey Hollender are shaking up the business world and showing that  business and social responsibility are far from incompatible – they must exist hand in hand if companies want to succeed and survive.  I’m looking forward to hearing more about it tonight.

HAPPY FRIDAY! I love Fridays. I remember the euphoric feeling I would get on Fridays when I was in high school. Maybe I was going away for the weekend on one of my youth group’s “conventions” and I was giddy with anticipation of the fun and flirting and camaraderie ahead. Or maybe I was just elated to know that I didn’t have to get up at the crack of butt for school the next day. Whatever the reason, Fridays made me happy. Now that I’m a middle aged mom and life can be a drag at times, I’m thrilled that Fridays still have that hint of excitement. Today I’m feeling generally excited about the direction of Sustainable Business. (OK, a little geeky, but true).

Over the past months, I’ve been very involved with a series sponsored by the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York‘s Sustainable Business Committee called “Making Green from Green.” The presenters have been phenomenal and I sense a true commitment to sustainable practices from these industry leaders. Yes, I know, lately I have been skeptical, frustrated and generally down on big business and its ability to lead in this area. Why just a couple of blogs ago I was saying that the consumers need to be the ones to demand and drive change. And I do believe that. But I am also seeing a genuine effort by businesses to do the right thing.

I recently discovered this really cool company, CSRHUB, that ranks about 5,000 publicly traded companies on their environmental, employee, community and governance actions and performance. They have gathered data from 50 different sources of company Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) data and aggregated it for us all to use. In fact, one of their sources is the non-profit Climate Counts, one of EcoPlum’s environmental causes. So I decided to go through and pick some companies that scored well, and see what you all thought.

Do you agree? Disagree? Have you had experiences with these companies that you would like to share?

Have a great weekend.  I know I will be tickled pink when the alarm clock doesn’t go off at 6:30 am tomorrow.