Given that I'm thinking about my own new year's resolutions for 2008 (and the fact that its 60 degrees here in NYC) I found this article rather interesting. The Worldchanging blog writes about a survey by marketing consultancy Tiller, LLC that says Americans are going green with their resolutions this year. Some highlights:
75% Say They Are Very or Somewhat Likely to Reduce Energy Consumption in'08;
74% Say They Are Likely to Recycle More
Three in 10 Americans Admit to Feeling Guilty About NotLiving a More Environmentally Friendly Lifestyle
Does this mean that we are on the verge of a massive change in behavior? I doubt it. Every year it seems the whole country resolves to lose weight after the new year. Yet every year the obesity problems seems to get worse. Guilt just isn't the right motivation for getting people to actually change their behavior. What people do need is to connect to the feelings of how their lives would be better if they do make a change. Here's an idea: How about a green version of the show 'Biggest Loser' to kick things off? Find the biggest environmental offenders in the country and ween them of their wasteful ways on national TV.
One quote in the press release about the survey says this: "Guilt is not going to save the environment, but at least it's a step in the right direction." I'm not sure that any step really matters unless it helps create a change, but time will tell on this one. And if the guilt is just an expression of a larger social awareness about the environment, then it is hard to argue that this is anything but good. Lets just hope we can start to feel good about the changes we are making rather than bad about the ones we aren't.
The Governator Sues the EPA: I’d hate to be on Arnold’s bad side. It seems that the Environmental Protection Agency is next on the terminator’s hit list since California passed legislation requiring car makers to cut emissions by 30% two years ago but the measure has yet to take effect since it requires approval from the EPA. The EPA, for its part, hasn’t rejected the measure but it has been sitting on it and says it should make the decision by December. Obviously, car makers are lobbying against the proposed change. One has to wonder what the Federal government is thinking when more and more it seems now not only out of step with what other countries in the international community are doing (see article on UK’s Prime Minister committing to cutting emissions by 60% and China’s investments in alternative energy) but now its clear that its even out of touch with what local government wants. Besides California, 11 other States said they would follow California if they succeed and at least five more are considering it.
It should come as no surprise that consumers the
world over are increasingly likely to purchase products from companies with a
reputation for environmental friendliness. Yet a new study from Tandberg that
delves deeply into consumer and worker environmental attitudes and behavior
seems rather full of small surprises.
The
Center for Media and Democracy this week covered the Australian supermarket
chain Woolworths and its involvement in a CSR scandal of sorts:
The
Australian supermarket company Woolworths has withdrawn a range of tissue
products after being outed by an anonymous blogger for using a "Sustainable Forest Fibre" logo on products sourced from a notorious Indonesian forestry
company.
As
the excerpt states, the company was exposed by a blogger who writes exclusively
about divulging Woolworth’s deepest CSR secrets – the blog is called, very
straightforwardly, “Expose
Woolworths.”
On
Saturday July, 8, over 150 of some of the best known musicians from John Mayer
to the Police will be splashed across the internet via msn.com and on the
television via the NBC arsenal of channels. The cause? Raising awareness of the
global warming crisis. The Live Earth
series of concerts is the brainchild of Al Gore and Kevin Wall. But thus far,
the effort has been wrought with problems and has been widely criticized. It
appears that concert organizers have far more to worry about than getting Akon
to not throw kids
off of the stage and keeping up with Madonna’s concert
rider demands.
At
the time of this post, Live Earth was fighting a court ban in hopes of keeping
alive the Rio leg of the tour (coverage
here). And the concert’s potential impact is already being called into
question.
The
Wall Street Journal is reporting that General Motors (GM), best known for trucks and muscle
cars, has made a significant
push to produce an electric car in three to four
years – the move will include hiring over 400 technical experts (subscription
required: story
here).
The
endeavor has the ardent support of Vice Chairman Bob Lutz who was once quoted
as saying that aside from, "a few nuts in California," no one cared about the
impact of cars on the environment (article
here).
Pretty
big news today from Apple (AAPL) – Steve Jobs announced a commitment
to further “greening” Apple (story
here). Many commentators have cited pressure from Greenpeace as a big
reason for the change of heart and the organization isn’t
shying away from taking full credit. While Greenpeace is sometimes accused
of using extreme tactics, attacking Apple essentially through slapstick was
quite clever, so I guess some recognition is due (see a dubbed Steve Jobs below
in a now prescient spoof):
Surprisingly,
few web sites and media outlets have been talking about BP’s (BP) new marketing campaign
titled Helios. If you have not yet seen the commercials, brace yourself – you are
about to witness one of the oddest advertising promotions in recent memory. You
really have to see the spot for yourself to believe that a major oil company
put it out. Some of the highlights:
Babies, sans carseat, drive while dancing, playing catch and breezing through yellow lights.
Cars radiating fumes in the form of a BP logo.
Rival gas stations complete with eye patch wearing pumps flailing angrily before signage comes crashing down on them.
A companion site that urges us to “explore the world of babies driving.”
John Doerr, the venture
capitalist behind Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG), among
others, is turning his attention from creating solutions on the web to finding
solutions for the world (story here).
Doerr’s belief that the venture capital model should be utilized to look for
ways stem the tide of environmental erosion seems well founded. As he points
out, the U.S. government spends less on
research for renewables in a year than Exxon (XOM) makes in one
day.
I repeat in one day.
I will be the first to
admit that I don’t spend enough time thinking about global warming and what I
can do about it – I think there is a stigma that “thinking green” is for the
right brain crowd.
Foreign Policymagazine’s blog Passport covered Ikea’s
announcement that it is set to become the first major U.S retailer to charge
for plastic bags (here). Customers
will be charged five cents per bag as part of an effort to make a dent in the
nearly 100 billion bags that are used each year in the United States (that's not a typo). Here's an excerpt from Passport:
“it can
take polyethylene bags 1,000 years to decompose, creating significant
landfill problems. Ikea started charging its U.K. customers for plastic bags in
June, and has since reduced their bag consumption by 95 percent.”
