As Earth Day approaches, here are six ideas to consider tackling. These small things alone are not going to save the world. But collectively, these small steps add up. And they make a statement to your employees that you are walking the green talk!
1. Kick the Bottled Water Habit
Is your company walking the talk when it comes to using bottled water? This is an easy place to make a tangible, visible difference. Work with the powers that be to eliminate bottled water at the office, events and meetings. Genentech has reduced its use of bottled water, saving $200,000 annually by using filtered water machines and reusable containers.
One of eBay’s Green Teams was determined to phase bottled water out of the office. It invited employees’ children to participate in a poster contest with the theme “what does water mean to you?” Winning posters were displayed around the office, along with facts and statistics to educate employees on the environmental impact of bottled water production and consumption. The team credits the poster campaign with increasing awareness and support for the project. The City of Mill Valley, my home town, has a good model one-pager on bottled water.
Here is a plug for my friend Michael Davis’ company US Pure Water. They have helped the City of San Francisco install water filtration units to reduce bottled water use and can help you make the switch too. They also provide water filling stations for events.
Green Impact has been named the #3 firm specializing in corporate responsibility and communications by Corporate Responsibility Magazine. The list appears in its January/February 2012 issue which is now available online.
The list evaluates firms against their peers based on customer feedback and rates their ability to provide a diverse range of high quality counsel. Many thanks to my past clients who participated in the online survey regarding their experience with Green Impact. The survey measured three dimensions: Breadth of service; deal size, and quality of service. While our deal size was the smallest of the top eight agencies, Green Impact ranked #3 for quality of service.
In the overall score, Green Impact was ranked higher than much larger firms such as Cone, Ogilvy PR and Edelman.
Green Impact just completed its first video, a sustainability video project for University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). There is so much talk these days about how to engage employees around sustainability and embed greener practices into employees’ personal and professional lives. Putting these ideas into practice is still an art and not a science. One thing I am sure about is that the trend toward communicating a sustainability message via video is going to continue to grow.
UCSF’s key vehicle for communicating best practices and highlighting successes currently is its Sustainability Website (we write the content for the Sustainability Stories section). When it came time to create a video to be part of the new employee orientation at UCSF, sustainability manager Gail Lee realized it was an opportunity to create a short video that not only oriented new employees about UCSF’s commitment to sustainability, but also inspired faculty, staff and students to be greener at work and support UCSF’s culture shift toward green being an integral part of “advancing health worldwide”.
Suddenly I was faced with the opportunity, and challenge, to write a script that created a compelling story that would inspire and empower UCSF employees. In three minutes.
Check out the video below and read on for five tips for creating a winning sustainability video.
OK. We survived black Friday and cyber Monday. Are you ready for Green December?
Starting tomorrow, Green Impact is offering a special green communications tune-up. If you have a small communications task still sitting in your to-do pile, give me a call. Start 2012 with a new and improved communications strategy.
For December, we are offering a special $2,000 Communications Tune-Up. The Green December package includes:
A quick green assessment of your communications strategy and materials (Powerpoint deck, Web content, blog posts, CSR report, Annual Report and marketing collateral).
Recommendations on how to improve the reach and impact of your current communications materials.
Tune-up on one of your key communications pieces or creation of one short (up to 1,000 word) piece of original content.
Walk the green talk for not too much green. Call me at 415-302-2655 to discuss!
If you want to learn more about my recent communications work, my updated resume can be found here.
Check out Marc Gunther’s excellent post on Patagonia’s black Friday ad–maybe the best retail ad ever. The video supporting Patagonia’s campaign to reduce its footprint is worth checking out!
GreenBiz.com’s 2011 Salary Survey came out this week. Last year I was surprised that woman made 11% less than men. This year the bad news got worse–at the Director level, woman are making 20% less than men! Based on their methodology, it is not clear if the salary gap is growing or if the [...]
I recently presented a Webinar for the National Environmental Education Foundation. It highlights the stories included in my recent blog post on employee engagement 3.0. It is about 20 minutes long and provides a good overview of latest green team trends and best practices. Check it out!
Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, held in San Francisco last week, was full of feisty dialogue and a big announcement about the merger between Sustainable Industries and Triple Pundit. The overarching theme was “access economy”–a newly coined term that is about transparency, engagement, empowerment and access.
I’m starting to think green teams are going the way of green marketing–they are over. Over in the sense that stand alone, grassroots, voluntary, bottoms-up efforts have matured into employee engagement efforts that are connected to bigger enterprise goals, initiated and supported by senior executives and business relevant. Side-by-side with engaging stakeholders and suppliers in [...]
Call for free one-hour assessment of your sustainability journey! 415-302-2655
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Walk the green talk.
Green Impact helps socially responsible companies & NGOs transform a commitment to sustainability into action. We deliver a greener brand, campaigns that inspire action and programs that embed sustainability from the top-down and bottom-up.
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We offer services in sustainability strategy, communications, stakeholder outreach and employee engagement.
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Happy Earth Day!
1. Kick the Bottled Water Habit
