As you reflect on your resolutions for 2012, consider making a 2012 work greener resolution. Here are a six easy ideas for living green in 2012. Ok. 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.
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 higher salary cap they included in the survey impacted the data.
Some of the interesting trends detailed in the GreenBiz Salary report include:
Compensation is strong: Sustainability executives are compensated at salaries comparable to those of their peers at larger companies. Vice presidents of sustainability earn an average of $218,409, whereas directors of sustainability earn an average of $161,510 and sustainability managers earn an average of $105,345. The overall trend from last year is that salaries are slightly up and over 90 percent VPs and Directors got bonuses, ranging from 25 to 37 percent of their base pay.
Execs are smart: Sustainability executives tend to be well educated, as 65 percent of vice presidents, 57 percent of directors and 62 percent of managers have master’s degrees. Managers with master’s degrees earned almost 15 percent more than those with bachelor’s degrees.
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 [...]
Last week in Oakland was the annual Ceres conference. Among the many announcements were the awards for best sustainability reports. The Ceres-ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) North American Awards for Sustainability Reporting went to Nike for Best Sustainability Report, followed by first runner-up American Electric Power (AEP). Anvil Knitwear, a small, private B2B-focused apparel [...]
Last October I reported on the uproar over the new SunChips compostable bag being too noisy. And I criticized Frito-Lay for giving up on the bag just because of a few complaints.
Well, a box arrived on my porch yesterday, courtesy of Frito Lay, with a fresh bag of chips in the new and improved, quieter [...]
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Happy New Year!
1. Kick the Bottled Water Habit
