For the first time since its launch in 1982, The Weather Channel set has been redesigned. Our Jack Morton/PDG and Jack Morton Exhibits teams designed and built an innovative 360-degree environment featuring HD projection technology and LED lighting, while utilizing low-emitting materials (adhesives, sealants, paints and carpets) to decrease their environmental footprint.
Green Marketing
I'm reading today on Wal-Mart's blog about their success in getting all the laundry detergent manufacturers to concentrate their products so they come in smaller bottles, use less fuel to ship, use less plastic and cardboard to package. Obviously, this will affect the products offered in all retailers, not just Wal-Mart. Great achievement.
It makes so much sense not to dilute the detergents because it's just extra water in a bottle that you have to package and ship. So, extending the logic of this... I want to go on record as being the first person to think of this revolutionary idea: instant bottled water.
Yeah. Here's how it works. You go to Wal-Mart (or other participating retailer) and look in the bottled water aisle, down toward the end of the aisle on the bottom shelf. Buy a whole case of what appear to be empty bottles -- but don't worry, they're not empty; they contain the instant water. Just take them home, open the lid and add ordinary tap water, and voila, you have a bottle of water, suitable for dropping in your bag, taking on the go, and quenching your thirst.
Since instant water has negligible volume or weight, shipping costs will be vastly reduced, saving lots of fuel and reducing our carbon footprint. Try it today!
Jack Morton has undertaken a major advancement in our efforts to go green - we've named our initiative: Olive
I'm kidding, of course, we have been up to a lot and have plenty more to do. But what's in a name? Well, it's a nice word, it reflects our unique culture and perspective on the world and it just makes things sound more official. Plus Olive contains the word "live" - which can be understood two ways...live as in live experiences, what we are all about, and live as in helping the planet live a bit longer.
This company and our industry have a long way to go. My colleague Eric Samuelson recently forwarded an alarming statistic...
Everybody knows (don't they) that air travel dumps lots of CO2 into the atmosphere -- an LA to NY flight has a bigger carbon impact per person than if you drove that distance by yourself in a Hummer. Many of us are trying to reduce discretionary travel, but in business you usually don't have a choice. Reduce what you can and mitigate the rest with carbon offsets. Some of the airlines now have programs where you can purchase that offset when you buy your ticket. Virgin actually sells the offsets in the aisle alongside cocktails and snacks.
The problem with that approach is that our clients are often reimbursing (or purchasing) the air travel and they won't pay the extra amount. Nor will many companies adopt the policy of paying for offsets for their employees travel. And the airlines are certainly in no financial shape to absorb those costs. So what about you? Would you routinely pay $10 extra for each flight?
What if you could get the offsets, automatically for every flight, with no cash out of pocket? Here's what I'm thinking...
I have miles accumulated in AAdvantage and Mileage Plus and whatever the mileage programs are called for Southwest, Alaska, and Continental. Sometimes I manage to actually cash them in for a personal flight, but often they either expire or get spent on a car rental, or even magazine subscriptions I don't really need. I'd love to be able to "spend" them on carbon offsets. I'd even sign up to have all my travel offset with miles.
I know... you like your miles, but don't you like the environment more? But to spend them on business travel? Well, you probably earned most of them on business travel, and they're essentially a rebate on your money spent by either your boss or your client. Isn't that fair? And it wouldn't take all of your miles to do it. Depending on the length of the flight, it would be something like 1,000 miles to buy the offset.
Let me know what you think. And if you're interested, join my grassroots campaign here.
Dax just sent me the link to this amazing presentation from the TED conference, Janine Benyus talking about "Biomimicry" -- looking to nature for solutions to design and engineering problems. Find 20 minutes in your day to watch this. (Thanks Dax.)
In honor of Earth Day, our San Francisco office invited our power company (PG&E) to do an energy audit on our operation. Turns out, we're in pretty good shape -- we had already swapped out most of our light bulbs, make good use of natural light, no wasteful appliances, standby modes for computers, printers and copiers.
The big thing we learned was about their "Climate Smart" program, which allows us to purchase carbon offsets for our in-office power consumption, and it costs only $22/month for an operation of our size! We signed up immediately.
But it raised the question: what exactly are we paying for when we buy carbon offsets? You can learn more about it at the Climate Smart site, or get a more elaborate and objective education on the topic at Wikipedia.
This is an important (and controversial) topic that won't be going away anytime soon, so take a little time to educate yourself on it.
The trend towards a greener economy is now so clear that it hardly needs someone like me to reiterate what's going on...it's everywhere.
As some are fond to point out, some of this activity is "greenwashing," meaning that some folks are out there saying they are green but not really acting that way.
In the business of experiential marketing this is what we see as the failure to deliver on a brand promise...where a brand is telling but not doing; where their behavior is not in aligment with their actions.
So, what comes first when it comes to being green - the telling or the doing? The instant answer is that the "do" should come first. I don't think it's quite that simple...