Tag Archives: consumerism

As Steve Jobs Departs, A Review of Our Love-Hate Relationship With Apple…and Sustainability

24 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by in CSR

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


As we slowly recover from the stupor of the not completely unexpected news that Steve Jobs has stepped down as Apple’s CEO, here’s a post from recent months that’s worth a retake.

Context: At Business for Social Responsibility’s (BSR) annual conference last year, Edelman’s Managing Director for Corporate Citizenship Carol Cone released the 2010 Good Purpose Study with a dramatic declaration: “Cause marketing is dead.”

The main overarching finding of the study, as regular readers will recall, was this:

87 percent of consumers worldwide believe that business needs to equate at least equal weight on society’s interests as on business interests.

Accompanying Cone at the release were panelists from Levi Strauss, PepsiCo and a personal favorite: The Economist‘s Matthew Bishop, who amid the hype and hoopla of the report, quietly asked: “Are we really going to stop buying Apple because of its crappy environmental policies?”

An excerpt, originally published on Vault’s CSR blog: In Good Company:

The GoodPurpose study by Edelman

“Cause marketing is dead”

That controversial statement is how Cone opened the panel, adding, “That [cause marketing] world is way over. Purpose has replaced cause marketing and branding.” Companies aren’t building marketing plans around a cause anymore, she argued. Rather, “they are infusing their very strategy and business model with purposeful corporate citizenship.”

Defining real purpose

Picking up where Cone left off, the always-entertaining Matthew Bishop began with a prediction: “If we continue the current road toward demanding transparency and corporate social responsibility, within the next five to 10 years, we will begin to see corporate board meetings being live streamed to select people.”

Chuckling about the ambitiousness of his own statement, he went on to note, “Likewise, the real question is how much of this data [in the Good Purpose study] is picking up on aspirations rather than real choices [of consumers].”

PepsiCo: Performance with Purpose

Alleging that PepsiCo’s latest mantra of “Performance with Purpose” was indeed a verification of this shift from cause marketing to purposeful corporate citizenship at companies, Communications Director for PepsiCo Americas Beverages Melisa Tezanos gave high points to CEO Indra Nooyi for pushing for a company-wide cultural change that today drives all their business functions.

[READ: Pepsi Takes Performance with Purpose to Heart: An Interview with Chief Personnel Officer Cynthia Trudell]

“However, Nooyi is completely unapologetic about giving ‘performance’ as much importance as the ‘purpose’ part and she makes no bones about it,” said Tezanos, adding that this helps everyone across the company stay committed to a culture of profitability with purpose. Explaining the drivers behind PepsiCo’s highly successful Refresh project, she further stated, “For millennials, social responsibility is huge. We’ve seen through research again and again that their purchase intent goes up significantly when the brand is associated with a good cause.”

And finally, referring to the findings of the Edelman study—and Cone’s earlier comment, she said, “Marketing used to be blamed for being short-termism. Today, marketers are the biggest defenders of long-termism.”

But would you give up Cola…or Apple?

Bringing the conversation back to a level plain field, Bishop concluded with a sobering thought, “But what is real and what is fake with purpose? Will Pepsi ever move beyond the heart of its products, i.e., increasing obesity? Are we really going to stop buying Apple [products] because they have crappy environmental policies?”

———————————–

Just some food for thought as we go on a whirlwind ride with the media in coming days on the history, the present, and the future of America’s favorite company, Apple. Don’t forget to add your perspective by leaving a comment or connecting with me @AmanSinghCSR.

And if you haven’t already, share your opinion on whether social media engagement make better brands or more effective leaders by taking this new BRANDfog survey on social media and leadership.

More on Edelman’s Good Purpose study: Encompassing 7,259 respondents in 13 countries, the study was conducted by consulting firm StrategyOne with the objective of analyzing whether—and how much—purpose plays into purchase decisions worldwide, and further, how these transform into consumer activism via social media.

Advertisement

Sustaining Timberland: An Interview with VP of CSR Mark Newton

02 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by in CSR, CSR reporting

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,



When one of the country’s few purpose-based and values-driven company announces new sustainability goals, chances are you won’t be as excited as you would be if it was BP, for instance.

Because we expect ambitious and aggressive goals from leaders, and at Timberland, this expectation is part of everyone’s job.

Before the boot maker announced its new set of revised sustainability goals earlier this week, I caught up with Timberland’s new Vice President for CSR Mark Newton on his new role, the goals, as well as their latest efforts at stakeholder engagement: Timberland’s new Communications Portal.

Sustainability: From Apple and Dell to Timberland

Newton, who has spent his entire career working on sustainability at electronics giants like Motorola, Apple, and most recently Dell, understands that the road ahead will be rocky as Timberland completes its merger with VF. VF owns several outdoor brands like The NorthFace, Wrangler, Jansport and Nautica.

We started with the new 2015 goals. What’s new about them?

“Focus,” said Newton. “Moving forward it is very important that we create focus for our companies, including a commitment to innovate from cradle to cradle.”

Timberland’s 2015 Sustainability Goals

Set in four broad categories of Climate, Product, Factories and Service; the goals are ambitious and aggressive, if not new or radically life-changing. I asked Newton the purpose of each category.

Climate: “This is a topical focus for us if not so much a functional one. But we’re not saying we’re going to be singularly focused on climate change but that this affects our customers and decisions and therefore, we must equip them with decisions and the right products.”

Product: “At some point we all want to start creating innovations that have a zero footprint. The idea is to move toward a vision of a closed loop product lifecycle. You can see where we are and where we want to go. It is directionally correct.”

Factories: “We have an obligation that is not just transactional to our suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. The whole idea of sustainability is to stay in business. In perpetuity, we cannot do that without treating our employees well and scaling our business properly.”

Service: “Timberland was founded on the idea of commerce and justice, of giving back and creating value. We offer our employees 40 hours to volunteer every year. Today we are asking what the impact of that workforce is. Where are we going with this, how do we prioritize our efforts and do it well?”

What underlines all of these goals and their success, however, is engaging and changing consumer behavior.

Changing Consumer Behavior: Timberland-style or VF-style?

Earlier this year, at the Annual GreenBiz conference, Timberland CEO Jeff Swartz said that sometimes companies have to lead consumers by taking a stand on what is right. “You cannot always wait for consumer demand to dictate your decisions,” he said.

Now with Timberland becoming a part of the VF family, are dynamics shifting? Will the merger bring a renewed and united effort in the apparel industry to shift consumer behavior or lead to inertia and inaction?

I put the question to Newton, who while new in his role, is a veteran in the consumer products industry. “We are having several conversations around this. We are Timberland and we will always be that. This is the reason people are interested in EarthKeepers and we will continue to move the needle,” he said.

What about Swartz’s inspiring declaration? Newton offered Timberland’s EarthKeepers product line as an example:

“The ultimate goal of every company that is working on sustainability is to be able to drive top line growth because of its sustainability efforts. It’s very rare to see top line growth associated with these things, many companies are running leaner and end up staying within compliance. At Timberland, our EarthKeepers product line is actually doing that with double-digit growth in the first quarter.”

Authentic Communications: Engage the Consumer, not Just Inform

With skepticism already high in the market, there is a fine line between selling more units and ensuring responsible consumerism. EarthKeepers seems to be clearly bucking the trend and providing a new, profitable way of doing business sustainably.

Was this growth the result of consumer education, eco labels, or increased communication?

“Authenticity. We’re finding success because it is authentic. We are intentionally focused on products that are environmentally friendly and socially conscious. And we are committed to continually communicating that. We’re not waiting for everything to become perfect, we’re putting it out there and calibrating it as it evolves,” he said.

Examples? Newton offered the eco-index, which Timberland was instrumental in creating and pushing out. “We are promoting the index so we can create real change and movement. That’s exciting and offers us a chance to drive real, calculable change,” he added.

What VF brings to the table then is scale. “VF has been a partner for years on making the process much more efficient. Now the merger will allow us to collectively drive things that Timberland alone simply cannot do. This bigger opportunity is huge for us,” he emphasized, adding, “It’s also not just forward-looking things and what we can do upstream. VF has a very efficient process in place because of their brands. We have had limited impact there but now we can have much more.”

Timberland’s New Communications Portal: CSR in Real Time

With Timberland already being aggressively visible and vocal in the consumer marketplace, why did Newton and team feel the need to launch a new CSR communications portal?

“We’re segmenting the conversations on our website around products and around topics so everyone has a better sense of clarity. Even though our authenticity ensures that sustainability conversations become natural in all parts of our business and you don’t have to go to the CSR portal to have a CSR conversation, we felt that different stakeholders have different perspectives. You can still go to the products portal and have the same conversation as you would on the CSR portal, because the intentional design, how we conduct business with suppliers and community issues are woven into the product and the product description.”

Why then is the new portal necessary if sustainability is so intricately embedded into the work culture at Timberland?

“We are having conversations with a very vast and diverse spectrum of people, from wholesalers and retailers to direct consumers. They all come with very different demands and perspectives and we want to offer them the opportunity to engage in the language they understand best,” he explained.

Fully integrated with social media tools, the portal is designed for consumers looking for details on green products, interesting stories and much more. Not only can you go to the redesigned portal and discuss Timberland products, you can also discuss the team’s CSR efforts, join ongoing conversations through their Bootmakers blog, and chime in on more topical discussions around the Green index and climate change.

Admittedly, many companies continue to struggle with this balance between preserving the granular stuff and promoting more general conversations around products.

For Timberland, the answer was to lead in both.

“People can go granular as they want or stay as generalist as they’d like. What’s different about the portal is that we are not starting conversations by discussing one of our pillars or metrics but focusing on stories that matter and then getting to the things that are underneath those stories; this marks a fundamental shift for our website,” Newton added.

Being a communications geek, I can definitely attest to Newton’s excitement about this new portal. The ability to throw open your business practices and product lifecycle to your stakeholders takes gumption and a resolute belief in transparency.

The Timberland team knows that this throws the door open to endless questions and scrutiny but Swart’z recruits are used to that and know that open engagement is the only way to maintain authenticity and empower their stakeholders toward sustainability and a zero impact footprint.

This is mission critical for Timberland.

As Newton put it, “Regardless of what happens post-merger, we are all in this together. Our values are integrated into all of us and everyone who works here. Jeff Swartz might be the leader but you can expect to hear the same things from all of us.”

This is Timberland’s — and VF’s — opportunity to drive the apparel industry toward a more sustainable future. The 2015 goals are the means to an end, a future that VF and Timberland can now together impact much more powerfully.

Comments? Leave a comment, email me or connect @AmanSinghCSR.

Constructive Consumerism: Why Buying Less Won’t Eradicate Poverty

28 Thursday Jul 2011

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,


“What do people mean when they say ‘Think globally, act locally’? It’s utter nonsense. They create nothing but confusion in the public’s mind,” said University of Vermont Professor Saleem Ali at a recent workshop on campus.

Also the author of recently released Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future, Ali comes across as definitely informed, deeply academic, a bit eccentric, and somewhat at odds with the developed world. His advice: “Life is complicated, the world is complicated, get used to multi-tasking.

Desires vs. Needs

Surprisingly, I found myself nodding my head in agreement as he discussed the premise of his book and why he wrote it. “Linear narratives have destroyed us. It’s not about choice or constraint. The dialogue is about infinite desires as well as needs. Glossing over either is wrong,” he said.

Citing Gandhi who said, “The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed,” Ali, a Pakistan-born, American-educated scholar, asked the room full of students, professionals and faculty to free their minds and connect need with greed. “At one level I agree [with Gandhi]. If you have infinite desires, you won’t have sustainability. But the fact that there is a connection between need and greed is glossed over in this argument.”

How are the two connected? “Because geology hasn’t given us all a fair share of resources.” And so the premise of his book: Would the world be a better place if we curbed our desires for material goods?

The answer, at least for Ali: No.

How Do You Consume Less When You’re Already Surviving on the Bare Minimum?

His analogy: What social workers, have for decades, advised the developing world: Consume less to be more sustainable.

For decades, nonprofits have visited the rural areas of India, for example, and offered this apparently simple piece of advice to millions who continue to live below the poverty line and remain bereft of the simplest technological gadgets. According to Ali, this approach doesn’t work because “you cannot simplify the desire to want more.”

In a community where bare necessities are a struggle, continued Ali, consuming less doesn’t stick, let alone make sense. “People want to innovate so that they can have more, not so that they can reduce their consumption,” he said.

“We need more pluralism to come out with a sub-optimal solution. Take a look at what happened at the U.S. economy for example. In 1790, 90 percent of the U.S. economy was farming and extractive in nature. Today, our largest industries are technology and information enterprises.”

“We have more teachers, more bloggers, more artists today because its easier! Because we don’t need as many farmers and producers,” he continued.

His mantra: We have to look at livelihoods more holistically. We have to think of resources in a cyclical way.

Creating Shared Value: Constructive Consumerism

Before you leap to conclusions about Ali’s sermon, understanding his entire argument on what he calls “constructive consumerism” is important.

For the everyday consumer, who has more choices today than ever before, not to mention picking between green, organic, fair trade, socially responsible, etc., Ali’s dictum is clear — and mind numbingly simple.

“Think about what you buy. Don’t buy less. Boycotting luxury goods isn’t necessarily helping the problem,” he explained. For example,he continued, “ Botswana’s economy is primarily dependent on one single product: Diamonds.” It is because of this one export that everyone in Botswana can enjoy health care and free education till the PhD level, he said. Of course, how this is implemented on the ground in a traditionally male-dominated society is a question many continue to struggle with.

“The same thing with roses. I find people being all self-congratulatory by deciding not to buy roses. Save it, because you are being myopic,” he commented. Kenya’s primary export is roses.

So, what is the academician’s advice?

  • Don’t think local is necessarily better;
  • Don’t carbonize everything;
  • Resurrect ecological efficiency;
  • Choose responsible consumption over unfettered consumerism; and
  • Don’t do away with foreign aid; insist on fair and targeted trade.

Ali ended with one final thought on the role of culture in our lives and decisions.

Responding to a question from the audience on what he thought about the erosion of culture in the Amazon and other places in favor of modernization, he said, “Culture isn’t always a good thing. It has given us female infanticide and child abuse. Culture is not by nature a positive. Destroying culture then isn’t always a bad thing.”

Comments? Thoughts? Perspective? Leave a comment, email me or connect with me @AmanSinghCSR.

*Originally published on Forbes CSR blog.