This past weekend I made some good progress on finishing some home projects that have gone unattended for the past five years.  Being an entrepreneur is part of the excuse — a lack of time and money.  But a bigger part of it is that the projects include painting, and I don’t like painting.

Part of my dislike of painting is, or was, the nasty smell as the paint dried.  That smell comes from VOC (volatile organic compounds) as the paint dries. 

Fortunately there are now lower VOC paints that are supposed to perform as well as their more toxic counterparts.   I really noticed a big difference when I was painting this weekend.  I was taken in by the Eco Options label that Home Depot is now using.  Glidden has a low VOC drywall primer.  But I didn’t know that it was low VOC or why it had the Eco Options label.  I just took it on faith that this was the paint I should be buying.

My first thought on seeing the sticker was “greenwash”.  It was only after I started writing this post that I actually figured out what the Eco Options label means by going to the Home Depot website.  I really wish that there was more information available in the store.  If I am going to be paying a premium, even a small one, it would be nice to know what I am buying. 

I had a similar experience at Sherwin-Williams.  The paint I needed had a Green Sure logo on it.  It made me feel a little better, but I had no idea what that meant. 

At the risk of contradicting my post on having a corporate green/CSR tab on a company’s website, I really think there is a need for in-store information as well.  Both of these companies missed an opportunity to really get me talking positively about their products by failing to provide me with information at the point of purchase.  And anybody who has shopped at Home Despot knows that company could use positive customer support.  But that is another story.

Rants and Raves: I have to give Home Depot credit for having a link to their Eco Options information on their home page.  I had to dig two or three pages on the homeowner side of the Sherwin-Williams site to find their green information.   The information provided is pretty weak.  Strangely, the professional’s side has a prominent link that leads you to lots of good information.  What is really strange is that with my short attention span, I couldn’t find any green information on the Glidden website.  You would think that they would be bragging about their paint being the only Eco Option paint at Home Depot.

Entrepreneurs:  Make sure that your marketing efforts support each other.  You probably can’t do everything you want to do, so make sure that what you are able to do is synergistic.  Don’t let opportunities like a special relationship with a distributor go unnoticed or unsupported.

Suggested readings:If you are new to painting and the issues of VOC’s Elle MacKenna has a nice article on them.

The other day I wrote a little about greenwash.  Today I want to offer a suggestion on how you can show your customers that you are more than green on the surface. 

Idea:The Green/CSR tab.  You probably have an About Us page on your website.  Why not put your green, sustainable and corporate social responsibility credentials out for your customers to see?  

This tab, page, section, whatever you want to call it, serves many purposes.  It also has some risks. 

The risks first.  By putting your credentials out there you open yourself up for criticism.   You may not be green enough or responsible enough, what ever that means, for some people.   And if you do mess up at some point, people might turn your words against you.

Now some of the opportunities. 

1. By putting it all out there and facing the risks you are forced to address the issue of whether you are a green/SR company or just greenwashing.  If you find it is just greenwash, well… maybe its time to rethink your marketing.
2. If you aren’t greenwashing, then by putting your credentials out there you may be raising the bar on your competitors.  They may be just greenwashing.  A green tab makes it easier for your customers to see that you are the real thing.
3. The green tab is another opportunity to engage your customers.  Ask them for suggestions on making your company or products greener.  Ask them for ideas on expanding your green offerings.
4. By providing an example, you may be educating your consumer. Hopefully this will encourage them to be more sustainable themselves.  You end up having a multiplier effect.

What do you put on your greentab?  Here comes my favorite answer — it depends.  I have put a greentab on this site.  There is not a lot for me to put on there — yet.  What you put on your greentab is a reflection of

• where your company is in its development 
• what type of product or service you are offering
• what your customers already know or think they know about green/SR in your space

Questions:

• What do you see as the risks of putting up a greentab?
• What do you see as the opportunites created by putting up a greentab?
• What would you put on your greentab?
• What can I as a blogger do to be greener and more socially responsible?

Greenwash is not an environmentally friendly soap.  It is the ecological equivilent of whitewash.  Wikipedia gives a nice definition and provides a classic example.

a term that is used to describe the actions of a company, government, or other organization which advertises positive environmental practices while acting in the opposite way…

The term is generally used when significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being green (that is, operating with consideration for the environment), rather than spending resources on environmentally sound practices. This is often portrayed by changing the name or label of a product…

A commonly cited example of greenwashing is the George W. Bush Clear Skies Initiative, which environmentalists have argued actually weakens air pollution laws.

And there is some evidence that consumers are wary of being greenwashed according to one report from Ipsos, a market and advertising research firm. (Qutoe taken from Research Brief, since I can’t afford subscriptions to every research firm out there.)

According to an Ipsos Reid study conducted this spring on behalf of Icynene, seven in ten Americans either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ agree that when companies call a product “green” (meaning better for the environment), it is usually just a “marketing tactic”.  

FYI: Icynene is “the leading producer and marketer of light-density foam insulation for the global building industry, and sooner or later every building will have it.”  They are certainly touting their green credentials, listing their green trade association memeberships right on their homepage (accessed 10/2/2007).

However, another Ipsos study, this time for videoconferencing company Tandberg (taken from Environmental Leader), finds that world wide 53% of consumers prefer to buy from a company with a green reputation.  That number was considerably lower here in the United States, only 42%. 

Those two numbers seem some what contradictory.  What is a marketer going to do? Is it smart to market a product as green or will it just be a waste of money?

The answer to that question, like so many others in life, is, it depends.  Some questions to ponder?

• Are you trying to greenwash your product?
• Is your product/service greener than the compeitions?
• Does your company live out the implied ethos of being green or socially responsible?
• Does your marketing consist of more than just a nice “green” label?
• What does your market value?
• How much of a change does your product entail from your customers?

These and other questions will be the topic of future posts. 

Question: What do you think should be factors to consider for whether to market a product as green?

The basic dictionary definition of an entrepreneur is

a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

Starting any new business is full of risk, whether opening a McDonald’s franchise or taking a brand new idea through to an IPO.  Environmentalprograms.net offers this definition of an entrepreneur

An “entrepreneur” is someone who thinks of a new idea or opportunity in business and who takes the risks necessary to convert his or her vision into a reality. Entrepreneurs are absolutely essential to the forwarding of human progress.

It is the emphasis on doing something new that really stands out in this definition.  It is this aspect that sets an entrepreneur apart for the “ordinary” business person who, for example opens up a car dealership.   This definition gives a hat tip to the role that entrepreneurship plays in moving us forward.

Environmentalprograms.net then goes on to give a pretty good definition of a green entrepreneur.  It includes a nod towards what moving us forward looks like specifically

An ecological entrepreneur is someone who is driven not only by the possibility of making a profit, but is also driven by environmental and social concerns. They want to make the world a better place by improving the environment.

The College of the Atlantic offers an Ecological Entrepreneurship Program that has a nice discussion on the concepts and philosophy of ecological entrepreneurship. However the description of the program itself offers a good definition and shows the breadth of opportunities available to the green entrepreneur.

 It incorporates ideas from green technology and design, green and fair trade marketing, organic and community agriculture, socially responsible business, organizational management, social entrepreneurship for nonprofits, and grassroots activism into an ecological perspective of practical community sustainability.

Opportunity What is old is new again.  Above I mentioned that starting a car dealership probably wasn’t entrepreneurial.  What about a dealership that only offers “green” vehicles?  I would call that entrepreneurial and The Green Car Company is doing just that. They have found an unmet need (as well as having to convince people that they need an early generation green vechicle) and are taking the risk to make it happen.  You don’t have to come up with brand new technology to be a green entrepreneur — you can ride, and help build, the wave by finding ways to support those that are working with brand new technology.

If you haven’t already noticed that I like lots of information you soon will.

When I started writing Turning Green Gold, I didn’t have a large blogroll.  As a matter of fact I hadn’t subscribed to a blog in a long time.  When I got a new computer I didn’t bother to install a feedreader or use Outlook as a reader.   Oh, I certainly read a lot of blogs, but primarily political ones.   Nothing related to this blog.

Now that I am focusing my attention here I am coming across lots of good resources.  One thing I have noticed about blogrolls — a simple name link isn’t that informatiive.  Random discovery is interesting and sometimes valuable, but if you are time crunched some information is better than none. 

Initially I thought I would make Turning Green Gold’s blogroll informative by including a description along with the link.  I quickly discovered that it takes up a lot of room in the sidebar.  So I will now simplify and complexify things at the same time.  I will continue to offer descriptions of the blogs that I like and subscribe to, but it will be on a separate page under Resources.  The sidebar Blogroll will go back to being a simple list.

Hopefully you, the entrepreneur, will find this a useful redundancy. 

The Green Entrepreneur’s Toolbox: 100 Networking Resources, Guides, and Links over at Bootstrapper is a nice resource for a starting entrepreneur or an experienced one looking to go sustainable.

The 100 resources nicely broken down into seven sections

1. Blogs and publications — these cover a broad range from clean technology to corporate social responsiblity.
2. Success stories — always nice to know that their is light at the end of the entrepreneurial tunnel.
3. Tools — primarily focused on business tools, but they bring up a good point, a green business probably wants to be as paperless as possible.  Its about showing a green ethos through and through.
4. Guides and education — includes a lot of links to various evironmental standards and guides to green MBA programs.  Many but not all of these resources will show up on my Resources page as well. 
5. Networking and organizations — you are not alone.  There are also some good places to advertise your green business or product.
6. Assistance — a nice list of places to look for investment or grants to get your business up, running or growing.
7. Books — a nice list of books to check out of the local library.

Insight — When I first looked at the list I wondered why the tools section contained general business tools.  Then it struck me — not everyone has started a business before, and may not be familiar with these types of tools.  But the real insight was about where to look for new business ideas — in ideas or experiences that you take for granted.  When you get heads down in your area of expertise or are really passionate about something it is easy to forget that not everyone shares your knowledge.  So what might see old to you might be totally new to the wider market place.

Pacific Sustainability Index Self-Scoring Sheet seems to be an interesting tool for seeing how sustainable your business really is. It is an academic tool (from the Roberts Environmental Center, Claremont McKenna College) and the explanation is suitably academic, which is why I say it seems to be an interesting tool.  Since corporate reporting is not yet my responsibility I can’t justify spending a lot of time puzzling it out.

How could you use this tool to market your company?  Rankings and scores are great ways to easily set yourself apart from the “crowd” if you are competing against companies that are not particularly green.  They can also be useful when you want to gain credibility by drafting off of market leaders, the ”in-crowd”. 

Of course this assumes that you have a good score.  If you don’t, your score can then become a road map for improving your company’s green reporting.

Looking at a competitors score and report could also be a good source of competitive intelligence. 

Random tidbit.  I found this a bit of a shock — as an industry Motor Vehicles and Parts has a higher PSI score than does Colleges and Universities.  Who woulda thunk?

Rant.  I use WordPress’s Press it feature to capture links and start posts.  A little bit of search engine optimization that I have picked up is that the title of the page, what you see at the top of your browser, should contain information about what the page is actually about.  Having page after page titled ”Roberts Environmental Center, Claremont McKenna College” does nothing to improve the rankings of their site.  And from a user standpoint the repetitious titles don’t help me when I book mark their site or when I have multiple tabs open.  Poor design.

I just joined Just Cause, a Seattle start-up in beta with a great idea.

The mission of JUST CAUSE is to shine a bright light on individuals, corporations and the change agents who are working for the greater good. To inspire people to get involved, to reveal and help people understand the relationship between charity and community, to educate people about how to MAKE A DIFFERENCE and impassion them to TAKE ACTION; to give them a technology platform to enable that action.

I particularly like their tag line — make some good news ™.  When I was an environmental studies major in college I would come back from my ES 101 class and seriously need a beer or 3.  The news was always bad.  It seemed like a helpless cause. 

Perhaps it was so overwhelming because environmental and social stewardship seemed so lonely back in the 1980’s.  It certainly wasn’t mainstream.  Thankfully general awareness has increased and technology has improved, allowing for the creation of new types of community like Just Cause.

Which brings me to my title — I was a bit overwhelmed by the Just Cause website.  Here are a few of my peeves.

1. All the text is BIG. WHEN EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT NOTHING IS IMPORTANT. 
2. There were lots of advertisements, which I have nothing against as I have ads here and I am all about business.  But they were as noisy as the content — oh wait, what I thought were ads really are content.  There are lots of distracting ads though.
3. As you can see the design left me generally confused, and most importantly for community development,  specifically about what I should be doing next.  I think there could be a better introduction into the site and how to use it.
4. Seeding a new community with content is a daunting task.  I am struggling with that myself, nothing like a blog with no content.  The site does a good job of limiting categories.  However, I saw a number of posts that were included in every top category.  And other posts that seemed way out of place — why is a Cause about Family Farming listed as an Art cause?  These were posts from the founders.  I think it is important for the first users to set a good example.  It also helps create credibility. 

I point these annoyances out not to nitpick but to emphasize an important point to start-ups, it is important to make sure that you make your visitors welcome and feeling like the experience is worth their continued investment.   Otherwise any subsequent marketing dollars won’t give you the return on investment they might otherwise have and it might just kill your company.

Just Cause is in beta, and the issues I mentioned might well have been corrected by the time you are reading this post.  I hope so, because I would like to see the idea succeed — their overall idea of creating a full fledged media property is a BHAG — a Big Hairy Audacious Goal.  And that is what entrepreneurship is all about. 

Hopefully the founders will take what I have written with the spirit it was intended and will still grant me an interview.

Question: Will the cause related market be more tolerant of poor design or endure a longer learning curve because they are already passionate?  Another way of putting it – Do you think the cause (green, environmental, socially responsible) related market is different from the “mainstream” early adopter market?

Why corporate environmental initiatives make good business sense. - By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine

The link title is just that, the link title. The actual title on the website is “The Greening of Hype — How solar panels generate more free publicity than clean electricity for businesses.” This is the type of article that makes me cringe when I think about sustainable businesses. Gross seems to feel that businesses shouldn’t get press for doing what they should be doing — reducing their environmental footprint. And even ascribing “negative” motives to the greening of larger companies such as Wal-Mart — “And for an embattled company, going green is the ultimate conversation changer.”

Hopefully there will be a day when green initiatives aren’t news worthy. But initiative is the important word. Eventually thinking about environmental and social impacts will be part of normal business. Until that time any business initiative and accompanying press is welcome and needed.

This article from Environmental Leader takes the positive from the Slate article.

Green MBAs Aim to Balance Profit, Planet - Business on The Huffington Post

Nice article on business school’s that focus on sustainability.  The basic thrust of the article is that these programs are aiming to offer both a rigorous basic business education and a focus on sustainability. 

The key quote from my perspective…

The result is an executive with an edge, Lenox said, from an investment banker deciding whether or not to recommend acquiring a utility company to a retail supplier making a case that his or her company’s products have a reduced environmental impact.

“This is a huge area of opportunity,” agreed Stayton. “The goal is for our students to be in positions where the more successful they are at advancing their initiatives, the more money they’ll be earning.”