Sustainable brands. A term soon to join the lexicon of perfect oxymorons, like jumbo shrimp and plastic glasses, but for now the title of a four-day annual conference in Monterey, Calif., referred to by those in the know as “SB08.”
The corporate-logo-covered banner at the conference entrance was straight out of NASCAR, as SB08 had garnered sponsorship from the likes of the Gap, Hewlett Packard, Advanced Micro Devices, Clorox, General Electric, Deloitte and Sun Microsystems, as well as smaller companies like Lunar Design, Mohawk Fine Papers, Seventh Generation and Fetzer Vineyards. Conference presenters touched on topics from safer fish to smarter supply chains, consumer attitudes to crowd-sourcing. This breadth of participation is something to applaud; many of these companies wouldn’t have seen the merit of attending, let alone sponsoring, a sustainability conference in years past.
One bit of information that was driven home by speakers again and again (though it offers a blinding glimpse of the obvious): most people say they want to do the right thing when making purchasing decisions but not all people actually do. Similar gems were offered, i.e., consumers make decisions based on price and convenience.
Now, no one needs to attend a conference to learn that. Do they? During many of the presentations, I was disheartened by the degree to which eco-aspects have to be separated and called out, rather than be built-in, integral and inherent to a product, service or philosophy. It would be great to see more products and services serve a true environmental need rather than see so many emerge from companies jumping on a savvy marketing opportunity.
I also wonder why so much sustainable stuff, from shoes to canned goods, still isn’t really allowed a true design sensibility; is some degree of (whole) grain of hippie-ness really necessary? Take the rugged footwear of one SB08 presenter, Keen: do they really need something called a vegan sandal? Even their own vice president of marketing admitted that Keen’s shoes didn’t match the dress she was wearing while presenting at the conference that day.
One of several vegan shoes from Keen.
But wait, back to the positive stuff: the fact that companies like Dow Chemical willingly participated illustrates that the fear of even approaching the idea of sustainable design and strategy is evaporating. It is heartening to see that all manner of companies are paying serious attention to things like supply chain, packaging, distribution, authenticity and transparency in thoughtful ways.
Not to say that greenwashing (in which consumers are misled regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service) has gone away, because it sure hasn’t — though it was fascinating to learn in one study that 83 percent of consumers are unfamiliar with the term. When oil companies re-brand themselves as green companies, when hotels slap on sea-foam green paint (non-toxic, at least) and market themselves as “eco,” when car models are erroneously marketed as less carbon-emitting than they really are, that’s greenwashing.
So, sure, there was a little greenwashing going on at SB08 (gathering large groups of people from around the county in one remote location is a little less than green). But what I came away with after hearing about these companies’ myriad sustainable missions, goals and platforms is:
(1) Finally! Glad they are paying attention.
(2) Wow. The green envelope needs to be pushed further. A lot further.
Some 2,670 new green products were introduced in 2006; the number has almost doubled since then.
Huh?
Making more stuff — no matter how green that stuff is — will not really help combat global warming or reduce our collective carbon footprint. Companies need to produce things and need to make money by selling them — understood — but to me, the idea of simply creating more (albeit greener) product is pretty much on par with lowering gas prices as a solution to skyrocketing oil costs. When will we consider behavior? When we will commit to innovation?
Let’s take as an example something that not long ago seemed inherently unbrandable: water. But then it was put in a bottle and sold and we all had to develop brand preference for water (and in 2006, we spent $11 billion buying it, according to Elizabeth Royte, author of “Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It”).
The once banal object that has of late become a sort of scarlet letter for the one toting it, a blatant symbol of sustainable indifference, and a perfect delivery system for the toxic (or not, depending on which data you accept) bisphenol-A, a chemical found in plastic bottles. Accordingly, purveyors of bottled water have taken significant action to address these concerns and have rightly focused on things like where the water comes from, how far it is shipped, how the bottles are designed and manufactured, and with what materials. All the bad press has sent some people in search of reusable bottles, but probably just as many now opt for less than stellar alternatives like soda or energy drinks.
Wallace Fountain, Paris, c. 1870s.
It’s great that there are water bottles that have reduced packaging and improved water quality. But it would be even greater if one of those companies could think outside the bottle to conceive an alternative water delivery system. After all, a recent college graduate did: a designer, Benjamin Pender, while on a trip to Paris, noticed the frequent use and wonderful aesthetic of the ubiquitous cast-iron water fountains scattered along well-traveled sidewalks throughout the city (the sculptural Wallace Fountains were built and installed in 1875 out of concern for public health and safety).
Inspired, Pender came up with a modern version for his thesis project. Research led him to discover that there is not one public drinking fountain in San Francisco that’s not in a park or public building, and thus, there is no access to water for public consumption. In a city with an excellent reputation for its tap water, why not find a way to deliver it in a way that could make economic and environmental sense and look attractive?
Concept and rendering by Benjamin Pender.
Pender did. Yes, it’s a wild idea (though if you think of wells, quite old-fashioned). Yes, the profit model is imperfect — for now. Yes, there will be challenges with cleanliness and vandalism. But he had the ability to think of this system as less of a brand strategy than a solution.
Sustainable solution? That’s no oxymoron.