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Sustainability as a Status Symbol

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Wind farms, solar plants and who knows what else could benefit from the great American branding machine, bringing advertising dollars to project developers and revenue to communities. We might even see the day when people care more about having their name associated with the environment than a stadium. Companies pay a lot of money to attach their names to prominent places. The future home of the New York Mets will be called Citi Field, after Citigroup, and the Academy Awards takes place in Kodak Theater. It’s not a stretch to conceive of company-branded wind farms. If a company buys the output of a wind farm, why not pay some more and have your name attached to it? That’s what Steelcase is doing with its Wege Wind Energy Farm in Texas. Although marketing experts think Steelcase made a mistake by naming it after Peter Wege, the son of Steelcase’s founder, instead of after the more recognizable company name, you get the picture. Steelcase, a furniture manufacturer, prides itself on being environmentally proactive – its goal is to reduce its carbon footprint 25% by 2012. The company plans to include it in all its promotional materials. It’s unusual for a company to […]

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A Great Idea: Carbon Trading for the People

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by Rona Fried Over the course of the past 20 years, the great mystery has been how to get individuals involved and committed to reducing their environmental footprint. Hundreds of websites, countless articles, reports, and books explain the problems, the solutions and the easy things we can – and must – do to become part of the web of life, rather than its enemy. Yet, individuals remain superficially informed and unconvinced that we are truly facing an emergency. The Union of Concerned Scientists says the average American produces about 20 tons of carbon dioxide per year, about four times the rest of the world. 30-40% of total greenhouse emissions comes from homes and transportation. Therefore collective action on the part of individuals is essential in diverting disaster. We recently posted an article, How to Create Change, which pointed to the power of positive feedback and peer influence. RecycleBank is benefiting from using this simple psychology and significantly ramping up recycing rates in towns across America by rewarding people the more they recycle. Individuals often feel what they do doesn’t have much impact, so why bother? We have to give people back the power – they have to know their actions […]

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