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Who knew you couldn’t push a tequila around?
Brands are symbols or images of products, companies and people. But people they’re not.
You wouldn’t know it by listening to most consumer marketing types. Here’s a PR executive explaining in PRWeek this month how “brands” can have a “legitimate place” on social networking sites: “Offer things people want or need…Be transparent and reassuring…Listen.”
Hmm, I thought that’s what people were for.
Or how about this marketing executive for a beverage brand whose company just hired an ex-Sopranos star as a commercial spokesman:
“Michael Imperioli represents the 1800 Tequila brand perfectly…Just like 1800 Tequila, he’s not going to be pushed around. He tells it like it is.”
Say what? Your tequila is not going to be pushed around? Sorry to break this to you, but if it tastes good, it will be pushed from one end of the bar to the other.
Still, I get her point. Her tequila symbolizes something: toughness, straight talk. At least that’s the idea. It’s not the tequila that doesn’t get pushed around. It’s you, the drinker. You drink it because you’re a Wise Guy, or so you want others to believe.
The exec should have said something like, “Michael is like my customer; he’s not going to be pushed around.” People who make, represent and consume her product may stand their ground. But her product is alcohol. Its toughness is gauged by its alcohol content or by how hard it is to swallow. Not its ability to stare down a rival.
Brands are images or associations that float about in our brains. The association with a beverage could be “don’t mess with me” or it could be “man, that tastes like @&#!” A brand can apply to a person (e.g., Michael Jordan), but, please, a brand is not a human being. No tequila is going to “tell it like is” — although a person might, after a shot or two.
What does any of this have to do with sustainability? The practice of sustainability asks us (not our brands) to be transparent, authentic, genuine in how we do business. No more hiding behind a carefully cultivated brand image or letting our brands do the talking for us (as if they could).
Branding a sustainable business is about real people and their real stories in making, selling, buying and using products or services. Brand image isn’t manufactured through celebrity cool. It’s earned through real businesspeople taking a stand for a more sustainable world — and then delivering. You want tough? That’s tough.
Tags: brand, Branding, Sustainability
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Don’t wait on triple-bottom-line accounting standard
Brian Setzler is a staunch advocate of triple-bottom-line (TBL) business practices. He’s also a realistic CPA in Portland, Ore. who knows we’re years away from internationally recognized and adopted rules for TBL accounting.
Brian and I have been each other’s client: I helped him define the brand of his new firm TriLibrium and his firm did my taxes. I figured he’d be the perfect person to give me a read on where TBL stands in the accounting profession. Not surprisingly, there’s much work to be done, starting with general awareness.
“Half or more of accountants today don’t even know what ‘triple bottom line’ means,” Brian says. Having recently completed an MBA in sustainability, Brian sees business schools increasingly doing their parts to introduce and teach the concept. But a good understanding of TBL principles among professional accountants is uncommon. Even more rare are accountants such as Brian who make TBL practices the cornerstone of their business.
Brian believes it could be 15-20 years or more before governing bodies in accounting expand rules to include environmental and social performance reporting, in addition to financial. He points to the years it took the U.S. Financial Accounting Services Board (FASB) and SEC to agree on moving from Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The official move to IFRS in the U.S. is still five years off. The point being, the wheels of accounting governance move slowly. Getting to a TBL version of IFRS is years down the road.
Taking matters into your own hands
That doesn’t mean individual businesses shouldn’t take matters into their own hands when it comes to accounting for their environmental footprint and social impact. There are plenty of sustainability consultants and tools that can help.
Brian and his firm aren’t waiting for the world to converge on international TBL standards. “We hold a very high bar for ourselves.” Despite being a small business, TriLibrium is making a significant investment in producing a sustainability report based on the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. “It’s one of the things that separates the real deal from the wannabes in sustainability,” he says.
For Brian, adopting the triple bottom line is akin to the move to PC-based business systems 25 years ago. “It’s just the way business is going. It’s the future of business.” And as more companies such as Wal-Mart push their sustainability standards down into their supply chain, it will no longer be enough to say you’re green. “In the future it will be, ‘Prove it. Show me, don’t just tell me.’ If you’re not doing this today, you’re missing the boat.”
Tags: accounting, Brian Setzler, CPA, Global Reporting Initiative, Sustainability, TriLibrium, triple bottom line
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As sustainability spreads, customers want numbers
After years on the business fringe, life cycle assessments are moving closer to the mainstream as sustainable practices spread. The trend signals a growing customer desire to see and compare the numbers behind marketers’ claims of sustainability.
Last week Deloitte Consulting, a decidedly mainstream business, released a new whitepaper, “Lifecycle Assessment: Where is it on your sustainability agenda?” Joel Makower refers to the paper in an excellent article on the “renaissance of lifecyle thinking.” An LCA, Deloitte says, “charts the course of all inputs and outputs, and their resulting environmental impacts for a given product system throughout its lifecycle.” The paper’s authors write:
Sustainability is now widely accepted as a core business issue rather than a passing fad. However, particularly in light of the current downturn, many stakeholder groups are no longer satisfied with vague assertions that green is really ‘gold,’ or that green products are in fact better for the environment. Customers (both businesses and consumers), investors, environmental interest groups, and governments are pressuring companies for enhanced quantification of environmental impacts.
This increased external demand is fueling the use of LCAs. Clearly, Deloitte sees a business opportunity in helping its clients produce them. Nevertheless, Deloitte’s paper echos the themes of author Daniel Goleman in his new book, “Ecological Intelligence,” which I wrote about in a previous post. Goleman cites LCAs as the data backbone for emerging online services that enable businesses and consumers to make purchase decisions based on hard numbers for the environmental (and in some cases, social) impacts of a product.
Although the early LCAs date back to the 1960s, Goleman describes how far they have come in sophistication and detail:
Never before have we had the methodology at hand to track, organize, and display the complex interrelationships among all the steps from extraction to manufacture of goods through their use to their disposal—and summarize how each step matters for ecosystems, whether in the environment or in our body.
Deloitte cites several marketing and communications benefits for companies employing LCAs. Besides supporting marketing claims about a product’s “environmental friendliness,” it can enhance a company’s reputation:
LCA can demonstrate that a company has moved beyond surface-level sustainability window-dressing to a deeper commitment to improved environmental impact…However, as LCA becomes more common, it will no longer serve as a differentiator in itself; it is the actual results—and what they say about a company’s environmental progress—that will matter to stakeholders.
LCAs can be complex and costly to produce. This puts them out of reach of most smaller producers and manufacturers. Deloitte says these and other firms may want to consider an LCA “lite” approach that is less data intensive.
LCAs are not appropriate for every business, but there’s an underlying message for marketers in their widening use. “Becoming sustainable” and “going green” are well past the sloganeering stage. More customers and other stakeholders are asking for quantifiable progress. So before you make that next sustainability claim, you’d do well to have the numbers to back it up. Only your competitors will be unhappy to see them.
Tags: Daniel Goleman, Deloitte, Ecological Intelligence, going green, Joel Makower, LCA, life cycle assessment, Marketing, Sustainability
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Five questions your business should be asking
My business inspiration today comes from an unlikely source, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
Tom Friedman, in his latest New York Times column, credits Fayyad for his leadership in improving conditions in the West Bank. Here’s the part I like. Freidman quotes Fayyad about his approach to governing: “tell people who you are, what you are about and what you intend to do and then actually do it.”
Those are words to live by as a politician. I could imagine them coming just as easily from the mouth of an effective business owner or executive. Fayyad’s simple philosophy can instruct any of us in business, especially after an unforgivable period of corporate excess and ethical lapses have left so many of us staggered, angry and jaded. In this environment, opportunity lies with businesses that act with higher purpose and integrity — the ones that keep their promises.
Here are five questions every business ought to be asking (and answering) today:
- What is my business ultimately pursuing? For many companies, the honest answer to this one is maximum shareholder return or more sales or more profits. The pursuit is financial. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it’s worth asking, is financial success really what you want the measure of your business to be? Or is money only an enabler, making it possible to pursue a larger social or environmental vision?
- What is my business trying to accomplish? I’ve heard vision described as something to be pursued and mission as something to be accomplished. I like that distinction. For example: “We pursue clean, fresh water for all. Our contribution to this effort is producing low-cost, long-lasting water purification systems for individuals.” I also think of mission as the reason a business exists. We exist to accomplish something. What is that for your business? Is your purpose clear? Does it inspire you and your employees and customers?
- What do we promise? Ask yourself what you want every stakeholder — customer, employee, supplier, partner, investor, community citizen — to experience from your business. This is an experience you strive to create for everyone, at all times. It’s what you stand for, the essence of your business. It’s what keeps customers returning and employees staying. And it can’t be taken lightly. As Fayyad has demonstrated, doing what you say you’ll do can have profound impact.
- What makes us different? So you’re clear-eyed about the difference your business is trying to make and the experience you want others to have of your firm. The question now is where that places you versus the businesses competing directly or indirectly for the customers and other stakeholders you’re targeting. Study your competitors and what others are saying about them. Ask customers and others what makes your firm different. If you don’t like their answers, you have some work to do.
- What makes us relevant? A company may have the distinction of producing the world’s only sustainably made, solar-powered 8-track player, but, really, who cares? Sure, the business is different. It’s also irrelevant! The key is to be distinct and relevant. What do your stakeholders most value about your firm today? Do you matter to them in important ways or only superficially? Survey them to find out.
My work is helping businesses wrestle with these fundamental questions. It’s far more than a marketing or branding exercise. My clients establish their firm’s reason for being and core identity. They give purpose and direction to the decisions and actions of every individual and group within their company. Best of all they put themselves in position to make a difference — “and then actually do it.”
Tags: brand promise, business, mission, Sustainability, Tom Friedman, vision
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New discussion course for business sustainability
Sustainability is a huge topic. And many feel it lacks a clear definition. No wonder so many businesses that want to do the right thing don’t know how or where to start down the sustainability path.
Enter the nonprofit Northwest Earth Institute, based in Portland, Ore. NWEI has answered the call of businesses and other organizations looking for a way to start — or perhaps kick start — sustainability initiatives. NWEI’s response is a new discussion course designed specifically for the workplace, called “Sustainable Systems at Work.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the NWEI board. As someone who’s participated in previous NWEI discussion courses, I can vouch for the power and inspiration in the model of peer group learning used by NWEI.
Each of NWEI’s courses takes a grass roots approach to sustainability, consistent with the Institute’s mission of “Inspiring people to take responsibility for Earth.” The previous seven courses offered by NWEI are designed to inform and inspire people in support of individual behavior change. The new workplace course is tailored to empower groups of employees at all levels to create or support sustainability projects or programs within their business. This bottoms-up approach creates employee champions for sustainability, as well as employee buy-in for environmental or social initiatives already in place.
Over a course of five sessions (60-90 minutes each, typically one session per week), employee groups will:
- evaluate the current economic model and consider the case for change
- examine the concept of sustainability from an organizational perspective
- evaluate principles and frameworks for guiding a vision
- identify tools and strategies for implementing a framework
- develop an action plan to advance organizational change
The course book, produced in cooperation with The Natural Step Network, contains articles and excerpts from experts and authors on business and workplace sustainability. The readings and companion discussion questions and exercises are designed to move employees quickly from learning and conversation into action. Mike Mercer, executive director of NWEI, says it’s all about engaging employees from the ground up.
Most organizations are launching sustainability initiatives from the top down, which they should. However, for culture and practices to change within an organization, employee commitment is a must. We believe innovation at its best occurs at all levels, and is driven by shifts in thinking. Our programs drive just that.
So if your business or some business you know is looking for a door into sustainability or the key to unlocking employee passion for sustainable change, get in touch with NWEI. They can help.
Tags: discussion course, Northwest Earth Institute, NWEI, Sustainability, workplace
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Where being tough meets doing good
Alysa Rose, president of Rejuvenation, could feel the culture of her company drifting a couple years ago. She could see it in the lost sense of urgency, and she could hear it in the voices of her employees.
“The most heartbreaking quote I heard from an employee, a relatively new employee, was: ‘When I got offered a job at Rejuvenation, a friend said, Well that’s great. Once you’re hired at Rejuvenation, you’re never fired.’ And I thought, wow, that’s not what a healthy culture is about. It’s about people contributing and making the business stronger and being accountable for that.”
I spoke with Alysa a couple times earlier this month as part of a series of interviews I’m planning with leaders of sustainable, privately owned businesses to gather and share an inside look into operating a triple-bottom-line business. It’s important to understand that Rejuvenation has a well-deserved reputation for its socially responsible business practices, built painstakingly since its founding in 1977. Based in Portland, Ore., the privately held company is America’s largest manufacturer and leading direct marketer of authentic reproduction lighting and house parts. It goes to great lengths to minimize its impact on the environment and support the causes that contribute to livable communities.
In the circles of corporate social responsibility, “doing well by doing good” is practically a business mantra. And under the leadership of Alysa and founder/owner Jim Kelly, Rejuvenation knows what it means to do good and to do well. But as Alysa’s experience in her business demonstrates: Doing good socially and environmentally does not guarantee financial success.
“It’s important to be very clear-headed about it all. You can’t do good unless you’re making money. You’ve got to make money. That’s where you have to start. You have to have an exceptional business plan that drives profitability. Because if you want to give back you have to have a base to give back from. It’s hard enough to run a good business; complicate it by being mission-driven or values-driven and you’ve got to have a damn good business model. I think that’s why Rejuvenation is successful.”
Ass on the line
Alysa and Jim know the importance of profitability; unfortunately, as became evident in 2007, too few managers and employees in their company were as clear-headed on the financial front.
“People really wanted to work at Rejuvenation, not because they were excited about contributing to our growth and profitability, but because we had a reputation for treating everybody so well and they wanted to come along for that ride. It was out of balance. Our performance started suffering.”
That’s when Jim and Alysa added a seventh core value, sans sugar coating. They called it “ass on the line.” They considered calling it accountability but decided that sounded too “corporate” and easy to dismiss. To drive home their message, Jim and Alysa met with every 
employee in small groups and made it abundantly clear what would be expected of them going forward.
“We asked them to make a commitment. I said, ‘Don’t take this lightly. Take this in. Go home. Think about it, talk about it with your loved ones and make a commitment whether you want to be here or not.'”
As it turns out, some employees and managers were uncomfortable with the much higher expectations of accountability and decided to quit. In hindsight, Alysa says, she and Jim could have presented the information in a less threatening way, “but we are in a much better place now.”
Having halted the cultural drift before the recession took root proved fortuitous. “I can say we are leaner, and we are tougher and quicker,” Alysa says. That has left the company far better equipped to ride out these tough times.
When values collide
While “ass on the line” has had its desired effect in building financial accountability, it doesn’t mean social and environmental responsibilities are any less important at Rejuvenation. When values collide, as they frequently do, Alysa’s team takes the challenge head on.
“The point is we have those discussions. Does it add complexity? Yes. Does it add a degree of difficulty? Yes. Does it add time in most situations? Yes. And that’s just how it is. And I think it’s a struggle for some. I think it’s a struggle for business managers who come from a more straightforward environment. And it might be a little more complex for employees. But it’s also much more rich.”
While the company has worked hard to integrate “ass on the line” into its culture, Alysa says it’s not the company value she holds closest.
“Of all our values, ‘goodness’ is the shortest one. That’s the one that gets me up in the morning. If you’re going to dedicate your life to something or even a few years to something, you want to believe that doing it is going to leave the world a better place. So the goodness is that the world is a better place because Rejuvenation is here. We employ people. We provide great products. We preserve old buildings. We give back to our community financially. We educate our employees.”
And they teach the rest of us in business: Sometimes you have to be tough to do good.
Tags: alysa rose, company values, mission-driven, Rejuvenation, socially responsible, Sustainability, triple bottom line
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