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Thursday
May132010

The Battle for our Green Souls - The Good Human Versus Sustainable Brands 2010

DateThursday, May 13, 2010 at 9:00AM

Recently something of a war of words has broken out between the folks at Sustainable Brands (SB) and the blog The Good Human (TGH). The Good Human (a gentleman named David) launched the first volley in this battle with the post Greenwash of the Week: Sustainable Brands 2010. The post outlined the series of large companies that are taking part in (sponsoring, attending, speaking) SB10, many of which have questionable environmental records (to say the least). Highlighting companies like Walmart, Nestle, and Clorox (and pointing out their litanies of environmental and social failures), TGH accuses not only the companies but the conference itself of being nothing more than a major greenwashing scheme. 

From the GHG post :

What do you get when a bunch of unsustainable companies pay a lot of money to become sponsors/attendees of an upcoming event called Sustainable Brands? You get a massive greenwashing event where “real” sustainable brands like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Interface Americas, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Living Homes, and the Environmental Defense Fund get mixed in with some the world’s most unsustainable companies...

The scathing facts (you really should go read them) presented about some of the most prominent sponsors of SB10 clearly raised some hackles with the folks of Sustainable Brands. Then the war of words was on...

Both on twitter and in the comment section of the TGH post a defense of the conference and the participants was mounted from KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz...

The challenge, though, is that they can feel stuck to a degree, between a rock and a hard place. For businesses who are in existence to server customer and other stakeholder demands, require support from customers and other stakeholders to empower them. When customers buy more eco-friendly products, rather than the cheapest ones on the shelf, I guarantee you business will respond. They need NGOs working WITH them instead of against them to help them solve the many, many thorny systems challenges they face. They need support from media encouraging GOOD behavior and helping educate them about emerging best practices, rather than tearing them down and making them feel guilty for their imperfections.
Organizations are like people — they often need both the carrot and the stick to stay on the straight and narrow. I believe we all have our own roles to play in helping drive the shift we both seek, and someone needs to be the watchdog. While I have a hard time understanding how you are not able to respect our mission that is 100% parallel to your own, perhaps it’s as simple that we seek to serve two different roles. Perhaps you see yours as to meet out discipline, hold feet to the fire, whereas we see ours as to be a bridge to better brands – to believe the best in those businesses who come to us looking to learn, to encourage, support and amplify ‘right behavior’ and to help them more quickly innovate in response to our multitude global challenges..

Just part of the Twitter DebateThe comments and re-comments and barbs and tweets and challenges lasted through the evening. Sadly, TGH and SB talked past each other for the most of the discussion. To boil down TGH's argument the conference is called 'Sustainable Brands' and should be a celebration of businesses who are truly doing the right thing. Not a place for multi-nationals to greenwash by riding truly green companies' coat tails. The point from SB10 is that all of the businesses in the conference are on a continuum. While some are deeper green and more fully sustainable, others are working toward bettering themselves and should be rewarded for such initiatives. Every sponsor or participant's  record might not be perfect, but bigger companies have a lot more to change and have much harder job doing so while keeping their shareholders happy. If we want brands to stay in the sustainable space, we need to give them a chance to tout the good work they do.


Tweet, Tweet, Tweet, Fight, Fight, FightFor both full disclosure and for some perspective, let me tell you a little about B2S' involvement with SB09.  Last year, Build2Sustain participated in the conference as part of the New Ventures Exchange. The conference was nothing if not a learning experience. While there were some deep green companies in attendance, folks I deeply respect arrived both to speak and to discuss their companies, there's also an awful lot of greenwashing going on. Simply by virtue of the fact that all these companies are in the same place, it raises green street cred of companies that otherwise might not have been seen as sustainable. While it's great for Clorox to talk about their sustainability initiative, an environment like SB takes these efforts out of context. Seeing Clorox's presence at SB makes it easy to forget their larger operations; their work sounds amazing and truly world-changing, but must always be balanced against Clorox's larger impact on the planet. I believe the organizers of the conference, the folks at Sustainable Life Media, are well intentioned and are trying to bring about change through the established corporate channels. This results in a conference that brings together a "big tent" of companies, who (if taken at their word) care about sustainability and the planet in general. You have to take those good intentions with the greenwash, that's just the price of admission.

For folks like TGH and his readers, this simply isn't enough. For them sustainability is something akin to a religion, the belief system is clear and doing what's right for the planet is paramount to all other concerns. Ideas like competitive pricing, broad affordability of products, or brand recognition or even profit itself are secondary to doing what is right for the planet at all times. There is a sense that tough business decisions are simply not tough for folks like him. Planet first, period. But this measure adds up to something of an ideological purity test, one in which any measure of mediation is seen as a crime against the movement for a better planet.

To me this debate presents a false choice, both sides defining 'sustainable' on very different terms, when neither is sufficient.

For the folks at SB being a "green" company isn't itself sustainable without profit, and if we greenwash a little (or a lot) around the edges to blur the line between real green and fake green...well so be it.

Yet I find TGH equally disturbing. Bottom line: every product and every service we as humans provide for one another likely harms the planet to some degree. While there is validity in calling out greenwashing where you see it, and holding companies accountable for the damage they might be doing, there is little validity in conducting holier-than-thou purity tests. It's one thing to call out a corporation for greenwashing...it's another to tear down a gathering like SB for not promoting your brand of corporate sustainability. Fact is, a TGH conference wouldn't have many attendees. Do I wish the corporate world could turn on a dime and operate the way TGH would like to see it? Surely. Do I think that's possible? Not likely. How do we mitigate?

Perhaps a podcast is in order?

UPDATE: KoAnn recently posted a response to the TGH flap on her blog. An except is posted below, you can find the whole thing here.

I'm flattered that at least some corner of the world sees the Sustainable Brands event, and the team at Sustainable Life Media, as ideal to serve as arbiters of where the line is between a 'sustainable, and 'unsustainable' company.  The trouble is, this is not our mission.  Our mission is "To Be A Bridge to Better Brands" -- to help spread the most progressive ideas for getting us out of the unsustainable, 'business as usual' state that we're in, and on to a better business and brand future.  The fact is, it is precisely our intention to 'mix in those 'real' sustainable brands (what we like to call 'bonfire' brands in honor of one of our closest advisors and friends, Duke Stump), with the growing cross section of global brands who are working hard to tackle complex, ingrained problems so that business can become an institution providing a net benefit to society...

... suppose its possible that there may be some place for cynicism, but not at Sustainable Life Media.  And frankly, while we all agree healthy skepticism is, well, just that -- healthy, I'm not sure I for one have ever seen anything profitable or productive result from cynic.  At Sustainable Life Media we are interested in progress -- and in working together toward it with anyone who will come along side us.   This is why the theme of the conference this year resonates for us so much:  there is enormous power in AND verses OR.

 

 

AuthorJames Bedell | Comment43 Comments |
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Reader Comments (43)

Thanks for the post James!

I regret that I don't have more hours in a day to continue the conversation with David (I'm sorry I don't know his last name.) I'm convicted by your point thought, that we BOTH talked past each other. I'm realizing that perhaps I mistook it as self-evident that we are fully aware of the massive troubles that many of the companies we work with face in terms the troublesome environmental impact they face. We do not contest this, or try in any way to cover it up. In fact, we feel as strongly about these problems as he does.

As I tried to explain, though, my background in psychology has led me to understand that it can take both positive feedback in response to good behavior, as well as negative response to bad behavior to generate positive forward momentum. While we of course absolutely believe in and support those organizations like Co-op America, EDF, WRI, WWF and so many others who are respectfully holding companies accountable for their actions we do not believe in 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' by suggesting that these companies should die off. Were that to happen with all the companies who have serious environmental and social impact issues to address, we would destroy our global economy and society as we know it, making our environmental issues irrelevant.

It is easy to throw stones and find fault. What is difficult is to listen and find solutions – which is why we love the watchdog efforts of the above organizations who while calling companies accountable, are also willing to work with them to help craft solutions..
I bristle a bit when you say that at SB we're presenting the stories we allow companies to share about their success 'out of context', when in fact, the stories shared at SB are exactly cogent to the context of our event which is about amplifying how companies can and are finding paths to successful transformation. We do not ever pretend to be presenting ANY of the companies who speak at SB as wholly sustainable brands, since as you reiterated, there aren't any.

I appreciate, though, that you've already kindly offered my response. We started SLM because we saw a need for the positive feedback loop to support companies who are earnestly working on their problems. Thank you for reposting the piece about our company mission, which is 'to be a bridge to better brands.' It is precisely because we are concerned about the negative impact of business that we do what we do -- at significant sacrifice, I might add, from all of us. We believe, though, that business, if equipped, and harnessed, can be turned around to be the solution, rather than the problem. We have seen so much encouraging evidence of this since we started SLM in 2004 and that is what leads me to continue to be encouraged for the future.

Change as fundamental as we seek never comes over night. It comes one step at a time, bit by bit, with small, often hard fought for wins. But if we can help companies find a path to be successful in the transformation to sustainability, we will get there.

Hope you're doing well! We're excited that our Sustainable Brands Innovation Open has seen 50% more submissions this year than last, and some very high impact ideas that we look forward to putting in front of our corporate audience as well, since all of those who come are looking for help solving their challenges, and solutions often come from grass roots individuals like you!

all best in our share pursuits,

KoAnn

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