Sustainable Brands Innovation Open (SB Innovation Open) is a business plan competition unlike any other. It is a showcase of creativity, innovative thinking and solution based approaches that seek to make a significant environmental, social and economic impact within the business world. In addition, it fosters collaboration between early stage eco-entrepreneurs and executives from some of the most influential brands in the industry, as well as socially responsible investors who can help take their ideas to the next level.

The communications implications for this are significant.  How the brand’s purpose is understood and expressed must now reflect a deeper purpose.  First, alignment around and commitment to   that purpose must be created.  The challenge is for businesses – who are facing a growing activist consumer – to clearly and credibly express a new dimension of their business. A dimension that is not held hostage to short term profitability but rather integrates service to greater good alongside financial well-being.

We as sustainability communicators understand the power of the narrative to help organizations’ achieve their goals.  After more than 25 years, I see the role that communications plays in five distinct co-creation areas and believe that this is the core of what we – the storytellers of commerce — are working toward:

1.  Establishing credibility. From branding initiatives to corporate reputation campaigns, brands are creating a new series of communications (CSR reports, ads, web sites, forums) that provide the detailed transparency for telling a complex sustainability story. Truth-telling and hero’s journey are the themes here.

2.  Removing barriers. There is a range of stakeholders whose buy-in is essential in successful sustainability implementation.  Employees, supply chain, distribution partners, governments and NGOs, local communities must all become part of the team and be persuaded to set aside self-serving agendas and biases.  A call to community is at the heart of this effort.

3.  Accelerating acceptance. Clarity can speed goal attainment when players in the system understand how their contribution and connection contributes to success.  Participation in a greater goal that is a both-and proposition is the key theme.

4.  Building consensus. In today’s always-on world, successful communications must not only break through the cacophony but be designed to create cohesion among disparate groups.  This is really about helping orchestrate a theme amongst varied voices.

5.  Empowering advocates. Businesses now rely on a host of advocates who share the narrative – they tweet, post, like, share and rate.    Everywhere you can read about how business as we know it has changed – that social media and the new connected customer require a new way of doing business.  This means creating narratives that are distinct, sharable messages designed so that others can say-it-forward.

Co-created communications with stakeholders can only come from a strategic approach and the realization that it must be carefully constructed for every transaction.  Sustainability communication is there to give people on all sides of the revolution a voice.  And that beautifully expresses a change of heart.

This post has also appeared in Sustainable Brands’ March Issues in Focus:  Sustainability Communications

Logo created by Cari Class of Design Source

Last month I had the privilege of sitting with an amazing group of women in Santa Cruz and sharing a conversation with Acumen Fund founder and CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz.  She’s featured on the December cover of Forbes and the author of The Blue Sweater:  Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World.  The book was a wonderful introduction to Jacqueline and her approach to investment (what she calls patient capital), philanthropy, development, poverty and privilege.  Our conversation provided all of us with a chance to share, inspire, inquire and connect with Jacqueline while opening an opportunity for more.

From that initial gathering of about 20 women, we have formed a get-it-done group we named Yes-&.  I’m not sure what else to call a group of women from all sorts of backgrounds who have agreed to show up and just get stuff done.

Yes-& is just forming as a circle of powerful, engaged, visionary women in the greater Santa Cruz area who are committed to creating programs, events, conversations, nonprofits, foundations or social enterprises that address some of our most pressing local AND global problems.  We coalesced as a group of women committed to supporting each others efforts at creating change.  Our mission is to show up in the world with a “Yes-&” attitude.  We say yes to opportunity, to challenges, to requests, to intention.  We also believe in the power of “&” — the power of inclusion, of connection, of non-duality.  It’s not either/or.  It’s the power of AND.

Our first project came from several women’s reactions to the recent debut of Jennifer Siebel Newsom’ documentary “Miss Representation,” a film that deals with media and contemporary culture’s dis-empowering depiction of women and girls.

So, are producing a local Screening and Community Conversation event, inviting 85 community leaders, high schools counselors, students, nonprofits and organizations dedicated to empowering girls and women in our community.

The purpose of the evening  is to spark discussion, connections, collaborations and projects that gel as a result of the evening’s screening and subsequent conversation breakouts.

We are hoping all of us walk away with a commitment to an action plan that specifically addresses what we intend to do to protect the young women we have been called to steward.

That’s saying “yes!”

The Farmer-Veteran Coalition (http://www.farmvetco.org) is a scrappy little non-profit with a big vision, a tiny budget and a national outreach program making remarkable strides in a challenging economy.  “Our intention is to cultivate a new generation of successful farmers and food leaders, which will support renewal of our rural communities, help build a more robust economy and provide our returning veterans with viable careers, a sense of purpose, as well as physical and psychological benefits,” Founder and Executive Director Michael O’Gorman explains. The FVC is assisting veterans across the country through training, mentoring, and direct aid such as helping to purchase equipment, supplies, even breeding stock, to get their operations launched.

To understand the impact of what the FVC is doing, consider this: The unemployment rate for recent veterans — those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan — was almost 12 percent for the first 10 months of 2010, higher than the national average, which is currently 9.6 percent.

Veterans can have a difficult time after returning from combat. The fallout from being unable to find work, combined with difficulties like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) or other disabilites, put veterans at risk for homelessness, which also affects veterans at a greater rate than civilians. Veterans are also experiencing a very high suicide rate, perhaps because they are overwhelmed by hopelessness, despair and a sense of worthlessness.

But O’Gorman and his team–which includes Navy veteran Tia Christopher, who directs the Farmer Veteran Fellowship Fund and former Marine Chris Ritthaler, National Veteran Outreach Coordinator,–see daily examples of courage, tenacity and achievement.  They are helped by a group of generous advisors, who are successful farmers and food industry leaders with long histories in overcoming agricultural, managerial, financial, and marketing obstacles. It’s really inspiring to read the stories on the FVC website (http://www.farmvetco.org) that illustrate how veterans, some of them recovering from devastating injuries, are starting productive, meaningful new lives in agriculture. 

“Our organization is leading this national effort to connect veterans with careers in agriculture because they can make such a critical contribution to the USDA’s campaign to find 100,000 new farmers,” O’Gorman says.   “We believe that veterans possess the unique skills, discipline and strength of character needed to create safe, healthy, sustainable food system for all.”

There is a new one that is being written right now, every day, by people who observe challenges and change in the world.

The N-Spired Story project has a simple  mantra:

A story that inspires a design.
A design that is printed on an interactive t-shirt.
A t-shirt that encourages a social act.

I heard about this project through MilkShake (another favorite social movement; more about them in another post) and am fascinated by the idea that anyone of us can share this process of telling stories through both an online medium and a series of t-shirts that are linked to a social act.

It works like this. Anyone can post a story –  simply sign-up and share in either English or Spanish.  Every month, users vote and the highest score is selected to be used as the basis for the next chapter. The most recent, Chapter 5, describes a multitude of ridiculous laws currently on the books in places like China that are desgined to create a citizenry of sheep.  Entitled “Follow the Hurd,” the story includes true facts on China’s law  prohibiting reincarnation, depicted by a line drawing of a bureaucrat with a sheep’s head.

The chapter is completed through the work of an up-and-coming artist who creates a piece of art based the selected story which is then printed on an interactive t-shirt and sold on the site for 10 days. With a percentage of the sales, the N-Spired team then performs a social act related to the story.  I’m going to keep checking back to see what social act the team will create to challenge crazy laws in China or the passivity of sheeple.

Click this link to listen or download the podcast.

Singlebrook CEO, Elisa Miller-Out presents Unreasonable Institute Fellow, Alissa Johnson, CalSolAgua with the Singlebrook TechSpring award

Donated public relations, marketing and technology services support CalSolAgua in their effort to scale to positively impact one million people, reducing household energy bills and carbon emissions in the developing world.

Singlebrook Technology and theUnreasonable Institute today announced Alissa Johnson, CalSolAgua as the winner of their joint TechSpring project, an innovative program designed to provide a free package of marketing and technology services worth almost $20,000 to the budding social entrepreneur. Singlebrook TechSpring is the latest effort in the company’s Technology for Change (T4C) campaign, designed to spotlight standout social entrepreneurs who are using groundbreaking technology to effect positive social and environmental change. This latest collaboration with the Unreasonable Institute accelerates a social venture – CalSolAgua – by providing them with services that can help them amplify their impact. Previous T4C projects included initiatives such as the Sustainable iPhone App Contest and sponsorship of the Green Jobs Award.

The Unreasonable Institute has selected CalSolAgua to receive the donated web, marketing, public relations and social media consulting. The CalSolAgua team has developed a clean and inexpensive solar water heating system capable of addressing the hot water needs for bathing and laundry; one of highest energy needs facing global households. Through detailed design work and three generations of prototyping, this solar water heater retails for one quarter of the price of competing water tank heaters, when mass manufactured. Retailing at only $150, it will reduce household energy costs and provide health benefits to those households currently relying on fossil fuel generation.

“We believe in the power of collaboration and imagination to change the world,” said Teju Ravilochan, Co-founder of the Unreasonable Institute. “The Singlebrook TechSpring program is a perfect example of how technology and creativity can be harnessed to assist social entrepreneurs like Alissa Johnson in their effort to reduce household energy bills and carbon emissions in the developing world. We are grateful to Singlebrook and to all of the service partners for their assistance.”

In expressing her gratitude for the opportunity this award means to CalSolAgua’s future, Ms. Johnson explained, “Access to these resources will help us communicate our message to partners and customers as we develop a viable business and make solar water heating accessible to households throughout the developing world.”

Singlebrook CEO, Elisa Miller-Out stated, “We’re pleased to be spearheading this project and grateful to a terrific group of marketing and technology partners.” She continued, “Our core mission is to leverage technology to help create positive change in the world. By partnering the TechSpring initiative with CalSolAgua, we have a beautiful example of how tech firms and social entrepreneurs can come together and make a real difference. The confluence of web, social media, public relations and marketing, in support of reducing household energy bills and carbon emissions in the developing world, will help accelerate their success and impact.”

The Pennsylvania wastewater came from a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which large amounts of water, sand, and chemicals are injected deep into the ground to exploit natural gas beneath dense shale rock. This water resurfaces from the well as waste, carrying highly corrosive salts, carcinogenic chemicals, and radioactive elements that occur naturally deep within the earth. Officially, the wastewater is shipped to sewage treatment plants, partially treated, and then dumped into rivers in order to be safely diluted. However, recent unpublished studies by the EPA and investigations by the NY Times found that these rivers then do not meet federal drinking water standards due to overwhelmingly high carcinogen and radiation levels. Simultaneously, videos of people in affected areas lighting water from their faucets on fire have flooded YouTube.

Although this method has been used since the mid-20th century, recent discoveries of massive natural-gas deposits and improvements in fracking technology have seen an increase in the number of drill sites. In 2009 the US had over 493,000 active natural-gas wells—90 percent of which used fracking, doubled since 1990. Currently thirty-four states employ fracking technology, and at least five have reported gas entering underground drinking water reservoirs. Some states have already reported negative health effects, such as increased asthma rates and ozone levels, in areas adjacent to these sites. Scientists also fear that as these contaminants permeate water sources they will also find their way into food supplies, amplifying the threat to human health.

Proponents of this technique argue that utilizing natural gas has a smaller carbon footprint than other fossil fuels and increases US energy independence.

An increasing number of people across the country, especially young activists, disagree and recognize the grave risks involved in fracking. For many this issue has become a significant rallying point for demanding tougher environmental regulations and investment in renewable energy from the nation’s leaders. This was the case this past April when ten thousand youth marched on Washington calling President Obama to follow through on his promises of a shift towards sustainability.

As the campaign season draws closer, an increasingly mobilized citizen base has the opportunity to demand lasting change to US energy policy in the face of mounting environmental degradation.

By Jacob Stone
Jacob is a third year student at New York University majoring in Environmental Justice and currently studying in Buenos Aires, Argentina.