New study reveals gap between real and perceived sustainability in top North American brands | 3BL Media

(3BLMedia/theCSRfeed) Vancouver – January 20, 2010 – A new study titled MapChange 2010 shows that major North American brands are still not hitting the consumer mark when it comes to sustainability. 

The study incorporates both actual measurements on climate change action being undertaken by over 90 companies across North America, and perception measurements of these companies’ actions by consumers. Companies include category leaders such as Coca-Cola, Groupe Danone, Nike, Gap, P&G, L’Oreal, Microsoft and Amazon.com.
 
The actual scoring on climate change action was provided by Climate Counts as part of their annual climate change study of well-known consumer companies. The perception measurements, meanwhile, were provided by Angus Reid Public Opinion, and include over 2,000 American adults in a random sample.
 
The companies were grouped by sector, and the results illustrated in ‘perception / reality’ maps. In total, 10 sectors were mapped.
 
Across every sector, MapChange showed a disparity between actual sustainability activity of brands, and consumer perception of sustainable activity of those brands.
 
As well, some entire sectors emerged as sustainability leaders and others as laggards.
 
Compared with the inaugural MapChange study in 2008 (which did not involve collaboration with Angus Reid Public Opinion and Climate Counts), brands generally had a higher perceived score among consumers, due to factors such as increased green brand communication, increasing consumer-facing ‘green’ products, and heightened media attention in sustainable brands.
 
The study is available at www.getmapchange.com. Interviews with Climate Counts, Angus Reid Public Opinion and Change for further insights are welcomed. Interested parties can leave inquire at info@changebiz.com 
 
ABOUT CHANGE
Change is an innovation brand agency specializing in green innovation. Clients include multinationals like Unilever, key regionals like TransLink, and innovation-driven companies like Powertech. With ‘outside the jar’ thinking and a simple, flexible process, Change helps companies incorporate brand innovations that provide competitive advantage, then helps communicate those brand innovations in a way consumers can understand, appreciate and reward. Change is structured like a hub – key strategists and creative thinkers at the core, and trusted specialists in research, analysis, design, social media and production in an ‘on call’ network. Change’s work has won over 20 international design awards, and has been profiled in international journals, newspapers and books. The organization’s founder, Marc Stoiber, is also an expert speaker on green brand innovation, with engagements that include the TED conference and Strategy’s Cause and Effect Conference.
 
ABOUT CLIMATE COUNTS
Climate Counts is a non-profit campaign that scores companies annu­ally on the basis of their voluntary action to reverse climate change. The Climate Counts Company Scorecard—launched in June 2007—helps people vote with their dollars by making climate-conscious purchasing and investing choices that put pressure on the world’s most well-known companies to take the issue of climate change seriously. Launched by organics pioneer Stonyfield Farm, Climate Counts believes everyday consumers can be the most important activists in the fight against global warming. Climate Counts has currently evaluated nearly 150 compa­nies—representing over 3000 brands—in sixteen major consumer sec­tors. Climate Counts’ work has appeared in many of the world’s leading media outlets, among them the New York Times, National Public Radio, The Economist, BBC World Service, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, and the Harvard Business Review. The organization will launch an iPhone app and its Climate Counts Industry Innovators (I2) on-demand scoring program in early 2010. 
 
ABOUT ANGUS REID PUBLIC OPINION
Angus Reid Public Opinion is the public affairs practice of Vision Critical – a global research and technology company specializing in custom online panels, private communities, and innovative online methods. VisionCritical is a leader in the use of the Internet and rich media technologyto collect high-quality, in-depth insights for a wide array of clients.Dr. Angus Reid and the Angus Reid Strategies team are pioneers in online research methodologies, and have been conducting online surveys since 1995. Vision Critical is now one of the largest market research enter­prises in the world. In addition to its five offices in Canada—located in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Toronto, and Montreal—the firm also has offices in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, London, Paris and Sydney. Its team of specialists provides solutions across every type and sector of research, and currently serves over 200 international clients.

Is Green Contagious? Zola Goods Moves Communities toward the Green Tipping Point | 3BL Media

(3BLMedia/theCSRfeed) January 20, 2010 – The economy may be recovering but we’re not out of the woods yet; the December US jobs report suggests we’ve got a long way to go, with millions of people still looking for new jobs and a new direction. Environmental initiatives provide solutions by creating jobs, businesses and a better future. As green efforts progress they’re moving toward a “tipping point” at which green takes off to transform daily life for all of us. Becoming a Zola Coordinator with Zola Goods provides a new income for many and moves communities toward the tipping point where green truly becomes mainstream. 

Founded in 2007 by Beth Remmes in Atlanta, Georgia, Zola: The Art of Living Green (www.zolagoods.com) provides people with an opportunity to share an empowering message and initiate change in homes across the United States, while also offering the chance to earn a supplemental income.  Zola helps people to become more conscious consumers, making purchases more consistent with the long-term view of our impact on the environment and the world we’ll have in the future.
 
Embracing a grassroots approach, Zola Coordinators hold eco-home parties and workshops in their communities. With interesting and sometimes startling facts, a Zola Coordinator takes guests through the life of an average American consumer and demonstrates how to make small changes to improve their lives and surrounding environment. We often don’t see how much of an impact we have, or how we can make a difference. The conversation frequently turns to how people can participate in their local communities, from community gardens, to farmer’s markets, to recycling efforts in their schools and neighborhood.
 
Solutions and trends that transform society often come from the ground up.   In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes, “To create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.” Each Zola Coordinator brings together small groups of people to share ideas and take actions that create a greener and more sustainable future. Groups that connect at Zola Parties are centers of change, spreading the green message outward to the rest of their community.
                                                                                                                  
Zola’s product line is carefully determined using the triple bottom line value system that focuses on People, Planet, and Profit. Featured are some of the best eco-friendly products on the market including, energy and water saving devices, reusable bags, recycled paper goods and soy candles. In addition to environmental benefits, many of these products will also save people money. Unlike other direct selling companies, Zola has no selling or recruiting requirements. Zola Goods continued to grow in 2009, despite the lagging economy, demonstrating the consistent interest in authentic green information and products and in new opportunities.
           
Tony Kvale, of Kvale Good Natured Games LLC remarks, “Zola is a direct-selling model that is focused on products and principles, rather than pure profit motivation. Zola’s message is a long-awaited breath of fresh air!” Zola Goods is also a Green America approved company, awarded this distinction because of its principles, policies, and practices that improve the quality of life for their customers, employees, communities, and the environment.
 
Zola, of Italian origin, means “piece of earth.” By making small changes, each of us can heal our own piece of earth and together create an abundant future for our planet. Each of us can make an important difference, starting with decisions we make every day in our homes. “People may be confused, suffer from green fatigue, or be under the impression that their contributions would be insignificant, so they do not act,” says Remmes.  “By educating people about the green movement in a fun, non-political forum, Zola empowers people to realize that individual actions are imperative to the health of our environment, and lays the foundation for people to be more open to large scale change, such as alternative energy.”
 
Have your own green business and want to get involved? Zola also highlights other green companies. Is your green business listed? If not, add yours today.  http://www.zolagoods.com/links.php
 
If you would like more information about Zola, or to schedule an interview with Zola founder, Beth Remmes, please call 770-715-4525 or visit www.zolagoods.com.
 
Blog http://theartoflivinggreen.wordpress.com/
Twitter http://twitter.com/zolagoods
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Zola-Goods/42089946946?ref=ts
 
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CSR Minute: Xerox’s Erasable Paper; Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds’ Triple Bottom Line Investment.

Corporate Social Responsibility News: Xerox’s Erasable Paper; Canyon-Johnson Urban Funds’ Triple Bottom Line Investment.

CSR Minute: Google Stops Censoring in China; Equator Coffee and Teas’ Facebook Store

Corporate Social Responsibility News: Google Stops Censoring in China, Announces Unethical Hacking; Equator Artisan Coffees and Teas’ FaceBook Store

What is the Plastic Pollution Coalition? | 3BL Media

Melissa McGinnis and Greenopolis TV learn about the Plastic Pollution Coalition from one if it’s founder’s Daniella Russo. We learn from Daniella that the mission of Plastic Pollution Coalition is to create a global community and ignite a social movement to stop plastic pollution and its toxic impacts worldwide. Plastic Pollution Coalition also provides a platform for strategic planning and coherent communications; increases awareness and understanding of the problem and sustainable solutions; and empowers action to eliminate the negative impacts of plastics on the environment, wildlife, marine life, and human health. Take their on-line (S.U.P.E.R) HERO PLEDGE today!

Greenopolis.com is dedicated to our users. We focus our attention on changing the world through recycling, waste-to-energy and conservation. We reward our users for their sustainable behaviors on our website, through our Greenopolis Tracking Stations and with curbside recycling programs.

GREENOP4094

CSR Minute: Corporate Response to the Haiti Disaster

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Justice and the Environment March Hand in Hand | 3BL Media

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Strove for Both

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered primarily as a great civil rights leader, in the footsteps of Moses and Gandhi, and rightfully so.

But he was also an environmental leader far ahead of his time as he strove to raise awareness about urban environmental issues and public health concerns that affect communities of color more than their white counterparts. Dr. King was a pioneer in what has come to be called environmental justice. It seems that environmental hazards and degradation do not fall equally on rich and poor, white, red, yellow, brown and black. If you live in a poor neighborhood or a community that is made up largely African-American, Hispanic, or indigenous people, you are more likely to be at risk from air, water, and soil contamination. Hazardous sites or polluting industries are more likely to be located in these areas than in the tony suburbs. Google “Gross Pointe Landfill” or Beverly Hills Mining” and you’ll see what I mean.

Environmental justice principles are that all members of a society have equal rights to clean air, water, and soil, and to enjoy communities where they can raise their families in healthy, natural environments. It affirms that no one possesses the right to degrade and destroy the environment, whether governments, private industry, or individual citizens. Further, environmental justice guarantees equal access to relief from hazards that occur and genuine community participation in the decisions of government and industry that impact the community.

The 13th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental and Social Justice Program took place at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History on January 17th and 18th. As part and parcel of his civil rights work, Dr. King strove to raise awareness about health and urban environmental issues that disproportionately affect minority and low-income communities. The celebration included music, dance, a youth talent show, storytelling, poetry slams and a grand finale drum circle. It also included a Community Open Mic, where members of the community could honor the words and legacy of MLK by sharing original poetry and rap, and by speaking their minds on environmental and social justice issues.

Dr. King’s final journey was to Memphis to improve the working conditions of the garbage collection workers thee—the vast majority of whom were African American—and improve the terrible working conditions and environmental health issues that they endured. It was t here he gave his famous “Mountaintop” speech, the night before he was assassinated.

Dr. King’s legacy includes a waste to resources theme—that human beings are living treasures to be loved, nurtured and respected, not wasted; that the impact of the waste we produce should not fall more heavily on the poor than the rest of us, and that what affects any of us directly, affects us all indirectly.

In honor of Dr. King and all the future generations he fought and died for, we leave his own words from Memphis as the best closing tribute to his legacy.

Greenopolis.com is dedicated to our users. We focus our attention on changing the world through recycling, waste-to-energy and conservation. We reward our users for their sustainable behaviors on our website, through our Greenopolis Tracking Stations and with curbside recycling programs.

GREENOP4084

Plastic for Food? The plight of the Laysan Albatross | 3BL Media

Wide-winged and long-lived, albatrosses are rarely seen on land, preferring to stay out on the ocean except to mate and raise their young.

Melissa McGinnis and Greenopolis TV visit the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and get a close up look at the terrible plight of the Albatross species due to plastics being mistaken for food. We learned from one of the aquarium’s directors, Alison Barratt that Albatrosses fly hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles in search of food for their chicks. They look for squid and fish eggs floating on the surface of the water. Unfortunately, plastic floats, and Laysan albatross are particularly attracted to it. They eat it, mistaking if for food, then they fly back to the nest and feed bottle caps, lighters, fishing lures and other pieces of plastic to their young. The chicks starve to death, with stomachs full of plastic. In fact 40% of the Laysan Albatross chicks born each year die from eating plastic…

How can we help ?

Tips from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

1. Limit your use of disposable plastics, like plastic bags and water bottles.

2. Carry your own reusable shopping bag and/or water bottle.

3. Look for products made from recycled materials that have little or no packaging, or packaging that is recyclable.

4. Try to avoid Styrofoam products—bring your own mug to the coffee shop, and a container for leftovers when you eat out.

5. Know which plastics can be recycled in your city and recycle!

6. Make sure all non-recyclable plastics are securely disposed of.

7. Pick up trash on the street and put it in a trash can. 

If you can make it to the aquarium be sure to meet “Makana”. Makana is a Laysan albatross from the Northwestern Hawaiian Island of Midway. She came to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in 2006, after she injured her wing and was unable to survive in the wild. Makana appears daily in a presentation that helps visitors learn about the threats that albatrosses and other seabirds face from plastics pollution.She is a beautiful inspiring creature, one that we should all work to protect

Also see Makana on video click here

Greenopolis.com is dedicated to our users. We focus our attention on changing the world through recycling, waste-to-energy and conservation. We reward our users for their sustainable behaviors on our website, through our Greenopolis Tracking Stations and with curbside recycling programs.

GREENOP4065

CSR Minute: Green Meetings Conference; Asian CSR Center

Corporate Social Responsibility News: Green Meetings Council Industry’s Conference; CSR Asia + Asian Institute for Technology Create the Asian Center for Corporate Social Responsibility at AIT.

CSR Minute: Aramark’s “How-To Sustainability Guide”; CERES Survey on Climate Risk

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