We asked Bob Schettino at BuzzLogic to do some data diving to on specific areas of interest to the green/clean tech community. Each week, he will crunch the numbers and update the list that determines, per BuzzLogic’s metrics, what the most influential blog or post, at that time, is in a particular category. This post will go up every Friday.

Carbon emissions

World Changing

Clean tech

Joel Makower

Corporate social responsibility

Daniela Barbosa

Green policy

Green Options

Green washing

Autoblog

Sustainable living

Marc Escobosa

Michael Kempner is CEO and president of MWW Group.

He blogs at Straight Talk.

MWW Group launched a sustainable technologies practice, which focuses on “marketing eco-responsible technologies and in effectively positioning technology companies for which environmental sustainability is a key tenant of their R&D regime and product set” in November 2006.

What is the easiest thing a client can do today to kick start a green image?

There’s a basic cost of entry in the green game – [you must] strive to manage your business in an energy-conscious, conservation-minded manner and steadily improve on your environmental record over time.

Claim to be green but pollute, waste energy, consort with companies known for poor environmental records, exclude recyclable materials from your supply chain, and never improve your record, someone will call you on it - often loudly and always publicly.

In other words, if you’re not really committed to going green, then don’t. Demonstrate value elsewhere.

However, if your “green fees” have been paid and your organization is truly committed to a green culture, yell it from the mountaintops. Jump start your green image by engaging your constituencies via new media channels – a Web-based sustainability report, an eco-focused micro site, a podcast series highlighting conservation tips for the home and office, a syndicated sustainability blog, etc. These tactics are inexpensive, easily implemented, and global. The number of people you reach with your green message and the impact it has on your corporate reputation is only limited by your imagination.

What is the most important thing a client could do tomorrow to maintain serious green credibility?

Maintaining credibility and advancing corporate reputation in any arena requires favorable momentum. Keep executing on the green front but raise the volume over time.

In that vein, many organizations are content to join associations, donate money, volunteer time, and join the cacophony…and for some that’s just fine.

For my money, and for my clients, the counsel is often to create a leadership vehicle that closely ties together the organization’s core business with their environmental values, and that draws other companies and external constituencies into their cause. Utilize new media channels to inform your constituents of your leadership activities, growing third-party support, and overall good works in the green arena, then you have the makings of a strong green marketing initiative.

Engage… Lead…Report…Repeat!

What NGOs are good partners for a solid green initiative?

I wouldn’t recommend being overly focused on NGOs. Sure, organizations such as the Sierra Club, Environmental Working Group, and National Resources Defense Council get lots of airtime when it comes to environmental protection. They do a great job. In fact…that is their job. And yes, they can even lend credibility at the outset of a green campaign. That said, the vast majority of companies are not in the business of raising awareness of public interest issues. Instead, they exist to deliver needed products and services and return investor value.

Identifying how your organization’s core business, products, and daily operations can be “greened,” and then executing those changes effectively, is a far greater use of time. NGOs will take note of companies that “walk the walk.” They will approach you with partnership opportunities laden with implied, or even outright, endorsements. Aggressive alignment with an NGO early in a green campaign strikes many as marketing-driven greenwashing…public recognition by NGOs of the work you’ve already accomplished is significantly more powerful.

What is your agency doing to become greener?

Simply put, MWW Group has gone green and has become carbon neutral.

The environment has long been an MWW Group focus area, and in an industry where results matter, we’ve put our money where our mouths are. A formal recycling and energy conservation program is in place across our 11 offices, with additional program elements regularly being added – incentives for employees who utilize mass transit, incentives for purchasing hybrid vehicles, etc.

In addition, we’ve partnered with Carbonfund.org, a nonprofit organization that supports renewable energy efficiency and reforestation projects that reduce and offset carbon dioxide emissions. As a result of the firm’s contribution to projects that offset its carbon foot print, MWW Group became a carbon neutral company on March 1st.

Furthermore, last year MWW Group launched a Sustainable Technologies Practice, designed to help market companies and products that enable others to be green. Communicating that energy can be saved by turning out office lights when you leave is one thing… communicating the details of a new solar technology enabling organizations nationwide to dramatically limit their carbon footprints is a whole new ballgame.

What company (non-client) do you think is doing an exemplary job of promoting its green status?

I’ve been extremely impressed with the work Timberland is doing across all aspects of corporate social responsibility, particularly in the environmental category. The company clearly has a cultural commitment to being a green organization and all aspects of their business are increasingly reflecting that principle. Go buy a pair of Timberland shoes and look at the side of the box – outlined, like a nutrition label on a box of cereal, is data on the energy and resources utilized to manufacture that pair of shoes. Strong, honest green programs make for the best marketing initiatives.

How should companies avoid the label of “greenwashing”?

Simple – act first, talk later. Align your campaign with your core business, drive employee engagement at the cultural level, monitor, record, and report progress, and then consistently improve on your performance. It also helps when your green campaign is managed by the president or COO, and not by the CMO.

What regions around the world are doing the most to advance environmental innovation?

When governments and the private sector are on the same page and working in unison towards any goal, the opportunity for success is significant. An excellent example is the public and private work being conducted in the UK in response to Tony Blair’s Renewables Obligation – a vow that at least 40% of the UK’s energy will come from renewable sources by 2020. Significant funds have been poured into making the Obligation a reality with extensive work on wind, biomass, and tidal energy production going on across the UK. The businesses involved in this initiative are just beginning to bring their technologies to the US, leaving the playing field wide open. The opportunity for growth is immense – more proof behind the adage “doing well by doing good.”

An interesting press release from Kimpton Hotels made its way into my inbox.

The company is creating an “EarthCare Press Kit” where it details the company’s green credentials. Given the amount of products used serving customers, travel & leisure companies can be one of the Earth’s best allies or worst antagonists.

Among the touted policies in place:

Green Partners: From suppliers providing organically-grown coffee and organic mini bar goods to soy ink for printing on recycled paper, Kimpton works with a long list of likeminded partners who share their commitment to EarthCare.

Eco Champions: Every Kimpton hotel has a dedicated Eco Champion to oversee and support the implementation of eco-friendly practices at the individual hotels. From Eco Concierges providing tips on Earth friendly activities to chefs who garden on premise, Kimpton’s Eco Champions ensure easy green implementation and education.

A London news site ran a story on John Travolta, who talks about the importance of green, but fails to live up to sustainability standards by flying his own five jets around the world. Travolta’s opinion is it might be time to look to “other planets” or even “dome cities” as possible solutions. Well, that’s easy…

The question isn’t why Travolta is all over the place on this issue, it’s why we turn to him to be an authority on it at all.

An introduction, by way of his blog’s description.

A Guilty Liberal Finally Snaps, Swears Off Plastic, Goes Organic, Becomes A Bicycle Nazi, Turns Off His Power, Composts His Poop and, While Living In New York City, Generally Turns Into a Tree-Hugging Lunatic Who Tries to Save the Polar Bears and …

Gawker (gasp) cynically, mockingly.

With posts titled “I hereby sacrifice my teeth to the environment (kind of)” and “Wake up and smell the compost (joking),” perhaps a mocking is in order. But it seems that this green new world is one-third corporate change, one-third government legislation, one-third individual responsibility. And for the third component, people need Pied Pipers. Even if they appear annoying.

ZDNet is reporting that HP has plans to cut its OWN energy consumption by 20% by 2010.

ZDNet wisely points out that it’s a good marketing move - “Look, we’re HP, reducing our own energy by using our own new energy efficient products.”

But what I find fascinating is the amount of work that likely goes into forecasting the feasibility and business rationality of energy saving projections. I assume it takes months of dedicated work that gets reduced to a pithy statement. 20% in 2010. The public, I assume, is always unaware of whether or not 20% is enough. But it seems big. So congratulations.

Naked Communications’ Noah Brier talks about becoming more green conscious

Austin is the #1 city for clean tech

An interesting (perhaps tenuous) take on how junk food can be a product of “greenwashing“

Previously, we wrote about Paris shutting down the Eiffel Tower light system for five minutes to highlight the need for energy consumption (here’s a tongue-in-cheek account). The major city in the country/continent down under is trying to upstart Paris by taking the same idea and broaden .

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia’s largest city will be plunged into darkness for an hour on Saturday in an attempt at a world first blackout to raise awareness of global warming, organisers say…. The lights will go out in landmark headquarters buildings in Sydney’s central business district, on the iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House, and in tens of thousands of suburban homes.

It’s exciting to see how cities will try and one-up each other. Could NYC be next? Everyone I know who was here during the blackout of 2003 (admittedly in safe areas) attests to how much fun it was.

We asked Bob Schettino at BuzzLogic to do some data diving to on specific areas of interest to the green/clean tech community. Each week, he will crunch the numbers and update the list that determines, per BuzzLogic’s metrics, what the most influential blog, at that time, is in a particular category. This post will go up every Friday.

Carbon emissions

EarthPolicy.Org

Clean technology

Blogging Stocks

Corporate social responsibility

Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

Green policy

Torontoist.com

Sustainable living

WorldChanging.Org

As previously said, I’m trying to become a little greener each day. Through prints out and subway reading, I use a lot of paper. And that concerns me. But what concerns me more is being sent snail mailed press releases. Please don’t do this unless there’s some added component that makes postal mail compulsory. Considering how I often want press releases yesterday, the fact that it reaches me days after it was sent, rather than milliseconds, also provides a compelling argument for e-mail.

Keep in mind, I’m not speaking for the rest of PRWeek. One man’s humble opinion.