Green News for the week 08.27.08

Some groups claim that BayerCropScience knew one of its best-selling pesticides has killed millions of honeybees, reports the News & Observer. “A German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning, Bayer’s chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer, the head of Bayer CropScience, after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment,” according to the N&O.

German beekeepers and consumer protection advocates filed the compliant that accuses Bayer of using Clothianidin even while knowing it may have hurt millions of honeybees. So far, Bayer CropScience has blamed the deaths on defective seed corn batches.

Also:
The Inspired Economist’s Chris Milton posts Sustainable Business’ top 20 sustainable businesses (which includes IBM and Chipotle Mexican Grill). Then he asks readers, “Are lists of companies like this helpful in promoting sustainable business practices, or do they simply show which companies have the slickest PR departments?” Also Sarah Lozanova investigates Bank of American’s green claims.

TreeHugger profiles Patagonia’s green business philosophy

College students have the same, or possibly less, access to sustainability-related education than they did in 2001, reports Time.

Denver radio hosts help convey the DNC’s green message.

Fiji Water is fighting back against Erica Schuetz’s Food & Water Watch blog post that cited a BBC program claiming that one-third of local Fijians have no access to clean drinking water (which I referenced in this week’s roundup).

Grace Kang, an associate in corporate communications at Fiji Water, sent me an e-mail yesterday saying that many of those claims were untrue.

“Reliable access to clean, safe drinking water is common throughout much of Fiji, but there are still some remote villages where infrastructure is lacking,” Kang said. “We’re currently funding projects through the Fiji Water Foundation to ensure that these communities are provided with a safe water supply.”

Among those she listed:

-    Providing water access to the villages that surround the company’s water source in the Yaqara Valley.
-    Fiji Water has partnered with the Rotary Club to fund the Pacific Water for Life Trust, which will provide the infrastructure, expertise and skills necessary to deliver sustainable water to more than 100 additional communities, schools, health centers and nursing stations throughout Fiji over the next two years.
-    Fiji Water provides thousands cases of water a year to local villages in Fiji who have been hit by cyclones or flash flooding to provide immediate access to clean, safe water.
-    She said the water Fiji bottles and ships is sourced from an isolated underground aquifer unsuitable for public use, so is unrelated to the cited problem.

“If we didn’t bottle the water the underground flow would simply run into the ocean and fewer people in Fiji would benefit from access to clean, safe water,” Kang added. “Rather than ‘exploiting the environment and people’ as Erica Schuetz claims, protecting the ecosystem of Fiji – which is our greatest resource – and supporting the local economy is very important to us. Fiji benefits from making its water available for export.”

Readers, any thoughts on this response?

For past PRWeek coverage on Fiji Water click here.

News for the week 08.21.08

Greenpeace and animator Mark Fiore have banded together to take on Kleenex’s new Wall*E themed Kleenex boxes.  The eco-group produced an animation parody that “highlights the biting irony of the world’s largest maker of disposable tissues, Kimberly-Clark, using a children’s movie with a strong environmental message to sell a product made of ‘virgin’ fiber clearcut from ancient forests and containing no recycled content,” according to its release.

Also:

The Economist wonders if water is the oil of the 21st century.

Fijians don’t have access to Fiji water, claims Food and Water Watch.

Ikea invests 50 million Euros in cleantech startups with the goal of eventually selling solar panels and other smart technology in its stores.

Best Buy launched a test program that lets consumers recycle their unwanted TVs, computers, and other electronics so the gadgets don’t end up in landfills, the Associated Press. The program comes as retailers are facing increased pressure to offer recycling programs, and Best Buy’s is considered the most extensive free program offered by a major retailer. “We want to take the time to learn if we can handle this before we go any further,” Best Buy spokeswoman Kelly Groehler told the AP. “We know the need is there and the waste stream is there. We think everyone needs to bear some responsibility for this — consumers, retailers, and manufacturers.”

Also:

The Environment Report says most shampoos and cosmetics contain a chemical that might cause cancer.

Electronic books (like the Kindle) show strong sales, reports TreeHugger.

More consumers want to buy environmentally friendly products, but many are confused about what it means to be a green company - often because of unclear messaging by marketers, reports NPR. Among the companies criticized for misleading messaging is BP and its “beyond petroleum” tagline, largely because the majority of the company’s business still comes from oil. The report also cites a study released last week by Bentley College that ranked companies based on how green they are perceived to be by Generation Y. The rankings reflect consumer confusion, with Toyota ranking number one despite being a manufacturer of SUVs and Nike landing on the “worst” list despite recycling shoes and using organic materials, according to NPR.

Also:

Members of the Rockefeller family urge Exxon to take global warming more seriously and to seek alternative fuel sources, the NY Times

Wired contributing editor Spencer Reiss explains his controversial cover piece to NPR

Hybrids are soaring in , resulting in long waiting lists for consumers, reports the LA Times

Solar gadgets next for Apple? Maybe, according to TreeHugger.com

Burt’s Bees, a longtime darling of the green movement, is defending itself against critics now that it is owned by Clorox, according an article in the . But the company has resorted to some weird PR tactics to prove that its product is still natural and eco-friendly — even with the Clorox affiliation:

To prove his own bona fides, [CEO of Burt's Bees] Mr. Replogle grabs a bottle of Burt’s Bees avocado butter hair treatment, squeezes some onto his finger and dramatically licks it off. He then passes the tube to two Clorox executives so they can have a taste.

Yet Clorox execs are promising that they are going to follow the sustainable business practices of Burt’s Bees and take the bleach company green. That might be a hard sell considering the trouble the cleaning giant already has with environmentalists.

But even more fascinating is the fallout between Burt Bees’ founders (and former lovers), Burt Shavitz and Roxanne Quimby, who met while Quimby was hitchhiking.

What is clear is that Mr. Shavitz lost out on a huge payday. In 1999, Ms. Quimby bought out his one-third share in Burt’s Bees by buying him a house in Maine. Much grander than a turkey coop, the home cost $130,000, Ms. Quimby says. She now calls that figure “embarrassing” considering how much she made from the company.

By David Swain
Text 100

In 2007, mainstream communications professionals and reporters got acquainted with green technologies and sustainable business trends. Much of the year was spent covering hype and one-off announcements from VCs, green tech companies, and organizations making themselves more “green.”

In 2008, we’ll see organizations get more aligned and start to make more substantial (and possibly less sexy) changes to their products and how they run their businesses. We’ll also start to see the beginnings of green tech exits and market consolidation in areas like solar; similar to ethanol in 2007, these market changes will create another news cycle where skeptics and advocates come out swinging. What’s exciting is that better educated PR people and journalists should lead to a healthy amount of skepticism that will allow the real stories to rise to the top. Greenwashers will be called out quickly as the year progresses. Lastly, PR people will be increasingly challenged by the global aspects of green business and technology; green-tech competitors will come out of the woodwork in unexpected places and the media will catch on.

Swain is co-clean tech lead and account director at Text 100.

Now that major supermarkets sell store-brand organic products, established organic companies have to give some consumers a reason to spend the extra dollars on their items. For Newman’s Own Organics, the strategy has been to show consumers its consistent commitment to the organic movement.

More than a decade before major retailers went green, Newman’s Own Organics launched amid a quiet organic movement with the simple message that organic snack foods could be tasty. Though it wasn’t the first organic company on the market, Newman’s Own Organics gained a distinct edge by its affiliation with the charitable Newman’s Own brand.

Nell Newman started the organic brand in 1992, and pays her father’s company – Newman’s Own – royalties to use its name, says Sally Shepard, a PR consultant who has worked with Newman’s Own Organics since it launched.

“We are PR-driven so we don’t spend much money on advertising, other than trade advertising,” says Peter Meehan, co-founder and CEO of Newman’s Own Organics. “But mostly we stay consistent, and find categories that are meaningful to convert to organic, and then stay with them. We don’t leave them every time the wind blows.”

For instance, the company kept producing organic carbohydrate foods, even when low-carb dieting took hold of the nation. Keeping consistent also helped the company win consumers during the pet food recall earlier this year.

“When the pet food recall happened we were able to say straight away our pet food does not contain the ingredients in question,” Shepard points out.

Most of Newman’s Own Organics’ charitable contributions are made through its royalty payments to Newman’s Own, which donates all after-tax royalties to charity. Yet, the organic company still ensures that most of its donations go to environmental causes, she adds.

“One of our core foundations is generating money for charity,” Meehan says. “So it’s not a passing, ‘here’s a project, let’s support that group for a little while’ – that’s not what we’re about. Consistency, rather than change, has been our leading effort.”

Though some organic purists are skeptical about the green movement going mass market, Meehan supports the industry’s growth.

“The fact that there are big companies [producing organic] is more challenging,” he says. “But if you’re committed to [organic], like we are, it’s a good thing that there are more organic farmers out there, and more land is certified organic and less land is used conventionally.”

BBMG Conscious Consumer Report claims that about 9 in 10 Americans would describe themselves as “conscious consumers,” and the overwhelming majority support eco-conscious products and brands – if they like the price and quality.

But which companies have successfully cut through the green clutter, and are considered leaders in the socially-responsible space? Not surprisingly, the grocer that helped make organic trendy – Whole Foods – topped the list, followed by other companies that have carved a distinct niche for themselves in the market: Newman’s Own, Ben & Jerry’s, and Burt’s Bees.

Yet despite all the negative publicity against some of Wal-Mart’s business practices, the retailer’s recent eco-conscious initiatives have paid off. About 18% of the public considers Wal-Mart to be one of the most socially-responsible companies. Other big names to make the list are General Electric and Johnson & Johnson.

Other notable findings:

Despite the intense media attention on global warming, only 63 % of those surveyed listed it as a top concern. The highest ranking issues were those that more directly affect health, like safe drinking water (90%), clean air (86%), and devastating diseases (84%).

Then there is a matter of semantics when addressing the public. Americans are comfortable calling themselves “conscious consumers,” “socially responsible,” and even “environmentally-friendly,” but get slightly skittish with the term “green.”

Even so, there are limits on how much most are willing to spend on green products. Nearly 60% said price is very important when considering green goods. Other important attributes: quality, the product’s origins, its energy efficiency, health benefits, and convenience.

Green Business

E Magazine gives kudos to IBM for recycling defective semiconductor chips, and sending the recovered refined silicon to manufacturers of photovoltaic solar cells. This process helps reduce money and waste, and contributes to the solar power industry, the article reports. This coverage could mean, like many tech companies, IBM is reaching out to get its green-friendly message to the public.

The LA Times that a Los Angeles jury awarded $3.2 million to six Nicaraguan farmworkers who sued Dole Food Co. Inc., arguing they had become sterile because of the company’s use of a banned pesticide on its plantations. Dow Chemical Co. is codefendant on the suit.

Dole’s response, so far, has been to discredit the jurors, while Dow is taking a more tactful - but confusing - approach of respectful disagreement:

Dole officials called the verdicts unjust and said they would be appealed. They pointed out that jurors rejected the allegations of six other Nicaraguan workers.

“Dole will not be intimidated by ugly accusations, fraudulent claims, junk science or threats from U.S. trial lawyers, and is prepared to fully litigate each and every case of workers over the last 30 years,” said Dole Vice President C. Michael Carter.

Dole, based in Westlake Village, said the verdict was not likely to have a material effect on its finances. A Dow spokesman praised jurors, while disagreeing with the verdict in favor of the six workers, and declined to comment further.

The Chicago Tribune lets readers opt out of holiday catalogs with a new service that was started by three environmental groups to curb the amount of paper wasted on unwanted catalogs. The new company may have struck a cord with the public, according to the article:

“This time of year, I fear my mailbox,” said Kerry Brock, 50, a painter and interior designer in Weston, Conn., who has used Catalog Choice to request that she be taken off the 55 merchants’ mailing lists so far. “I got a catalog today for something called Musician’s Friend. Is that because I bought a recorder for my son I don’t know how many years ago? And West Marine. I don’t have a boat. Why am I on their mailing list?”

NPR profiles Range Fuels, a company in Georgia, for being the world’s first plant to make ethanol from waste.

Green Policy

NPR reports on the Senate’s approval last week of a bill to cut greenhouse emissions by more than half by 2050. Those in favor of the bill say it will help the United States take on global warming, but opponents say it doesn’t do enough.

The NY Times that Massachusetts could be the first state to require that its home heating oil contain renewable fuels, if a bill proposed by Gov. Patrick gains traction. The bill would require all home heating oil and diesel fuel to contain at least 5 % biofuel by 2013.

The Times also for mayors trying to convince the public that green is a good investment. The mayors, attending a Climate Protection Summit , focused a clear green message:

Cities that are “walkable,” workable and livable add up to the “s” word: sustainable. Cities that are centered on people and public transit, not cars, and built to higher standards of energy efficiency will save money, hum with new development and create jobs to suit a greener way of life.

Many reported problems when trying to get their constituents on board, but strategic communications solutions followed:

Mr. Palmer said he talked about the issue at home in a way residents could relate to. Pollution is bad for your child’s asthma. Leaky buildings and dependency on foreign energy sources can drive up monthly heating bills. Instead of working in a fast-food restaurant, young people could be trained in “green collar jobs,” like retrofitting older buildings to be more efficient and installing solar panels.

Conservation & Activism

The Philadelphia Inquirer points out that bottled water has turned from a status symbol of health-conscious to a “pariah, the environmentally incorrect humvee of beverages.” The Inquirer’s Sandy Bauers lists several interesting campaigns taking on the $10 billion-a-year bottled water industry.

NPR talks to Hilton Kelley, a Texan who is taking on oil giants for polluting the East Texas town of Port Arthur, leaving its poor population with an onslaught of toxic waste.