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Top 10 Articles: The Last Seven Days

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...it actually wasn't meant rhetorically in a recent survey by the Pew Center in Washington.

The conclusion was that there is a 14% increase in the proportion of Americans who say environmental problems are indeed a major global problem (23% in 2002 to 37% in 2007).

U.S. concern is low when looking at other advanced industrial countries, especially since we're seen by 34 of 37 countries surveyed as “hurting the world’s environment the most,” but the level of increase is still comparable.

Since the environment has been such a hot topic recently, perhaps the 2002 numbers tell more of a story. For example, even though China’s concern only rose 1% since 2002, 69% of Chinese people were concerned about the environment that year. This was the highest proportion of concern of any country in 2002 except for South Korea (73%), and Chinese citizens were three times more concerned than Americans that year.

There is evidence that China's leaders are catching up to the concerns of its people, even if only as a result of outside forces, but environmental initiatives are continuously canceled out by colossal economic plans.

For instance, new vehicle-emissions regulations are in the works, but they cannot match the exceptional rate of growth in the number of cars (projected to surpass the U.S. at 130 million vehicles by 2020), due to a policy to promote the domestic car industry.

So when will the U.S. approach the higher echelons of concern, if ever?
Hopefully our 14% increase signifies something bigger: that the level of concern in a country won’t always have to correspond with its level of pollution.
 

Posted by katie facada

The founder of Worldchanging, Alex Steffen, is profiled in this Sunday's New York Times magazine. Sarah Rich of Worldchanging will be one of the speakers at our Influx Ideas 07 conference on October 19th in San Francisco.

• Conference information and registration details can be found here.

While veteran vodka brand Absolut was busy launching its latest ad campaign, upstart Vodka 360 was just coming out of the gate. Absolut might not fear 360, but this new brand is focusing single-mindedly on the environment as a platform. From the process to the packaging; 360 is trying to be squeaky "green".

360 may get its 15 minutes of fame, but ultimately the brand leaders, like Absolut, will integrate environmental values into their brand.

It's all about timing and trying to second guess the tactics of your largest competitors.

360 hopes that the brands are slow and challenged; Russian brands might have a tough time persuading anyone that they are green, but this could be easier for the Scandinavians

Pete Blackshaw in CGM writes today about the the new green conversation in response to the massive cover story by Tom Freidman in today's New York Times Magazine.

Pete shows, that there's a massive green conversation already happening, a finding contradiciting Freidman's belief, that green is still fringe.

The following chart is from a Nielsen Buzzmetrics analysis of green conversations. Terms at the center are of highest volume.

Part 2 of our interview with Ryan Mickle of Dotherightthing.

4. How can/should companies respond to this challenge?

If a company is looking at the significant changes in the demands of consumers as a challenge, this is its first mistake. What exists today is a great opportunity.

Take Google. When Google entered the already saturated market for internet search, it earned the trust of consumers because, since its launch, it clearly marked its paid advertisements while the rest of the fast-growing industry was selling its first results. By earning the trust of consumers early, the founders were able to create passionate users and one of the most valuable brands traded on Wall Street.

The best approach companies can take is to look holistically at their core strategies and operations, in order to understand the non-financial impacts of everything they do. Most importantly, companies need to communicate with consumers to address existing concerns and work together to maximize the positive social and environmental impacts of their business relationships. By involving and communicating directly with consumers, companies will have the opportunity to build the passionate relationships with consumers that spread like wildfire.

5. What's different about what you're doing compared to a site like The Consumerist?

The Consumerist is a great site, but it is very different than dotherightthing.com. The captivating media site, owned by Gawker Media, provides readers with interesting articles on topics relating to consumer rights. As a popular niche news provider, the site provides stories about companies with slightly cynical undertones. Information on dotherightthing.com, however, comes from consumers, employees of companies, members of our communities, and representatives of companies, provides an objective resource of information about companies' impacts, and it is organized by what is relevant to members of the dotherightthing community. While news providers like Consumerist are very effective at raising awareness about companies' activities, dotherightthing "keeps track" of companies' non-financial performance, centralizing this information, which is currently scattered all over the web, and making it easier for consumers to learn which companies are working to make a positive mark on society.

6. How would you like to see the site evolve?

Our vision for the site is to make businesses that do the right things for society more successful and to create a powerful communication channel using which consumers and companies can communicate directly. While many web startups often get sidetracked by lofty aspirations of creating a website that is used by half of the world (a la creating the next MySpace), our goal is to create a passionate community of consumers and companies that set powerful examples of the great potential for creating returns by adopting a core strategy that aims to improve lives and save natural resources. To accomplish this goal, we are constantly listening to our users, both consumers and participating companies, to make dotherightthing.com even better. As the rankings of companies solidify, we envision entire brands being built atop dotherightthing rankings, by shifting the consumer demand, investor dollars, and potential employees' resumes toward companies that do the right things.

7. What other sites, blogs, authors, people inspire you?

I am inspired greatly by the brilliant members of my team, Rod Ebrahimi and Jarkko Laine, whose significant talent and passion has led to the tremendous success of dotherightthing. I also admire the world's leaders who inspire the people around them to make real impacts on the lives of people.

Dotherighthing is a new site that allows consumers to submit stories about companies social perfornance and actions. Users get to rate the stories for impact and after a little time, the companies get a rating.

Influx got the chance to question one of the founder of Dotherightthing, Ryan Mickle, this is part one of the inteview.

1. Briefly describe your background

My background is in management consulting, a perfect fit for someone who enjoys solving problems and leading people, but I have always known that entrepreneurship was my calling. I aspired to solve big problems or, rather, create big solutions. My educational background is in economics, which I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to study at the University of California at Berkeley. What interested me most about economics, however, was not that which people commonly associate with the subject, but was instead one of its broader uses, the study of decisions and influence, in a social context.

2. Where did the idea for dotherightthing.com come from?

There are countless ways in which the financial performance of companies is measured and tracked. We have EPS, PE, FPE, quarterly earnings reports, etc., yet companies impact the world in more ways than can be reflected by measures of financial performance. Rod Ebrahimi and I set out to create a way using which the non-financial measures of performance could be tracked-a "market" for companies' social performance-in order to recognize high social-performing companies. Studies are already revealing that consumers are actively seeking out information about companies' social responsibility and environmental impacts. Yet, existing rankings of companies, based on their impacts on society, according to a recent article in The Harvard Business Review, amount to a "cacophony of self-appointed scorekeepers" that make up a "jumble of largely meaningless rankings, allowing almost any company to boast that it meets some measure of social responsibility." Dotherightthing simply puts all of this information in one place and lets consumers do the ranking of companies, using the information the community supplies.

3. Why do you think the environment is right for the idea- what is it that's placing brands and corporations under the microscope?

In his book, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink wrote about the material abundance in which we live. We have countless choices in every purchase decision we make. Our basic needs can be satisfied by thousands of options. Want a t-shirt? Pick from millions of designs, colors, and materials combinations. Want a cell phone? Again, we are faced with an overwhelming array of options. In the book, Pink concludes that companies will be force to appeal to our emotional senses by pouring money into the design of their products. When we buy plungers for our toilets, according to his argument, consumers will buy the option that is most aesthetically pleasing-the plunger that matches our interior d�cor, our personal styles, etc. Pink was almost right. As people are faced with this abundance of choices, they are making purchasing decisions based on emotion. However, consumers are buying what makes them feel good, from a completely nonmaterial sense.

Secondly, consumers are more informed today than ever before. Videos can be spread virally to millions of viewers with one click. Information, music, breaking news, and anything worth spreading can be shared with a small group of people, at first, yet end up in the hands of more people than those who watch American Idol. The internet has created a near-frictionless environment in which ideas and information can spread at unthinkable speeds and it is creating transparency in businesses, whether they are ready for it or not. 

Lastly, to a highly-educated, self-actualized society, it just makes sense to consider the non-financial implications of the activities of a business, as opposed to operating at the minimum required by law. It can save money-companies like Wal-Mart will save millions by installing solar panels to power their stores. It makes sense (financially and non-financially) to design efficient buildings, which leverage smarter designs to collect natural light and use energy efficiently. When Timberland switched to water-based, non-toxic glues, in an effort to create more environmentally friendly shoes, they quickly realized that employees in manufacturing lines also benefit, by getting to work unconstrained by attire and equipment required to handle the previously used toxic chemicals. By aiming to create both social and financial value, companies are creating workplaces in which employees are passionate about their work, boosting retention and earning them international recognition. Doing the right thing makes business sense.