Seafood Sustainability Scorecard

The concept of sustainability is most easily visualized when considering finite resources like the amount of usable water or sustainable seafood stock in the world. The notion that, given our current rate of consumption coupled with our existing policies and initiatives, the abundance of seafood that is available to us now will no longer be available in the very near future is a strong, immediate call to action.

Greenpeace has just released its new report on the state of seafood sustainability titled “Carting Away Our Oceans”. In this report, the “Supermarket Seafood Sustainability Scorecard” covers the current seafood sustainability policies and practices of the top 20 supermarkets in the US. As this is the third year that Greenpeace has conducted this report, there is some good trending data regarding the sustainability practices of the retail industry as a whole. Overall, all retailers have scored the same or better than previous years. Popular retailers such as Target, Whole Foods and Safeway have made year upon year gains.

Despite the new initiatives and policies set by retailers, not a single retailer (including the top scorer, Target) managed to obtain a “good” score. This also highlights another pressing issue: half of the retailers listed did not even meet the passing mark. Some have made little to no efforts to improve their sustainability practices over the last three years. These retailers, such as Meijer, Winn-Dixie and Publix, have failed in multiple categories: seafood sustainability initiatives, policy and labeling and transparency.

While this report paints a grim picture of the current state of affairs in seafood sustainability, it should also evoke a sense of urgency from consumers. From this report, we’re armed with the information necessary to make choices as consumers to purchase seafood that can be safely and sustainably harvested. How has or might your increased awareness change your buying habits?

Read the full report here: Greenpeace.org’s “Carting Away Our Oceans”

Posted by Mary Zhu on April 28, 2010 – 12:09 pm

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Welcome to Earth Week!

This week is Earth Week and retailers are already busy coming up with easy ways for consumers to develop green purchasing habits. Here are some of the promotions going on:

During Earth Week, Walgreens stores are accepting printer cartridges and cell phones for recycling. “Earth Zones” have been created at retail locations where consumers can get a discount on earth friendly alternatives products. Additionally, an online Earth Day shop will be donating 30% of sales to the WWF.

In partnership with Terracycle, Walmart will be launching a very special line of up-cycled goods. Check out these reusable totes made from up-cycled potato chip bags. They can be found on the shelf right next to the bags of chips they’re made from!

Target stores are giving away over 1 million reusable totes. Consumers will also be able to recycle a long list of items ranging from the usual cans and bottles to personal electronics at bins in front of retail stores. Aiding in this recycling effort is an online microsite with details on more ways to be green with Target.

In lieu of giveaways, Safeway is partnering with Cellfire to present shoppers with mobile coupons during Earthweek and beyond. There are high hopes for these digital coupons to cut down on the reliance on paper coupons.

In partnership with the NES Group, Sears nationwide and Sears.com will be launching the “Silver Earth” jewlery collection made from 100% recycled silver and packaging materials

It’s great to see that retailers are making efforts in doing their part for Earth Week. Some other ideas for ways to take action and get involved during Earth Week can be found at:

www.earthday.org

http://www.epa.gov/earthday/

http://www.mnn.com/family/raising-a-family/blogs/40-eco-ideas-for-earth-day

http://earthday.nature.org/

What will you be doing for Earth Week?

Posted by Mary Zhu on April 21, 2010 – 8:04 am

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Lessons from Preschool

One of the biggest takeaways from preschool was the concept of cleaning up the end of play time.  I’ve been fortunate to participate in the preschool learning experience as both a student and a teacher.  As an teacher, my goal was to make sure the children not only understood the importance of cleaning up but also enjoyed it too.  We regularly sang songs and played “games” while we cleaned up to make it more fun.  One song, appropriately named the “Clean up” song, was the most common signal to begin cleaning up.  Whenever this ’Clean Up’ song was sung, the children knew it was time to put away the toys and look to their teacher for direction about where to go next.

After a couple weeks, though, the children quickly became accustomed to this new cleanup style and just as quickly bored of it.  In order to make sure they maintained their new cleaning habits, we had to keep them engaged.  The Clean Up song became the Clean Up Game by pretending that, for instance, that there was a clutter monster who would come and eat up all the toys that weren’t put away properly.  While these strategies may seem obvious, it’s rare to see this applied in the real (adult) world.

With that in mind, here are a few simple things we can learn from interactions with preschool children.   For example, if we want to make sure recyclable materials are put in the recycling rather than the trash, it is extremely important to have a signal for specific actions.   Just as the children came to associate the Clean Up song with the end of playtime and the act of cleaning, we have associated recycling with specific symbols and many municipalities provide additional recycling bins alongside trash bins.  These predictable and routine elements make recycling an automatic part of day to day life.  However, there is still a significant amount of recyclable material that ends up in trash bins in public settings.  Often, it’s the inconvenience of holding onto their used cup or bottle until they find the familiar recycling container.  Following the lessons we learned from preschool, here is an innovative fun idea from the Fun Theory contest : A recycling bin that operates like an arcade machine!

Check out this video to see it in action!

The Volkswagen sponsored contest for the “Fun Theory” which produced this and several more Fun Theories that tapped into the idea that “right” thing is much easier to do when it’s the “fun” thing.  What sorts of ways could we make doing the “right” thing, the “fun” thing?

Posted by Mary Zhu on April 12, 2010 – 8:18 am

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What does sustainability mean anyway?

Recently, I came across what I would consider an incongruous image.  In a full two-page ad for a fractional ownership program [evidently, this is a timeshare program for private jets] with Avantair there was a bright green earth symbol with the words “Environmentally Sound” underneath them.  I honestly hadn’t really thought private jets and environmental consciousness could coexist but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and checked out their website.  There I found that were the first fractional to purchase carbon offsets for their flights.

This exercise drove me to consider how sustainability is defined in our world today. Everyday, we come across a myriad of certifications for environmentally conscious and sustainable living.  There are symbols for organic foods, recyclable materials, energy efficiency and even custom brand created symbols and slogans minimized resource consumption.  Water bottle companies tout their thinner bottles with smaller caps that are recyclable and created with fewer resources.  Personally, I would define sustainable goods as those that are created [be that farmed, manufactured, etc] with the honor system in mind.  Yes, the honor system: like “take a penny, leave a penny” or those convenience umbrellas at hotels.  What you use up in order to create your product needs is your responsibility to replenish. It’s not unlike balancing a budget or your checkbook [neither of which are seem to be in fashion at the moment].

I asked around the office for some other ways to define sustainability and here’s an excerpt of what Scott & Cameron had to say:

Cameron: “Sustainability” to me is the act of addressing a concern in terms of how can we make it so that people are able to live longer on this world. What keeps the human race from making itself extinct.

Scott: Sustainability for me is very simple: Let’s say you want to decide if something that you’re doing is sustainable.  Just answer this in the big picture: could you and the people coming after you continue doing this forever? And once you’re finished doing your task, would the Earth support someone else doing it just as readily as it supported you?

While it was clear that the word sustainability meant different things to each of us, it was still inspiring to find a common thread of net balance.  I’d be interested to hear other thoughts on the definition of sustainability and whether they would fit in so neatly like the admittedly small sample I surveyed.

Posted by Mary Zhu on April 1, 2010 – 3:02 pm

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Social Media or Bust!

Social media marketing has become increasingly popular with traditional big brands.  Consumer brands have been some of the very first to adopt social media strategies.  One segment, in particular, has taken social media marketing to a whole new level.

Cola, it makes you feel good!

The cola giants PepsiCo and Coca-cola have both embarked upon large budget social media campaigns focused around making consumers feel good.  Coca-cola’ s project, as mentioned by Vicki here, is dubbed “Live Positively”.  Their current campaign benefits the Boys & Girls Club.

Pepsi’s first foray into Facebook fan page campaigns is their Refresh Everything page.  It is modeled closely after the Chase Community Giving promotion, but the key difference is that it invites fans to vote for their favorite social responsibility project.  The categories range from Health to Art & Culture.

Perhaps as a response to the current economic climate, both campaigns seek to impart a sense of happiness.  While the highlighted campaigns are charity and cause related, both Coca-cola’s Open Happiness and Pepsi ‘s Refresh Everything main campaigns are a broad endeavor to make you good.

Superbowl Strategies – A First

As both are slated to be long term campaigns, it will be some time before we can tell which of cola will brings the most happiness.  A glance at last week’s Superbowl social media frenzy of activity may offer some insight.  For this year’s Superbowl, Pepsi chose to forgo a traditional TV ads for a purely social media advertising campaign.  This bold move has been covered extensively by publications such as Fast Company and the Wall Street Journal.

Following the Superbowl, Forbes magazine provided some insight into the successes and weaknesses in Pepsi’s approach.  In contrast, Coca-cola aired ads in the Superbowl and  invested in their social media strategy via a wraparound frame ad on popular video site, Hulu.com and the aforementioned  Live Positively tab.  Our own analysis of the trend in Facebook fan page numbers for both Coca-cola [+388k for the week] and Pepsi [+208k for the week] post Superbowl presents a finding that suggests Cola-cola’s comprehensive multi-pronged strategy won over Pepsi’s bold decision to eschew a television ad.

In other news

Recently, newly minted Director of BBC Global News, Peter Horrocks, has directed his journalists to embrace social media with these stern words: “If you don’t like it, if you think that level of change or that different way of working isn’t right for me, then go and do something else, because it’s going to happen. You’re not going to be able to stop it.”  It will be interesting to note any changes to content at BBC Global in the near future.

It appears that is prudent to augment traditional brand strategies with new social media campaigns a la Coca-cola, but there is no denying that it is the Pepsi and BBC social media or bust strategies that have gotten all the press.  Do you think this is new approach of “social media or bust!” is the way of the future?

Posted by Mary Zhu on February 11, 2010 – 12:00 pm

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Online Engagement for Social Change

On Friday, I presented a session called “Online Engagement for Social Change” at the She’s Geeky UnConference in Mountainview.

We had a great group of women from all different sectors but there seemed to be a focus on causes and the non-profit sector. It’s interesting how ’social change’ is still not equated with for profit ventures.

I began by showcasing how brands are using Facebook to create and support social change.

We talked about Hopenhagen.org which was created by my company to build a community of citizens from around the world who supported the creation of a fair and binding agreement at Copenhagen. This campaign was widely supported by Coca-Cola, SAP, Siemens and Ogilvy.

Coca-Cola has been a real leader in the space of online engagement – especially on Facebook. Their current campaign is donating $250K to the Boys and Girls clubs of America for every person who messages their friends about the campaign which gets their brand out there on the newsfeeds. They are clever ways to engage fans, give them something to do and increase their brand recognition on Facebook.

The questions with these campaigns is, are brands actually getting more recognition for doing the same things they’ve always done? Imagine that Coca-Cola always gives $250K to the Boys and Girls Club. In the past, Coca-Cola would publish the donation in their CSR report and very few people would actually see it. Now Facebook gives them a way to broadcast their good deeds while also ‘engaging’ users in the donation through amplification of their brand.

The Chase Community Giving campaign on Facebook  is another great idea that brought up some new issues. This was a campaign by Chase bank to give away $5M to non-profits, including $1M to the charity who garnered the most votes for their charity during this campaign on Facebook.  First off, there was an accusation from Invisible Children (the eventual winner) supporters that the Isha Foundation (the runner-up)  had cheated by creating ‘fake’ users on Facebook in the final hours of the campaign. Secondly, in our session, there  were a lot of concerns about how brands, like Chase, are using non-profits to build their fan base on Facebook. Target was the first company that created a giving contest on Facebook, their Bullseye Campaign, back in early 2009. They identified 10 charities they wanted to support and said they would give away $1M across all 10 charities based on their percentage of the vote. Part of the requirement of voting was fan-ing the page.

What do you think about this type of campaign?

Posted by Vicki Saunders on January 31, 2010 – 3:48 pm

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Massive Uptick in Consumer Interest in Sustainable Consumption

Yesterday, I attended the Executive Council’s Value-Based Sustainability: The Business Case for Green & Clean event in San Jose. About 150 people attended and shared their case studies and stories of how they are approaching sustainability in their corporations.

Adam Werbach from SaatchiS was the keynote and he said there has been “a massive uptake of core and dark blue consumers – 30% – who want to substitute products that are more sustainable” into their regular shopping experience.

His core message, also laid out in his book Strategy for Sustainability is that companies need to work on three levels when it comes to sustainability; transparency, engagement and networking.

Transparency:

Adam claims that as part of their research at SaatchiS, consumers are not only drawn to companies that are more environmentally aware but that they also reward companies (he specifically sited cosmetics, phone and paper products) for being honest (the example he gave was a phone company admitting to having mercury in their phones).

Engagement:

If you aren’t engaging your employees you are not only losing ideas that might lead to innovation (Walmart employees engaged in their own personal sustainability plans around energy savings came to work with that in mind and took the lightbulbs out of the vending machines in the store…which led to a $1M savings as it spread throughout the retailer nationwide) but it also increases your business risk (he gave the example of the ConAgra factory workers that didn’t let management know there was a leak in the roof of their factory which eventually led to the big salmonella recall of peanut butter).

Networking:

The ability to scale the impact of your sustainability efforts – the network effect – was illustrated with a P&G example. When P&G did their corporation-wide carbon footprint analysis they found that their worst culprit was in people taking  home their laundry detergent and doing laundry in hot water. …and Tide coldwater was born of that learning.

Finally, Adam believes that companies should pick a NORTH STAR goal like P&G’s – to sell $15B of sustainable products by 2010. These goals should be;

• actionable by every employee
• core to the business
• solves a global human challenge
• achievable in 5-15 years
• inspirational

It has been proven over and over that engaged employees can ignite passion in the organization and build your brand equity amongst consumers.

I was really surprised to see that employee engagement numbers in the US are only 17% according to Towers and Perrin. That means that 83% of employees in your company are not fully engaged. Imagine the impact that has on productivity and your bottom line. Employee engagement tied to your business goals needs to become the norm from an innovation, productivity, and retention standpoint.

Please share your thoughts. Do you think employee engagement in sustainability can drive innovation and higher productivity?

Posted by Vicki Saunders on January 27, 2010 – 11:35 am

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The Year in Review

2009 was a great year for us at Zazengo. Thanks to all of our customers, partners and advisors for making it a great year!

We are very excited to be working with Walmart to develop a global employee engagement program that utilizes our software to track meaningful actions (i.e., sustainability, health and wellness and environment).

We also launched a number of custom Facebook applications for clients like Ogilvy, Coca-Cola, United Way, Martin Luther King Day, Kodak, and Cosmopolitan.

The Hopenhagen application was used by Ogilvy, The United Nations Climate Commission and hundreds of other partners to call individuals to action around the Copenhagen Summit in December. When you install the app you get a passport to Hopenhagen that suggests simple actions you can take to lower your carbon footprint. As you take actions you get points and as you invite friends who participate you earn partial points which moves you up the leaderboard from a citizen to a delegate to an envoy to Ambassador.

Zazengo enables brands, publishers, media companies and non-profits to create powerful social engagement campaigns on any digital platform. Use Zazengo to challenge your target audience to take action, distribute the actions across the web, visualize the impact of the actions and re-engage in a game-like atmosphere. Zazengo identifies your brand ambassadors and gives you the tools to build a powerfully engaged community.

Posted by Vicki Saunders on December 29, 2009 – 11:31 am

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Facebook Impact Challenge Redesigned and Improved

We’re happy to announce today that we’ve done a significant rework of our Facebook application, Impact Challenge. The application was working well, but we felt it wasn’t working well enough. The main goal of this update was to make it more user friendly, to give you a better sense of what is going on in your community (your friends, your challenges, etc), and to let you create any kind of challenge you want to improve our world..

Rather than try to explain it all in depth, here’s a few screenshots highlighting some of the changes.

On the Your Challenges tab you can see your total impact, and quickly access your current challenges:

Also on the Your Challenges tab, you can get a quick view of what your friends are up to, something which was hard to find in the previous version:

Wondering what other people will see when they click on your name? Click “View your Impact Profile” on the Your Challenges tab, and you’ll see this. It shows your latest impact, as well as your total impact and photograph:

In the Find a Challenge tab, you can now find challenges based on a category, and sorted by popularity. In the near future there will be more options here to help you find something interesting to get involved in:

Perhaps the biggest rework was in creating your own challenges. You can choose a metric from our ever-growing list of metrics, upload a photogragh, and generally work to make your challenge compelling:

If you don’t find the thing you want to track on our existing list of metrics, well now you can create your own!

And that about sums this new release up! We’re really looking forward to seeing the kinds of challenges that people create on Impact Challenge. Lets see if we can make a difference! And please send us all your feedback, suggestions, or bug reports.

Posted by Cameron Booth on February 17, 2009 – 12:50 pm

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A challenge to everybody, send us your feedback!

It may have been a new year for a while now by the western calendar, but it was the Chinese new year yesterday and what better time than that to start something new. This is just a quick post to let you know that we want your feedback! We want to know what you love about Zazengo, what you hate about it, and everything in between.

We have an long internal list of stuff we want to change/add/remove on the site, and of course it has been based on feedback we’ve received from many members and organizations, but we’ve never really formalized our feedback system, until now.

We’ve integrated in a feedback system using UserVoice.com, (another Santa Cruz company by the way!) on every page in our site. You’ll see the tab on the right side of your page. Just click it, and let us know your wildest dreams about how what you would love to see on Zazengo. Big ideas, or small ones, we’re open to hearing all of them.

The smart thing about UserVoice is that you can enter as many ideas as you wish, but you can only vote up a limited number of them, and the ideas that have the highest votes will for sure be the ones we look at first. So use your votes judiciously!

Posted by Cameron Booth on January 27, 2009 – 9:24 am

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