We learned that we need better green messaging, cities are where we’re going, and children should spend time in nature early and often.

The first annual SXSW Eco conference was a success by many measures. The number of attendees exceeded the organizers’ expectations, the sessions were lead by well-known industry pioneers and up-and-comers, and the discussion was informative and productive. Here were some of the highlights we found most applicable.

Senior Editor, Andrea Newell:

The green movement is losing the messaging war.

As Anna wrote earlier, the green movement is facing the sad truth that people aren’t moved to combat climate change when confronted with grim statistics, alarming graphs scolding and guilt. It isn’t working. We need a new way to connect with people and get them to care.

Knowing your audience is Business 101, yet green has promoted a generally one-size-fits-all rationale. Comedy Central’s Kelleigh Dulany, VP of Corporate Responsibility talked about how she narrowed the focus of the message to Comedy Central’s demographic, made it relevant to them, and, of course, delivered it with humor. Dulany said, “Make the change small, make the result big and make the impact local.”

Due to what many feel is alarmist green marketing, people get the idea that if they are not significantly changing their lifestyle to be green, they are not doing enough. So they do nothing. The truth is that if many people made small changes in their conservation habits, that would make a bigger impact than a few people making big changes. So, taking baby steps toward a greener lifestyle still helps.

Most of us will live in or near cities by mid-century.

As our population grows, it will naturally consume more space. By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will live in or near cities. Cities will expand because that is where the jobs, education and resources are. The turning point will be how those cities react to their increasing size and population. Infrastructure is crucial. Sustainable cities in the future will include better public transportation, bike trails, child-friendly spaces and quality education, good jobs, and access to healthy food.

In addition to planning for better cities, many metropolitan areas need to plan for environmental changes. Melanie Nutter, Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, projects that sea level will rise nearly 55 inches by the end of this century. For San Francisco, surrounded by water on three sides, this is a serious issue. The airport will be underwater, as will 99 miles of roadways. These are eventualities that she knows she must start planning for now. Amongst many aggressive environmental initiatives employed by the city, currently it leads the country in waste disposal (more than 77 percent is composted, recycled or reused) and has set a goal of zero waste by 2020.

Robin Rather, CEO of Collective Strength, Inc. makes the argument that we’re all in this together – cities, suburbs and rural areas. Our current us-versus-them mentality works against progress and change. She contends that we all have to face this problem united, whether we live in super-hip cities like San Francisco, cities in dire straits like Detroit, a Rhode Island suburb or rural Nebraska.

The children are our (environmental) future.

Several speakers and organizations have identified a new, desirable demographic to target – children. (Relatively) free of cynicism and unswayed by complicated charts, children easily believe that the environment is precious and important simply by spending time outside.

Keynote speaker Mark Tercek (The Nature Conservancy) fell in love with nature when he wanted his children to develop an appreciation for the outdoors and they planned many exploratory family trips. TNC supports programs that help urban youth who would not otherwise get to spend time outdoors participate in nature activities. Keynote speaker Philippe Cousteau certainly was brought up to love the water, but his foundation, EarthEcho International focuses on encouraging children to appreciate oceans and their ecosystems. Disney reaches out to children through Iron Way Films using creativity and imagination, and Comedy Central speaks to teens and young adults through humor.

It’s fitting. Children will inherit our planet, so the idea that they should learn to care about it early on is the right one. If children hold so much sway over parental buying decisions, perhaps they can exert influence over some greener behavior, too.

Marketing Manager, Anna Brones:

It’s all about food.

What is the one thing that connects us? The one thing that can get anybody talking? Food. “We cherish our connections to food. We do not cherish our connections to turning off our lightbulbs,” said journalist Simran Sethi. If there is one thing that binds us, no matter what side of the political spectrum we are on, it’s what we eat, and when it comes to talking about the environment and our health, food is also one of the main common denominators.

We need to have uncomfortable conversations.

Population control, religion, race – these are all things that many of us steer clear of, but if we don’t bring these important issues to the table we are going to have serious missed opportunities. Roger-Mark De Souza of Population Action International made the connection between access to reproductive services and family planning and climate change; if we slow population growth we can limit carbon emissions. Here is an area with potential for significant impact, and yet it is one of the many important questions that won’t be on the table at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held in 2012. If we continue to veer from the difficult questions, we can forget progress.

Listen before talking.

Action is needed, but to inspire action we have to know who we are talking to and how they will respond. This requires listening. Identify not only what communities need, but what they want. We live in an era that requires serious action, and we need it now, but if we continue to preach, we won’t effect real change. As Andrew Hutson of Environmental Defense Fund, pointed out, we cannot lead discussion “with ideas that threaten people’s core beliefs and values.”

Editor-in-Chief, Sara Ost:

Life, sustainability, and the pursuit of happiness.

“We need a Rosetta Stone” for green messaging was Gary Lawrence’s quote retweeted round the conference room in “Let’s Stop Talking about Sustainability: How Our Green Vocabulary Is Failing Us.”

We need a ring decoder, someone else said. We need to know how to market and message for our target audiences, another panelist noted. Well, yes.

What are these words that will work? We know what they aren’t. Green, eco, sustainability, environmentalism, climate change, global warming, conservation, cutting back, recycling, reusing, reducing and worst of all: sacrifice. Green doesn’t just have a sex appeal problem (on the level of Christian rap; besides, who wants to be a color?), it has a happiness problem.

We environmentalists can argue about consumption, mitigation versus paradigm shift, and technology until the grass fed cows come home. The fundamental problem is that green, The Movement, asks for sacrifice and gets snippy when it doesn’t happen. If sacrifice were going to work, it would have already. We live in a nation where the grand directive from our President in the weeks after 9/11 was for us to shop. I don’t think we’re at a point as a culture anymore where we can be asked to sacrifice in the face of very real problems – at least not without government involvement (think enforced rations circa WWII).

I’d like to remind people that Obama was able to win an election on simple appeals to our common humanity, to the good in us: “Change” and “Yes we can.”

In this particular panel, Lawrence asked us to consider appealing to the core emotions we all share. These are fear, aspiration and nostalgia. He then said what I consider to be the most profound thing I heard at the entire conference: “We are forgetting about happiness.”

It strikes me that we live in a culture where happiness is not a value – despite the fact that it’s written right into our Declaration of Independence. What American doesn’t recall having to memorize “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in grade school? Yet we don’t take  vacations. Paternity leave? What’s that? Hell, we barely get outside. Take a look at infant mortality rates, the number of adults on antidepressants, the media we consume – it’s awful. On the flight in, I happened to sit next to a woman who counsels Fortune 50 executives on communication and negotiation. She had that glow that really present, grateful, active people have. I was riveted by the earful she gave me about high stakes negotiating, and equally moved when she said, after a pause: “People who live here don’t see just how self-loathing we are. Other cultures are blown away by it.”

Of course, I also couldn’t help but think about Steve Jobs and his impact on the world during all of this green discussion and debate. People love Apple because there’s an element of happiness to the products. Design is soul.

It’s simple, but green needs some soul.

Image: Kewl

The post Lessons From SXSW Eco #2: What Makes Us Think appeared first on EcoSalon.

What is the extent of your relationship with Payless?

Summer Rayne Oakes: I work as a sustainability consultant, largely reviewing product materials, processes, packaging, non-profit partnerships and provide guidance to the overall corporate Sustainability Task Force, when necessary. What I really love about working with Payless, is their willingness to work as a partner in the Zoe & Zac program and beyond.

What areas are you specifically working with them to make improvements?

SRO: I’ve been specifically tasked to work with their team on the Zoe & Zac shoes and accessories line, which focuses on the use of more environmentally-preferable materials like organic cotton, linen, hemp and recycled materials – from rubber, wool, PET and recycled cardboard. I was involved in Zoe & Zac from the very beginning of the concept and my work with Payless involved everything from mission, messaging, and continued new ideas and innovation. This important work on Zoe & Zac has made its way into other initiatives, and I’ve also helped provide input and counsel to the overall company on the structure and dynamics of their sustainability team. In fact, this week I am heading back down to the company’s corporate headquarters in Kansas to give three presentations on varying subjects.

Are you aware of what Payless is doing as a company in terms of corporate social responsibility?

SRO: I am most equipped to talk about the corporate social responsibility initiatives as it relates to Zoe & Zac, however, I’ve been kept relatively up-to-date on corporate-wide initiatives. Collective Brands (parent company) and Payless have been honing in on a range of initiatives – from printing on recycled materials and waste recycling to transportation efficiencies and charitable giving. One of the most exciting initiatives for me has been their progress in transportation, which is a big slice of the pie since they ship to nearly 4,500 stores. Collective Brands has become SmartWay certified, which is the EPA’s initiative to make freight transport operations cleaner and more efficient. More than 80 percent of their transportation carriers are SmartWay certified. That’s equivalent to taking more than 30 million metric tons of CO2 and 200,000 tons of NOx emissions out of the environment. To put it bluntly – that’s about 12 million cars off the road. But it’s an uphill environmental battle. As an aside, that’s 4.7 million short of how many vehicles were sold in China last year alone.

As far as Payless goes on the transportation front, the company is now transporting approximately 80 percent of their inbound deliveries from the port to their distribution centers by rail. This is up from 60 percent last year, which is an incredible jump in efficiency.

Payless also has a long history of charitable giving – ranging from special programs (e.g., supporting breast cancer awareness, higher education scholarships for minority youth, tree restoration, among others) to annual events. They are probably most known for their Payless Gives Shoes 4 Kids shoe giveaway. For two years now, at the holiday season in November and December, they partner with about 750 localized non-profits across the Western Hemisphere (in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and in 10 Latin American countries where there are Payless stores) to distribute $1.2 million in free shoes to children and families in need. Payless has also partnered with The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign, which has committed to planting 100,000 trees. Last year’s program raised $200,000 and will plant 200,000 trees this year. Payless expects this year’s program to be equally as successful.

Does Payless have plans to phase in more eco friendly styles?

SRO: We want to focus on great shoes and accessories and are concentrating right now on quality as opposed to quantity. We’re still learning a lot about the materials, especially on the accessories front, so in the next few seasons, you’ll see about eight principle styles in women’s and girls’ shoes and about 4-6 accessories, which will also include handbags.

Has the Zoe & Zac brand inspired the company as a whole to source sustainable materials and ethical manufacturing in any of their other brands?

SRO: I haven’t followed up on what’s happening with the other brands under Payless, but I believe it is safe to say that Zoe & Zac and the greater sustainability initiatives happening on the corporate level have informed, if not influenced, a number of decisions – from printing, recycling, and using recycled materials.

What is Payless doing about waste and recycling?

SRO: In terms of waste, Payless donates all of their sample shoes to Soles4Souls, which then gives them away to needy children across the globe. They also have a recycling program in all of their corporate and business unit offices, which include Topeka, KS; Lexington, MA; and Englewood, CO. As far as shipping, Payless ends up reusing 45 percent of the corrugated boxes that come into their distribution centers. The inbound shipping boxes from their global manufacturing partners basically get reused to ship shoes to their stores. The rest of the 55 percent corrugate is recycled and all of that cardboard is 70 percent recycled content. Obviously increasing efficiency, reducing waste and using more recycled content is the goal, but it is a work-in-progress.

Payless manufactures their shoes in China, including the Zoe & Zac brand. Have you visited the facility in China where these products are made?

SRO: Absolutely. It was one of the first requests I had when I came on board. The experience was particularly informative. It showed me how much the manufacturing facilities are very much partners in the whole supply chain, as opposed to just some external foreign facility. For instance, one family-owned and operated facility was almost completely dependent on Payless for business and support, and that’s not taken lightly by the [Payless] team. It’s not the most efficient facility, being older, but Payless feels as if it’s their responsibility to work with them to get them there. On a whole, Payless has helped institute a number of changes in the facilities, like the use of tolulene-free materials, non-solvent based cements, and proper ventilation. This is in part due to their long-standing relationship and philosophy with their manufacturing partners, which is absolute key in instituting change. You need to know someone is there for you for the long haul to feel incentivized to move in the right direction.

As far as auditing – I feel as if the team is always at the facility, but proper auditing happens four times per year, and covers issues including: health/safety, labor, and environmental concerns. The Labor issues are in accordance with the latest China Labor Contract Law, which was instituted by the Chinese government in February 2008.

There are other initiatives that Payless is involved in, like the FDRA Overseas Labor Practices initiative, which essentially is a driver in standardized compliance requirements and inspections for the footwear industry. There are also a number of other cool initiatives that are coming out from other trade industries in the coming months, which I’ll be sharing with the team.

And finally, why Payless as opposed to another footwear company?

SRO: Payless approached me about two years ago and I have to say that I was deeply impressed on a number of fronts that made it a no-brainer to work with them. Looking back on it I realize that all of what I mention below is still true.

1. The conversation I was having was with their C-Level executives, meaning that the programs would be taken seriously and gain traction company-wide.
2. The team was enthusiastic – not only about the prospect of working with one another – but also at the prospect of implementing change. Nothing is more fulfilling than working with enthusiastic, passionate people.
3. They were eager to answer questions, and if they didn’t know the answer, they were happy to find out who did.
4. They had already shown initiative by creating a Sustainability Task Force and instituting baseline data points to show progress.
5. They were interested in working with me in a vertically-integrated capacity, which means I wouldn’t just be asked to front a brand, but be working with it through-and-through. Personally, that is a much more fulfilling role for me, and allows me to exercise working with companies that truly share my core values.
6. They take my advice! And the advice of their customers! I can’t tell you how emotionally satisfying that is. And finally,
7. They are a company that reaches a wide demographic, not often focused on environmental concerns, so it really ties back into my core focus of reaching a new audience. I love that.

The post Behind the Scenes of Payless’ Zoe & Zac with Summer Rayne Oakes appeared first on EcoSalon.

Anyone wanting to know how global warming will affect their community in the future now has a new interactive tool, The Climate Wizard, at her fingertips.

Developed by The Nature Conservancy, the University of Washington and the University of Southern Mississippi, the Climate Wizard provides visitors with quick and easy access to information that usually would take hours if not days for them to research for themselves.

Using the Climate Wizard’s interactive map, visitors can access climate change data from the past and explore future predictions. Zoom tools let you refine your searches to examine different carbon dioxide emission scenarios (low, medium, and high) by location, month, season, and year.

I tried to check out my hometown, but for some reason New Zealand seems to have been left off the list of countries. (The image above is of Fox Glacier.) Hoping that it”˜s absence was just an oversight and not an omen, I clicked on the neighbouring Australia instead. Flicking back and forth between the past and the future, it sure looks like Australia will be getting drier and hotter.

Head to the Climate Wizard to find out what’s happening in your neighbourhood.

– via The Daily Green

Image: thinboyfatter

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