Wouldn’t you love it if your customers were so smitten with your way of doing business that they were willing to put up with the downsides of doing business with you, just to have that confidence?

How about customers so happy they were willing to speak up for you in your advertising? It may seem incredible, but take a look at this ad (in the guise of a story) from Hitachi.

What makes this work so well?

1. The story makes heroes of Fed Ex’s customer facing people – their drivers. The trucks and the drivers help transform how regular people view Fed Ex – and invite conversation and a sense of connection. Good for employee morale, good for public image, good for marketing.
2. Making the film has made heroes of the behind-the-scenes designers and sustainability folk and procurement people. So the message to employees is “we think what you do really matters”. And its done in a way that employees can show to their families – and broadcast in advertisements and on the internet.
3. The film highlights that there was a coherent thought – from development of the right parts all the way to consumer. Because sustainability is linked to every firm’s self-interest, it feels credible. And, it feels clever – you think “what a smart set of companies”. They had the right product and the right vision and the right people to get something on the market that the world needs right now. And they did it in a way that makes money. How cool is that?!

Was Hitachi’s process really so enlightened and smooth? I can’t say for sure. But after spending some time on their site looking at their supporting actions, I felt that they have an approach that is forward looking, very human, enlightened and still self-interested. And that makes me want to trust them.

And that’s really the ultimate goal: have people want to trust you. Because they see you the corporation, as you – a person. A being that is reasonable, and well-intentioned, even if you’re fallible.

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• Our ‘No Jargon’ guarantee – to help our dialogue stay meaningful.

You shouldn’t catch us saying things like: “You can leverage sustainability by using process orientation to capture the low hanging fruit…”.  And if you do: you get to sling that (low hanging) fruit right at us.

• YOUR platform – so the project is focussed on your dreams and struggles, not ours.

• Outcomes, not models – so you end up where you want to end up.  …and not as checkmarks on a list

What we mean: we once worked with a company whose engineers had determined that it would take 12 steps to find a solution to their problem.  At the end of the 12 steps – no solution.  But as all the steps had been taken, the engineers marked the project as “complete”.

That’s not complete to us – complete is when you and we together determine that you’ve achieved what the project was intended to achieve.

• Processes and milestones – so you know where you’re headed, and can track progress.

This protects you as much as it does us:  together we define the steps, how we’ll know if they’re complete, and what each party needs to do to complete them.  At the same time, we build in ongoing reviews so that we assess in real time how things are going, and where modifications may be necessary.  And we move forward only with clarity and agreement on what is to be done next, and when we will next review it.

• Reasonable (in)consistency – at the beginning of a project it seems easy to determine what needs to be done and how.  And then, the unexpected happens:  resistance or tremendous enthusiasm (where you least expected it); external factors like legislation or customer demands or supply shocks.  We work with you to find ways over, around and through such moments.  We adapt, we work weekends, we work nights – we do what it takes to make sure the project delivers.

• The guarantee: You only pay for what you’ve signed off on.  At each review if you are satisfied with the steps taken and progress made, you sign off.  If you are not, we determine the plan for fixing that.  But you only pay when we are agreed.

If this makes sense to you,  contact us directly.  (Want to know more about who we are?  Click here to get a snapshot view…)

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2. How to design for "PreCycling"
3. What were you before you became responsible?

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Our goal is to support you in bringing vigour and growth to your organisation.  That’s why we recommend subscribing to the newsletter:  every month you’ll get an e-mail with insights on how other’s have succeeded, our latest articles, highlights of discussions, links to interesting resources, and details on upcoming events.  Straight to your inbox so you don’t have to go searching, or remember to check…  In fact, if you send us questions, we’ll use the newsletter as well as the blog to ensure they get answered.  Conversations are always more interesting than monologues!

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We support organisations by facilitating and enabling fruitful dialogue with stakeholders such as NGOs, government, supply chain and even competitors.

Vision

To grow value without harm.

Mission

To inspire growth, for people and organisations, by

• de-mystifying the environment & sustainability

• accelerating sustainable growth

To harness the power of people by

• connecting and mobilising your value chain

• engaging people’s better natures

• facilitating dialogue between sectors

Like what you see?  Check out our offer here.

Or contact us to discuss – we’d love to hear from you, and we’d particularly like to talk with you!

Related posts:

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2. Are your customers facing needlessly unpleasant tradeoffs?

Difficult Choices

My grocery offer a huge variety of choice:
by origin (Sumatran; Kenyan, etc.);
by species (?) Arabica or blends;
by roast (dark roast, medium roast, light roast);
caffeinated or decaffeinated;
Fair Trade or … ?
Organic vs …?
But with all that choice I still couldn’t get exactly what I wanted – so instead of being gratified by choice, I was unhappy.

Could it be that you are providing your customers the same discomfort my grocery store was providing me?

More choice required me to choose against things I wanted, as well as for.  For example, since it is was possible to choose fair trade, it felt really unpleasant to choose what felt like ‘unfair’ trade. Or chemical rather than organic. Not to mention the flavour I particularly wanted. So whatever choice I made out of the huge variety I was presented with, felt wrong. And I felt bad.

In trying to give me so much choice,  my supplier was actually giving me a bad time.

Easy choices vs Difficult choices

Some choices are mutually exclusive.  These are easy.  For example, if you want dark roast coffee you can’t have light roast. But other choices are really difficult:  Dark Roast or Fair Trade?  Fair Trade or Organic.   How can you decide between them – I mean how many units of ‘making sure farmers in Colombia are reasonably compenated for their work’ = making sure they farm free of chemicals?  And selfishly, how many units of pleasure do I get from drinking dark roast, compared to the units of smugness I get from feeling I am contributing to a better living for a farmer elsewhere?

Could these difficulties be mine alone?

This is where things get really important. Because back then I used to feel that I was alone in sweating the choice between fair trade and dark roast. But one day Marks & Spencers, one of Britain’s key retailers, present in virtually every town in England, took a gamble, and made all of their coffee fair trade and environmentally sound. Their sales of coffee went up 12% that year.

12% growth in one year?
And it wasn’t just coffee. They started to distinguish themselves with a programme called “look behind the label” in which they spoke about how they worked with the supply chain from field to shop floor – ensuring conditions were good, trade equitable, environmental practices sound. Sales rose, their stock market price rose, and they reversed years of decline. [insert graph]

Why did this work so well?

It turns out that making your customer’s difficult choices easy unleashes huge good will and loyalty. For example, Whole Foods, Wild Oats and similar retailers dominated growth in the grocery sector for over a decade because they positioned themselves as “no bad choices” in the stores. Customer’s didn’t need to feel they were sacrificing taste to ethics, or the reverse.

And this wasn’t just true for food stuffs:  when the Mall of America in Minnesota, one of the largest, if not the largest mall in the world, decided to run a pilot collection programme for used electronics, they had filled all the storage capacity they had provided for the entire programme, on the morning of the first day. People didn’t show up with the electronics that had just broken down. They showed up with 15 years of electronics that were too good to throw away – but not useful enough to find a home.

That pent up demand is your opportunity

Your customers are aching to make choices that meet their immediate and selfish desires, and still support their values.

So take a look at your offer and ask yourself the following questions:

• Would I be willing to have my family visit the entire supply chain for this product? Would your family be shocked if they saw where your supplies come from?  For example, would they see sustainable forests or clear cutting? workers in protective gear, or exposed to danger? I bring in your family because it is such a good test of values.  If you can only explain your work by saying “it’s just business”, you’re giving up the values that keep your customers content with their choices.  It’s worth visiting your suppliers, and finding out for yourself.  
• Do I have a good story to offer my customers about this product’s journey after they’ve used all they can? It’s difficult to know exactly what happens to your product and it’s packaging once it’s been used.  Yet that is where your customer has their last strong emotional moment:  can they recycle it?   Do they have to struggle to dispose of it – and will that be expensive?  Are there elements in it that are somehow dangerous to the environment?  The better they feel about their choices at this point, the warmer their feelings towards you and your company.

A yes to these two questions is a yes to comfortable choices for your customers, and a no to uncomfortable trade-offs.

No bitter brew

Some days when I went to buy coffee, I couldn’t stand having to make the unpleasant trade-offfs, and I would leave the store empty-handed.  The last thing your customers want, and the last thing you want your customers to do!

When you give your customer comfortable choices, they’ll have all the satisfaction of their favourite cup of coffee, and a clean conscience too.

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Whether you are running a company or a market, working on brands or purchasing, you’ll see that going green is a straightforward, step-by-step process that you can drive – in a way that supports you, your shareholders, nature and your community.  In fact some companies have found it so profitable, they are insisting their suppliers adopt sustainability – to reduce costs.

So why isn’t everybody doing it?

Most business people find sustainability slippery!

Fair enough-it’s not like you don’t have other pressures on you.  Keeping a business running smoothly isn’t easy.  Adding pressure to perform ‘environmentally’ and ‘sustainably’ doesn’t seem to make it easier.  In fact, not only does it complicate things, it seems pretty difficult to know if you’re getting it right.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get on top of this sustainability stuff now, so that you’re in control?  So that you set the agenda, grow your business proudly, and establish a platform for gaining market share over your competitors?

I help business leaders who want to operate sustainably but don’t know how to make it profitable.

You can reclaim these issues and get a competitive edge.

And it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg in time, energy and resources.

You can start by ordering Wasted! – a practical, step-by-step guide to measuring the costs of your waste – so you can decrease waste and increase your margins fast.  (Quick note – you’ll be asked to sign up for it so we know where its going.  You’ll see our no-spam policy and ease-of-unsubscribe promise there).

Plus, you’ll get ren-newal, our monthly newsletter, with articles on how companies are transitioning into profitably sustainable businesses (and some embarrassing examples of companies throwing money at nothing…).

Or, if you want immediate, hands-on help with your  business, you can check out my services here.

But you may be wondering – can this approach really help you and your business? Click here to find out who really benefits from our approach.

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• Your customers are demanding proof of sustainability. Your business is getting requests from customers and their customers to demonstrate environmental and human rights compliance not just for your part of the operations, but for all your suppliers and their suppliers too. You’ve been sending letters to assert that you’re in compliance with the law. But they’re developing their own specifications for compliance – and they’re starting to talk about having you do an audit of your whole supply chain.
• You’re suddenly responsible for recycling your products once they’ve been used. Your business is designing, making and distributing your products. Now customers and governments are asking you to take responsibility for the products you sold – after they’ve been used. You’re not sure how to identify where they are, not to mention how to get them back. So how do you get that sorted?
• Your competitor’s gaining market share by going green. A competitor has jumped onto the environmental bandwagon, and you’re worried his gains are coming at your expense. You don’t want to play “me too”, but you don’t want to lose either. And you certainly don’t want him to get credit if he’s not really green.
• Marketing is saying that there’s a great opportunity – but you need to go green fast. They want you to position the company on its carbon footprint. While you think there must be an opportunity in doing something with the environment, you’re asking yourself, What’s a carbon footprint? and how do we know that’s the advantage? But how do you begin to figure what your environmental positioning should be?
• Questions are being raised about your outsourcing. You’re expanding your business to other countries, and have found some good partners in countries like Dubai, India and China. Now there have been some letters raising issues about how they are managing human rights, labour practices and bribery. You’ve passed the questions on to purchasing, but does anybody really know?
• Your staff have become a bit complacent. You’re proud of your business. Your customers are repeat customers and seem pretty satisfied. But you worry your staff is complacent and set in their ways. A competitor is coming in aggressively, and you’re looking for an issue that will get your staff fired up and performing. Could green be the way to go?

If you find that one or more of those scenarios rings a bell, I can help you.

Of course, you may wonder if this approach will work for you, because actually:

• you feel pretty ignorant about environmental issues and need to start from scratch, or

• you’re passionate about environment, but don’t see how to integrate it in the business; or

• you’re competitive. You don’t care so much about the environment, but you really care about getting an edge on your competitors and impressing your shareholders, and are willing to do what it takes.

Experience has shown that it’s not your starting position with the environment that matters, it’s the focus on outcomes. Clients who have the greatest success are those who:

• Want to leave their mark on their company
• Demand results
• Are determined to build brand value
• See environment & sustainability as a way to gain an enduring competitive edge
• Want to leave a meaningful legacy to their community
• Wish they were creating the world they want for their kids
• Want to be excited
• Love nature

But just in case you want a more business-like sense of who this has worked for before, here’s a short list:

• A strategist who wanted to ensure his company was working on the issues that would take it into the future successfully;
• A customer focused leader who wanted to inspire loyalty and affection in clients through her way of doing business;
• A marketing genius who was looking for opportunities to differentiate himself and his company meaningfully;
• A PR non-hack who wanted a deeper understanding of sustainability to better align her communications with what really mattered to her audiences;
• A change agent who wanted to reinvigorate staff, and was looking for the issues and tools to create urgency, motivation and momentum.
• A hard-headed business person who wanted to get his head around what the environment and sustainability meant practically to the business;
• A prudent business leader who wanted to get involved in the environment, without the risk of hiring a full time environmental director;
• An innovator who wondered how to incorporate the environment meaningfully into design decisions.

But you may be wondering – can this approach really help you and your business? Click here to see our approach to becoming a sustainable business.

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But you may want to rethink this.

Research has shown that people and businesses routinely overestimate the goodwill others will show them. Take a look at the following cases, and ask yourself to what extent your answers would meet your customer’s needs – and what that might do for your competitiveness:

• Climate impacts:

Three dozen global companies (such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, Johnson and Johnson, P&G, Boeing, Dell, and PepsiCo) have requested that all their suppliers disclose their green house gas emissions and associated reduction strategies.

Do you know the carbon footprint of your operations and your products?

• Cost of emitting:

Governments are increasingly charging for carbon – not just CO₂, but “equivalents” such as methane and other heat-trapping gasses. That means all the carbon from the raw materials, to transportation, to manufacturing…

Do you know how much your costs will increase?

• Greening your Customer:

Even in recession, retailers have found that their green labels and energy efficient products are outperforming conventional merchandise sales across the board.

Can you tell you customer how you’re helping them grow these opportunities?

• Growth Opportunities:

DHL turned their environmental performance improvements into revenue generators: not only do they get savings from energy improvements – they sell the ‘renewable’ credits to companies that benefit from them, either legally or commercially.

Do you know how the environment could make you money as well as save you money?

If you struggled to answer any of these questions, you are vulnerable to the impacts of government, retailers, and competitors – all of whom are trying to get the upper hand in this field. It’s happened before – and when your business goes, it goes fast:

• Polycarbonate bottles have lost substantial market share and reputation to metal bottles due to Bis-phenol A (BPA) – even though they very quickly found a non-PBA substitute. Competitive materials (including glass, aluminium, steel and non-BPA polycarbonate called Tritan) saw a 500% increase in one-year, and Wal-Mart delisted BPA-containing bottles;
• When KKR bought an energy company that had committed to building 11 coal-fired plants, they pulled the plug on eight of them on environmental grounds, forcing suppliers to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
• The bottled-water companies ditched PVC for water bottles within weeks of Greenpeace running some high profile public campaigns in stores – giving PET a free launch and ultimately market dominance.

But one company’s loss is another’s gain.

And when you win, you win big!

• Think of the polycarbonate water bottles. When polycarbonate was delisted by retailers, Eastman Chemical’s Tritan (a BPA-free alternative) took off: Nalgene and most other brands of durable plastic baby and water bottles switched to Tritan. (And as we said above – aluminum and steel bottles sales grew 500% during the same period).
• Marks&Spencers took all their coffee FairTrade – and saw sales rise 12% the same year.
• KKK, the venture capitalists, ran a sustainability pilot that netted them $82 million in savings the first year.
• Interface calculates that in the ten years they’ve been working towards sustainability, they’ve saved over $360 million dollars. Nice. Even more beneficial, they say, they launched three best-selling lines based on sustainable design further increasing profitability and market share.

If you feel that saving money while improving your environmental performance is a powerful way to go – download our Wasted! guide to calculating the true cost of your waste so you can cut those losses and focus on profitability.

If you feel that developing an environmental competitive advantage is more likely to be the game changer you’re looking for, you can contact us directly and we’ll get back to you to set up a half hour, no charge discussion about your situation and what you’re looking for.

But you may want to know more about what you can expect from working with us.  Here are our promises.

Or perhaps you want to know more about us first – click here.

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