Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

A year ago we started an employee-led group called Capstrat Green. Our purpose was to collectively understand sustainability. Most important for our professional lives, we have to understand how to communicate sustainability. We hope to know the sacrifices individuals may need to make and the expected outcomes. Then, understand the balance needed between the two.

This living experiment learning has simple objectives.

• We seek to help our clients better understand how sustainability plays into Corporate Social Responsibility by being a living example.

• We want to inspire our colleagues to think creatively, yet pragmatically when it comes to solving complex problems.

In short, sustainability is the ultimate in step ahead thinking. We’re required to learn, explore, analyze, refine and implement solutions that will have a guaranteed impact on our company’s culture, our client’s business and the environment. After determining our objectives here’s how we set it up:

Establisha cross-functional core team and a management representative.

We have representatives from all areas of our company, including accounting. We determined early that measurement is key. The team leads our company to find creative ideas that can be practically implemented. It’s worth noting, this is not planned as a Capstrat cost savings initiative. It’s reasonable to assume that conserving environmental resources may also have an impact on our spending. However, we are looking for the biggest impact we can make with the smallest sacrifice. Again, we want to create sustainable solutions to learn from and use to inspire others.

Solicit sustainable ideas from colleagues. The criteria are fairly simple.

Ideas must be implemented within reason. The team reviews ideas for:

• Expected impact versus cost to implement

• Ease to implement and adopt

• Results that can be documented

•Originality

Distribute rewards and recognition as appropriate to drive behavioral change.

The mission is to drive creative thinking with a purpose. Admittedly, that’s easy in a culture like Capstrat’s. Our passion for the world around us is hard to contain. The Green Team helps us balance all of the fantastic suggestions.

I’m sitting at an intersection on March 31, the last day of the economy’s 2008 first quarter rollercoaster ride. On one corner is a Crown station selling regular unleaded gas for $3.23 a gallon, on another corner is Mobil selling a gallon for $3.24, still on another corner is BP with a gallon going for $3.27. I realize a few pennies per gallon are nothing huge but when all three stations are within spitting distance and equal convenience, I wondered what makes the cost difference?

I did a little research and found that Baltimore-based Crown Central Petroleum (the cheapest of the corner), owned refineries and convenience stores but fell on hard times and put all assets up for sale. A small oil company in North Carolina bought all Crown’s local properties.

Okay get this, I also found that very same small North Carolina oil company owns and operates both the Crown AND the BP station. The only difference between the highest (BP) and the lowest (Crown) is brand perception. Given their industry, I immediately see a corollary to sustainability communications.

Toronto-based socially responsible investing research firm Jantzi Research ranks 23 oil and gas companies on their social and environmental performance.

UK-based BP topped the list of high performers. No US-based oil company ranked higher than 12^th. The report states, “…top performers are dominated by European and Canadian companies, while all eight of the US companies evaluated for this report received below-average scores." ExxonMobil, the world’s richest company, securely holds down position 18.

ExxonMobil's environmental record has been a consistent target of critics, not only from outside organizations such as GreenPeace but also from institutional investors who disagree with its stance on global warming. On February 13, 2007, ExxonMobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson acknowledged that the planet was warming while carbon dioxide levels were increasing, but in the same speech said, "I'm no expert on biofuels. I don't know much about farming and I don't know much about moonshine. ... There is really nothing ExxonMobil can bring to that whole biofuels issue. We don't see a direct role for ourselves with today's technology."

A few days earlier on February 11, BP announced that they would spend $8 billion over ten years to research alternative methods of fuel, including natural gas, hydrogen, solar and wind.

So, BP (remember, that’s Beyond Petroleum) gets high marks for trying to be a solution to global warming. Given my little market research corner, do you think the higher gas costs are a brand premium, an investment in alternative energy or oil tycoon pocket padder?

My friends Dustin and Jemma Hostetler are in town for Dustin's art show at Wootini in Chapel Hill. I got a special sneak preview of the show last night. As you can see from the picture, I really liked it. The show will be up March 14 - April 8. Stop by tonight for the opening or sometime over the next three weeks. I think you'll like it.

If you weren't tuned into UNC-TV for Charlie Rose last night, you missed a devastatingly interesting interview of art icon Damien Hirst. I felt compelled to dig a little deeper online, and in just a very few minutes I was practically swimming in screenplay subplots. I encourage you to explore for yourself on your lunch hour, but in the event you're running low on time, here's the beef.

Damien Hirst is the most successful and widely-recognized of a larger group of artists known as the Young British Artists, who led the British shock art movement of the 1980s. His fortunes changed in 1990 when, upon seeing Hirst's first major animal installation piece, A Thousand Years, Charles Saatchi fell in love...

...with the piece and purchased it on the spot. One of the famed founding brothers of not one, but TWO of the U.K.'s most successful advertising agencies, Saatchi soon offered to finance pretty much anything Hirst could dream up. Thus blossomed a symbiotic relationship...

...spanning nearly 13 years, feeding Saatchi's passion for building a collection while funding Hirst's fascination with the grandiose and macabre. During this time Hirst:

• won the Turner Prize, Britain's most famed visual arts honor, offered annually by the Tate Modern

• had an installation banned from display by New York public health officials, citing a potential for "vomiting among the visitors."

• tried his hand in film, writing and directing a short film starring Eddie Izzard

• painted a calibration pattern for the Beagle 2 space probe, with which the probe was supposed to calibrate its cameras after landing on Mars (failed, but still!)

• scored a #2 U.K. hit with his band, Fat Les

• bluff-sued British Airways for copyright infringement over a design of one of their magazine spots

• WAS sued by, and settled with, a British toy company

• enraged most of the western world with his controversial statements on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

Since 2003, Hirst's career and work have attained record-breaking heights. His art continues to reflect his focus on the most basic of human imperatives - life, death, truth and love.

Last year Hirst staged a show featuring For the Love of God, an 18th century skull completely encased in diamonds - $15,000,000 worth of diamonds. The piece sold for a staggering $100 million. Just a few months earlier, Hirst set the record for the most expensive piece sold at auction by a living artist; his Lullaby Spring sold for $19.3 million.

In his interview with Rose, Hirst makes several references to fellow artist Jeff Koons, who has his own crazy story! Koons went to art school, then worked on Wall Street as a commodities broker, before becoming a big-time überartist himself. Koons fell in love...

...with and married Hungarian-born Italian porn star Ilona Staller, who...

...held down an alternate, 5-year career as a member of the Italian parliament. No Way!

It didn't work out between Jeff and Ilona - but in November of last year, a scant three months after Hirst set the record, Koons dethroned his idol to take the auction record for a piece of art by a living artist. His Hanging Heart sold at Sotheby's for $23.6 million.

What a rush. Artstar icon livin' is fu-un to talk about. And now that I have you all worked up, you should swing by the RED auction. Thrown down by Sotheby's and paid for by Hirst and BONO HIMSELF, the project is impressive in scale, scope and execution. The art is mostly great; I promise it's not scary or gross. The cause is noble and urgent, and the web site is bitchin'.

Happy Valentine's Day.