Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

 The company that gave us one of the world's most horrific environmental disasters is now serving up another spectacle -- this one colored green rather than muck-black.  Two decades after the Valdez spill, a corporate fight is spilling out of Exxon's boardroom.  

As reported by The New York Times, the Rockefeller family wants to strip Rex W. Tillerson of his position as chairman because of perceived foot-dragging on sustainability issues.

It's encouraging to see business titans battling to determine how to be strategically, effectively, profitably green.  Thomas "The World is Flat" Friedman indicated the green revolution won't have really started until people stop talking happy and start throwing elbows.  At that point we'll know something big is at stake.  Dressing down a a board chairman looks pretty big from here. 

What does Exxon do next?  Probably, the media attention means it has to get more out front on sustainability.  Chalk one up for the Rockefellers and the planet.

The Olympic Torch is probably feeling burned out right now.  A jaunt around the globe sounds romantic, but not with thousands of protesters dogging you.  Plus, it's hard to get 'fired up' with folks checking your carbon.  Here, Slate.com analyzes the Torch's green credentials ... http://www.slate.com/id/2188876/

Reading the report, it dawned on me: this isn't a Torch issue, this is a call-to-action for the entire marketing industry. For a long time, we've made hay with the grand goodwill gesture.  Often this involves sending some special something-or-other and attendant VIPs traveling around a state, a country, the world.  That's understandable; tours and events can be effective ways to get out a message.  

Four years ago, I played a big role in launching a p.r. tour that helped a lot of people.  I'm still proud of that, but today I know that any message, any gesture will be measured against its environmental impact.   Four years ago, I didn't give that a second thought, unfortunately.  Today, I'd look at buying carbon credits to off-set the impact of my p.r. barnstorm or at going completely virtual with it.

There are lots of viable options, but ignoring the dilemmas and trade-offs isn't one of them.   And the grand goodwill tour is just one of the classic tactics we marketing folks need to wrestle with.  Just check out all the paper that goes into an annual report!   

 

About a year ago we started Capstrat Green, an employee-led group that helps us collectively understand sustainability. By doing this we’ll know the sacrifices individuals may need to make, the expected outcomes and understand the balance needed to make both work.

We approach Capstrat Green as a living experiment to provide both external and internal learning.

• We help our clients better understand how sustainability plays into Corporate Social Responsibility by being a living example. We learn to communicate sustainability efforts with credibility.

• We inspire our colleagues to think creatively, yet pragmatically to solve problems. We get paid to do this every day. This program helps keep us in top form.

In short, sustainability is the ultimate in “step ahead” thinking. We’re required to learn, explore, analyze, refine and implement solutions that have a guaranteed impact on our company’s culture, our client’s business and the environment.

Our core 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. The team solicits sustainable solutions to learn from and inspire others.

Criteria

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

• expected environmental impact versus cost to implement

• ease to implement and adopt

• results that can be documented

•originality

The team promotes Capstrat Green throughout the company to drive behavioral change. More importantly, the team shall drive creative thinking with a purpose that balances all the moving parts to understand all sides of an issue. Then they promote innovative thinking to design a solution that works fairly for all concerned.

As more companies want to understand their impact on the world, I imagine we’ll see more internal teams pop up like Capstrat Green.

While you may associate this message with the consumption of alcohol, it seems that a case is being made to apply it to the most basic of beverages. Water. Yesterday in Ad Age, there was a story about a marketing shop and a PR agency that have joined forces to stop the darling of the beverage industry from bottling and selling water.

Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum (whose last name sounds like a party drink) have launched an awareness campaign they’re calling Tappening. Basically it’s an anti-bottled-water campaign targeting, as of now, Coca-Cola. The campaign encourages people to drink tap water and buy reusable bottles. Conveniently, they’ve got some for sale that say, “Think Global. Drink Local.” and “What’s Tappening?” Catchy, huh?

Right now DiMassimo and Yaverbaum are planning to collect 1 million used water bottles, stuff them with their message and deliver them to the new CEO of Coke, Muhtar Kent. Their reason for targeting Coke is that it’s the big fish. The goal behind Tappening isn’t to get the beverage companies to recycle bottles. Coke has already agreed to do that. Tappening is about decreasing the demand for bottled water by getting people to stop buying it and helping restaurants and delis profit from the sales of tap water.

All of this sounds great but as a resident of North Carolina, one of many Southern states experiencing the worst drought in recent history, I have to wonder if this course of action is in fact the “responsible” one.  I’ve got seven or eight cases of bottled water in my pantry right now. And if it doesn’t start raining soon, I’m going to buy more. It just goes to show that being environmentally responsible isn’t as easy as it seems.

Consumer interest in sustainability is at an all time high, and many companies are scrambling to understand, embrace and communicate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

For Capstrat, this means clients are seeking our counsel on strategy and communications for CSR.  But to offer sound and credible work, we know it was critical that our own CSR house be in order.

And so 2007 for us was a year of introspection about our own practices and how they fit into the larger social and business context of CSR.  With our management team in the lead, we embarked on a series of self-evaluations to bring our agency into alignment with CSR.  We share here what we learned.

Our Triple Bottom Line

To begin our analysis, Capstrat's management team took a hard look at our "triple bottom line" - the hallmark of Corporate Social Responsibility.  Triple bottom line is a buzz phrase of CSR, and refers to a businesses' financial, social and environmental impact. 

Financially, Capstrat has always adhered to strident ethical principals with respect to our business practices and we employ a policy of financial transparency at every level of our company.  Financial results are shared semi-annually with all employees and financial goals are set through a collaborative process.  

On the social front, Capstrat is an agency that seeks to do "work that matters".  We accept projects and clients based on whether we think the work will make a positive difference in the world.  And, we have been recognized for a number of our philanthropy programs.  One is the "Boomerang Society", an employee driven program that delegates 1% of Capstrat net annual revenues to local and regional non-profit organizations. We also assist in the planning and implementation of Capstrat employee volunteer initiatives, and offer matching gifts for employee volunteerism.  Finally, our CapstratCares program offers an easy way for employees to set aside money from each paycheck to go toward a charity.

But when it came to our environmental practices, and our love of all things paper (in all colors), we really needed to take a hard look at the environmental impact of our little corner of Raleigh.  We dug deep and realized that our corporate practices needed to come in line with the sustainability interests of our employees. 

Always quick to take action, our management team appointed a "Green Team" representing employees from all departments. Their charge:  take Capstrat to sustainability in 2007!

Capstrat Goes Green

While management was working on macro changes around our office energy consumption, the Green Team set out to change the ingrained behaviors of our more than 90 staff. Daunted by the many items needing attention, they began by launching "Green Month":  an extravaganza of employees carpooling to work, reusing materials, reducing carbon footprint and expanding recycling efforts.  This was followed by "lunch and learns" and seminars helping employees change their behavior. 

By the year end, we had tangible results and increased attention to keeping the office green.  Some of our new approaches include:

• Hosting paperless meetings – a difficult but necessary transition involving laptop- projected agendas.

• Placing recycling bins at each worker’s desk - no more excuses of the long walk to the copy room!

• Changing printer settings to double-sided (we are in the process of training our clients to "turn over")

• Restructuring office supply orders (refillable pens, recycled paper, etc.) to be more eco-friendly.

• Sending an electronic internal newsletter to employees to keep us all updated on latest progress.

• And finally, holding a competition of employee teams to encourage individual green efforts.  Posters tracking team progress were mounted prominently in our office, and the winning team members each received a basket of green products to take home – bringing green behavior beyond the office!

Looking Ahead

So, as we launch into 2008, we have an exciting plan for a Greener Capstrat. 

At our year-end company meeting, our management announced a number of green incentives for employees, including a loan program for purchase of a green vehicle.  It’s a $2000 no-interest vehicle loan for any employee who buys a personal transport that uses alternative fuel – hybrid; electric; hydrogen; bio-diesels or it fuel efficient at the ultra low or super low level.  Two employees have already taken advantage of this great benefit.

Other plans for 2008 include:

• Reducing white paper consumption by 10%. (We have been admonished against hoarding!)

• Installing light motion sensors to reduce energy usage in our office suite.

• Conducting energy audit in cooperation with our property management company to see where we can reduce energy usage.

• Replacing our many light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs.

• Ensuring our future appliances are energy star.  Our new dishwasher just arrived!

What We Learned

This year-long process not only improved our CSR, but it was equally important in helping us understand what large companies face in moving toward sustainability.  We appreciate that getting serious about CSR can have far reaching challenges in scope and impact for some of our clients.  But our commitment to this important work remains steadfast, and we are proud and excited about what lies ahead as North Carolina’s companies join the movement to make sustainability central to doing business.

As we gear up for another bustling gift-giving season, I’m mindful more than ever of the presentation of my gifts. I don’t mean how to make my gold bows more Martha-like. I’m thinking of how my beautifully wrapped presents are killing our environment. According to the National Retail Federation, trash from gift wrap and shopping bags totals about 4 million tons annually. And each year between Thanksgiving and New Year's, Americans increase their trash by approximately 25 percent, or an extra million tons per week. And paper accounts for more than 40 percent of what's in a typical landfill .

As the current green movement rolls on, people are looking for what they can do to stop pollution, clear out the landfills and save the planet. But there is no magical answer or one single button that can be pushed. When it comes to sustainability, what will truly make a difference are the little things individuals and companies do.

I’ve begun to notice changes around the Capstrat office. Our internal group, the Capstrat Green Committee, drives these changes. Developing innovative ideas for our environmental practices, they’ve turned Capstrat employees into green ambassadors. For example, we now use stainless silverware instead of disposable utensils and coffee stirrers and don’t supply paper cups at the water cooler. While employees gulp down the 25 cent sodas from the drink machine, Capstrat has provided us two extra recycling bins for cans. We have hosted events using sustainable caterers. We strongly encourage others not to print emails. We have switched over to paper-less meetings and defaulted all computers to double-sided printing. We’ve given everyone cardboard boxes to recycle paper at their desks. We take this paper and make notebooks for staff.

We push each other to be as green and eco-friendly as possible. Capstrat has a chance to make a difference with 80 people, and we’re not wasting that opportunity. Think of ways you and your office can be more sustainable this holiday season. For example, instead of traditional holiday cards, send out e-greetings.

One obvious personal solution is to not wrap any presents at all. Even my grandmother has caught the green bug. In recent years, I’ve gotten my ever-reliable pairs of socks wrapped in re-used gift bags, covered in recycled tissue. This could mean she’s finally run out of the wrapping paper I sold her in grade school. But, I hope it’s because she’s more aware of helping the environment.

This holiday season, keep an eye out for the little ways you can alter your routine, and wrap your presents in meaning. Try wrapping Granny’s new set of towels in your old Victoria’s Secret catalogues, and tell her you made a donation to the planet in her name. She’ll understand.