Gem of the day

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) apparently launched a series of billboard ads in New York, featuring such zingers as:

"A good neighbour lends you a cup of sugar; A great neighbour provides you with 1.4 million barrels of oil a day."

Uber-gem

Via Futerra:
No one ever said participating in a webinar on BP’s 2010 Sustainability Review would be fun. And aside from the southern drawl of its host, Louise Tyson, who heads up sustainability reporting at BP, it was a tepid affair. Why even bother reflecting on a document that failed to include estimates of the Deepwater Horizon spill volume, demonstrate real environmental targets, or tell us what the scientific community has to say?

Well, mostly just to hear gems including:

• “BP wasn’t comfortable publishing that kind of number.” The response given when asked why the spill numbers didn’t feature.
• “Negative word-of-mouth is not helping BP’s reputation – nearly half would criticise BP.” This remarkably whiny finding from the GlobeScan stakeholder survey, which aimed to gauge the success of BP’s report, was at the centre of a 20-minute discussion from our hosts on reputation. Not performance, reputation.
• “Do you have any ideas that would make our reporting perceived as credible?” No comment.
• “This is something we need to look into.” The response given to someone asking about climate adaptation and what BP is doing about it.

By far the best gem was BP’s immediate response to my question: what is BP’s sustainability reporting objective?

“To make sure we communicate our approach to a broad range of stakeholders in a concise way.”

Let’s not be surprised that the reporting process actually has no link to sustainability performance. It’s just another communications tool for BP, and not a very good one at that.

After all, if BP was really listening to “stakeholders” like CarbonTracker, Bob Dudley might not have made this whopper of a statement in response to disappointing profit numbers for last quarter:

"We are committed to seeing the true value of the business more strongly reflected in our share price.”

I hope so too, Bob.

Gem of the day

Here's a tough job title to swallow: VP for environmental affairs at the Air Transport Association, aka the largest airline industry group in the United States. Nancy Young has the privilege of wielding that very title.
Her unsurprising take on the American industry facing inclusion under the EU ETS (via NY Times):

“The plan violates international law.”

Gem of the day

Best quote ever from Bob Dudley following lower-than-expected BP profits this week:

"We are committed to seeing the true value of the business more strongly reflected in our share price.” 

Are you sure that's what you want Bob? Might want to call your friends at Carbon Tracker.

Bonus bonus gem

The best part of Bob Dudley's explanation for BP's profit falling below forecasts this quarter is that he expects the company's recovery to pick up as "uncertainties reduce" into 2013.

But Bob, how does that gel with what you said about BP's core business strategy in your sustainability report statement this year--remember?

"BP will continue to move farther into harsh, remote and complex geographies, from deep water to the Russian Arctic; from oil sands and unconventional gas to giant fields – such as Rumaila in Iraq."

Bonus gem

Joel Makower, resident green business guru, vs. marketing professional Michael Martin, on the vortex of corporate sustainability (via GreenBiz, where else?):

"Makower: I'm getting pitches every day by publicists at major P.R. firms as directly from companies themselves, touting the thinnest of green initiatives. Company A just published a sustainability report! Company B put solar panels on the roof of one of its distribution centers! Company C is giving a nickel per widget sold to Ducks Unlimited for the month of June! Company D is eliminating a toxic ingredient from its products! Company E just got an award from the mayor for recycling! Company F is now selling shampoo in packaging made from plants!"

"Martin: Media outlets should be more aggressive in questioning companies about these small incremental efforts."

Finally. Unfortunately a media standard just ain't gonna cut it--most of the world's most respected (oops) newspapers, with the kinds of journalists equipped to critique and investigate greenwashing or incremental claims, are busy trying to adjust to the competitive digital sphere. Environmental journalism isn't exactly a moneymaker.

Meanwhile, the digital outlets that are most capable of keeping up with the powerful speed of corporate PR in real time, are busy trying to make money.

Time will tell for each and every company that tries to use tepid green marketing to disguise lack of meaningful strategy. You either accept the huge risks we face, and start to factor them into your core business, or you don't--and you'll fail.

Gem of the day

America is not known for having a national energy policy. Mostly because, well, it doesn't now and it never really has. Even back in the 1970s the State Department was barely equipped to respond to national emergencies with regards to oil supply, let alone a preventative strategy to create cleaner, more reliable energy sources. Here's Henry Kissinger pulling his hair out over the potential cut-off from international oil supplies on October 7th, 1973:

"Some day I would like someone to explain to me how this happened. Can we develop a plan that, if there is a cut-off, what can we do? What does the President say on the day of the cut-off?"

Bonus gem

Paul LePage, Governor of Maine, has never been a spirited advocate for clean energy and energy efficiency (please note understatement). This summer he's taking his unofficial campaign for more domestic, private chartered planes to the masses. But before we get to his gem of a quote, here's the operations manager for Augusta State Airport in Maine on what the sky looks like on any given afternoon as the nation's most wealthy parents ship their kids in and out of summer camps:

“We have 50 to 60 jets up here in just that one day,” Mr. Kilmer said. “It’s a madhouse because they all leave at the same time, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.”

LePage is a big fan. Private airplane freedom for all! It's the American dream in a nutshell:

“Love it, love it, love it,” Mr. LePage said of the private-plane traffic generated by summer camps. “I wish they’d stay a week while they’re here. This is a big business.”

Gem of the day

Try selling a different concept of mobility to this guy (via NY Times article about the Hamptons, where else?):

"Eli Schwartz, a lawyer, trades in his Ferrari every year for a new model. His other car, he said, is a Hyundai. 'He’s only kidding,' said his wife, Amy. 'Don’t print that.'”

Bonus gem

Here's Forum for the Future on who they chose to convene to talk about "innovative business models leading the next wave of sustainability":

"Back in 2010, we convened a roundtable with representatives from M&S, Unilever, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Kingfisher and the Shell Foundation to explore the emerging idea of sustainable business models."

Ironic but entirely unsurprising that they had to work with Shell's philanthropic arm--i.e. not its core business.

A corporate foundation is not an innovative business model. It is a sustainability glass ceiling.

Here's a thought--if Forum can't get Shell's actual business to the table, find a renewable energy firm that is leading the next wave of sustainability to invite instead.

Gem of the day

Apparently greenwash for an energy company doesn't stop at vague, incomplete sustainability reports and aggressive advertising.

Witness this initiative from a Canadian gas extraction company, Talisman Energy: a coloring book for children to tell them all about "fracking" (without using that particular term of course):

"I am here to teach you about a clean energy source called Natural Gas, found right here in the Twin Tiers! Natural Gas is a clean-burning fossil fuel. It is one of the cleanest, safest, and most useful of all energy sources."

Another non-environmental wonder

Spoof of the ad industry from somneone who...works in the ad industry (via adholes):

Another non-environmental wonder

Richard Wilkinson, co-author of Spirit Level, on the realities of social inequality (via John Elkington):

"If Americans want to live the American Dream, they should move to Denmark!"

Gem of the day

Toyota has a new ad campaign targeting African-American car buyers--true story. The best part of the article summarising the campaign in the NY Times are the quotes supplied by Toyota and the ad agency...which essentially describe any human being shopping for a car.

"The African-American market is looking for a vehicle that combines the utility of an S.U.V. with a more carlike ride,” features the RAV4 offers, said Bob Zeinstra, national manager for advertising and strategic planning for Toyota."

But wait, it gets even more awkward:

"She said the African-American car buyers whom Toyota was trying to reach were 25 to 49 years old, “active, youthful, with fairly old-fashioned values, some college education” and a household income of over $50,000. Introduced in 1996, the RAV4 is now in its third generation and has a base price of $22,475."

Old-fashioned values? Might want to not go there, Toyota.

But I'm not the only one expressing disdain:

"Rohit Deshpande, a professor of marketing at the Harvard Business School, criticized the campaign, calling it “something that was pasted on. The creative was not developed from the ground up, there’s nothing specific here to African-Americans except African-American models and what seems to be rather stereotypic patois coming out of a dog’s mouth."

Right.

Another non-environmental wonder

Gem of an excerpt from the Parliamentary sub-committee on Home Affairs hearing on the News of the World scandal (via NY Times):

"When Mr. Hayman [Scotland Yard officer who oversaw the main phone hacking investigation from 2005] went on to acknowledge that he had private dinners with journalists from The News of the World at a time when the paper was under a criminal investigation that he oversaw, and defended that by saying that to 'have turned it down would have been potentially more suspicious than to have it,' peals of laug'ter erupted in the hearing room. When Mr. Hayman, startled, protested — 'I don’t know why you’re laughing” — another committee member retorted, 'Because it’s so incredible.'”

Ah, how our politicians can really rise to the occasion when their collective reputations are at stake.

Gem of the day

In 1977 Bechtel Group installed a 420-ton nuclear-reactor vessel backwards at a power plant in San Onofre, California.

What could better accompany such a gem than a graceful look back at what Bill Gates said about nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster this year?

"If you compare it to the amount that coal has killed per kilowatt hour it is way, way less. Coal kills fewer people at one time, which is highly preferred by politicians."

Thanks Bill.

Uber-gem

Once upon a time there was a big shiny comms agency named Landor & Associates. They claimed to produce transformative, "unforgettable" brand experiences and maintain a legacy that "benefits our clients every day."

There was but one small hurdle in Landor's path of linear progress--its tendency to create Oprah moments of "everyone gets a sustainable brand!" And so in 2000, they didn't think twice about applying their game-changing brandalicious thinking to a little company called BP. In their words, the brief:

"The new organization needed an identity that symbolized its dynamic category leadership and reflected the attributes it aspired to: performance, environmental leadership, innovation, and progressive ideas."

And what they suggested creating:

"The BP helios evokes natural forms and energy that represent BP's position as an environmental leader."

Right.

The best part is the most current proof point attached to the case study:

"In 2010 it was named one of the most relevant identities of the decade by the blog Brand New."

I wonder why that was?

Gem of the day

Thanks to the incessant lauding from the CSR community, Coca Cola has the privilege of consistently forgetting it's a company that has sugary-drinks-that-require-huge-amounts-of-water-to-manufacture-and-are-packaged-in-plastic-bottles as its core business.

Hence why the president of Coke's Philippines business thinks putting up a huge billboard made out of plants is actually a material sustainability initiative:

"We are proud that we have brought to life the first plant billboard in the country. It is an embodiment of our company's 'Live Positively' commitment to making a positive difference in the world by incorporating sustainability into everything that we do. With this, we hope to inspire Filipinos to join us in our journey, because we know that together, we can make a positive impact."

To that end, it's definitely a great example of how irrelevant the company's Live Positively sustainability program is to its real impacts as a business. Water, anyone?

Somebody's been sipping on a few too many caffeinated beverages.

Bonus gem

More from the automotive vortex.

Here's organisation Green Mondays on why Nissan will be one of the businesses participating in an upcoming session on "Creative disruption--strategies for the new paradigm":

"Expecting rising energy prices to shape car demand, Nissan was the first major car maker to switch its R&D focus to EV's. It recently-launched "Leaf" which travels 100 miles on a £2 charge, and its electric knowledge helped Nissan to win the $1bn New York taxi contract in April. With the market now following Nissan, its Sustainability framework has given it a major strategic advantage."

That's nice, but let's think back to Ford's business strategy and look at what Nissan is doing in China, as opposed to in the US which is a saturated market:

"Nissan says it aims to sell 1.15 million cars in China in 2011 and is in the process of expanding production capacity to double the current amount to meet that target."

Right. And what kinds of cars would that be? EVs they are seemingly pouring so much R&D money into?

"Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s second- largest carmaker, aims to double sales of Infiniti-brand vehicles in China this year as demand for luxury cars grows in the world’s biggest automobile market." (source)

Oh, I see.

Gem of the day

Rita Mae Brown once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results."

Sounds like a sound definition of the thinking behind:

• Exxon, Chevron and BP's core business strategies
• Economists' responses to the 2008 financial crisis

Another non-environmental wonder

An Italian in my organisation weighs in on the News of the World scandal:

"Bright side is at least Murdoch is not your prime minister."

Zing!

Bonus gem

Memo to anyone who hasn't read a press quote from a corporate sustainability professional in the past year: a lot of businesses out there are painfully out of touch with reality. By "reality" some CSR folks might say "engaging with stakeholders"--I'd say "accepting the real risks every business will face over the next decade as we face a global crisis". But let's not get picky over the language.

Enter SustainAbility, the [formerly] pioneering change consultancy, with a solution to get businesses back in touch with stakeholders: an event engaging industry stakeholders about...stakeholder engagement.

The motivation is admirable, but my head hurts.

Gem of the day

Wal-Mart's 2011 Global Responsibility Report--that's right, it's all about responsibility now, not sustainability--has no materiality process. No transparency in explaining to the outside world how the company decided which sustainability issues are most important to its business, or to the hundreds of millions of people impacted by its business (Walmart represents 13.4% of the American consumer market).

Oh and they have no targets under the "social" part of their sustainability strategy. Just verbiage.

Right.

Bonus bonus gem

I know Edelman could be put in the "easy target" box but this is deserving of gem status too:

"Are Your Employees Engaged or Just Vacant?

This morning Edelman hosted a brilliant discussion featuring noted experts from both the public and private sector to share their perspectives on employee engagement. The panel included:

>Clare Chapman, Director of Workforce for NHS, former HR Director Tesco."

Yeah.

Bonus gem

Breaking news: Edelman has some issues with the kinds of campaigns it chooses to run for corporate clients.

Gem of the day

Here's a thought. A disturbing number of companies are using the power of corporate communications to claim that sustainability is "part of their DNA" or "simply our way of doing business". Witness:

• "Integrity is part of our DNA. It's not a fad or phase. It's been our family way since 1886". SC Johnson.
• "This philosophy of giving and helping is embraced at every level of our organization and in local communities large and small. It’s in our DNA." Target 
• "This is not the approach to CR management we take at Provident Financial. When asked, as I often am, about how we manage our CR programme, I say it's part of our DNA." Provident Financial
• "Since Cisco’s inception, we have had a culture and philosophy of corporate social responsibility and community involvement. It is embedded in our DNA." Cisco
• "For more than 130 years, Henkel has worked toward achieving sustainable development. Sustainability is part of our DNA." Henkel 
• "My team is committed to behaving responsibly. It is simply part of their DNA." (Land Securities)

I could go on but then we'd all get nauseous.

Leaving aside the awkward fact that a corporation as such can't have DNA in the first place, think of it this way: if CR really was in all of these companies' "DNA", an integral part of everything they say, think and do, we probably wouldn't be facing a systematic sustainability crisis.

Right.

Gem of the day

Ford has already sold 230,068 cars in China in the first 5 months of 2011 alone. Sustainable future, anyone? Oh wait don't worry they're making some of the materials they use in their cars from natural resources like dandelions so it's no biggie.

Love the power of PR.

Gem of the day

Wal-Mart just never stops unintentionally proving how misaligned its aims are to decrease its own impact on the environment vs. the impact of its millions of customers:

"Shoppers at Wal-Mart, the country’s largest discount retailer, are gassing up at a savings. The company announced last week that in 18 states, shoppers could save 10 cents a gallon at Wal-Mart and Murphy gas stations if they paid with a Wal-Mart credit, gift or prepaid card."

Awkward.

Another non-environmental wonder

For the wondrous occasion of 4th of July, who could beat the NY Times?