Dell is routinely at or near the top of the list for the “greenest” companies on several studies including this one from Greenpeace.

I had the opportunity today to host a Twitter Q&A (Has tag #DellSus) with Bruno Sarda, Director of Global Sustainability Operations, and he talked about the many initiatives that have made Dell one of the greenest and most sustainable companies on the planet.

Here are just three of the impressive sustainability programs we discussed.

• Dell’s Reconnect e-waste recycling initiative with Goodwill, which has created over 250 jobs and diverted more than 200,000 pounds of e-waste from landfills
• Their revolutionary mushroom packaging for Dell servers, made of 100% organic material (The packaging, not the servers)
• The Dell Social Innovation Challenge encourages and nurtures social innovator college students to help bring transformative ideas to pressing problems throughout the world.

Here are highlights from the Twitterview.

Q: What initially sparked your interest in corporate sustainability?

A: Our world needs help. Corporations are a huge force for change & am convinced sustainable business is better business.#DellSus

Q: @Dell is a leader in #sustainability. What is one thing Dell does that many companies forget in their initiatives?

A: @MichaelDell has inspired many of us at @Dell to drive positive change. Great to work for co that enables u to do ur best work.

Harness passion of stakeholders. We collaborate w/ suppliers, customers, competitors, academia, govt, civil society, etc.

Together we are stronger, faster & smarter. EICC, @TSCNews,@TheGreenGrid are good examples.

Q: What CSR achievements with Dell are you most proud of?

A:  Picking only one proud outcome is tough – we have many success stories in supply chain, ops, packaging, product, customers, etc.

Would say am proudest of our e-waste takeback & recycling leadership globally. The results are powerful!

Too many people still don’t know why or where to recycle used electronics. Need to improve collection rates.

Q: Your e-recycling leadership is seen in Reconnect consumer computer recycling. Why is @Goodwill a great partner in your e-waste initiative?

A.  @Goodwill is great partner b/c of our shared goal to create a positive impact on participating communities and environment.

Q. One recent accomplishment is Plant-a-Tree w/ 1/2 million+ trees planted! @carbonfundorg @ConservationFun. What can we expect next with Plant-a-Tree? 

A. @Dell customers are true heroes, we’re so grateful to them. They donated $2M+ to help reach this milestone. Our commitment to environmental conservation goes beyond Plant-a-Tree. You can expect more in the future.

Q: How does reuse play into Dell’s sustainability strategy?

A. Much of what is collected in takeback program can be and is reused – either in whole or in part.

Q: Overall, @Dell4Good refers to a lifecycle approach to sustainability. What does this mean exactly?

A: Means being aware of all the things you touch, and to look to reduce environmental impacts at every step.

We recently produced a short animated piece to illustrate what it means @Dell

Q: What patterns or trends are you noticing from you customers as it relates to sustainability?

A:  Seeing grt interest frm govt & corp customers to green their supply chain but also their operations. We help them w/ both.

Q: What green/sustainable efforts do Dell employees practice internally? 

A: Employees full of passion for #green. Many locations globally have green teams working locally. Inspiring!

Q: As a corporate leader in sustainability, how has@Dell4Good inspired responsible change in other corporations?

A: We collaborate openly w/ suppliers, customers & peers. We’ve seen our best practices adopted & we’ve adopted others’

Q: Can you talk a bit about the mushroom packaging@Dell4Good has employed recently? Why mushrooms?

A: Packaging innovation is always on our mind. How we got to mushrooms is a great story, check it out.

The best packaging protects your product while embellishing it and leaving the smallest possible footprint in the process.

Packaging matters to our customers big & small. We’ve innovated on many fronts with phenomenal results. 

 Q: What patterns or trends are you noticing from you customers as it relates to sustainability?

A: Seeing grt interest frm govt & corp customers to green their supply chain but also their operations. We help them w/ both.

Q: How does everyday consumer benefit from@Dell4Good sustainability initiatives?

A: Many ways! Consumers care most abt packaging & recycling, and we also help them save on energy use.

B2B customers care most abt energy efficiency to reduce carbon footprint & operational costs. 

Many products have biggest environmntl footprint during customer use. Important to design w/ that in mind.

We’ve achieved great progress helping all types of customers reduce their IT footprint as a result.

We used to focus most on what we were doing internally to be#green. Now, we focus most on how we help our customers do same

Q:  You’re also a professor @ASUgreen. What have ur students taught u about sustainability? Any of their ideas brought to @Dell4Good?

A: @ASUgreen students r full of great ideas. Definitely learning frm them. Many ASU entries in the Dell Challenge?

Q: What can we expect to see on@Dell‘s corporate sustainability report for 2012?

A: Continued transparency in a more attractive format that’ll make it easier to track our progress & understand our commitments.

If you missed our Twitterview today and have a question for Bruno, please ask it in the comment section below. I guarantee you’ll get an answer, and one you’ll probably like.

So here it is for you. It’s full of great stats and facts about greenwashing and what to look for. And it begs the question:

Are the companies accused of greenwashing doing it on purpose, or do they just NOT know how to communicate the real environmental impact of their products overselling their “greenness”?

Could it be that they have the best of intentions and are simply bungling their green marketing; their nefarious character created from naivet’e? I’m not ready to condemn all of them just yet, and that was my reason for not immediately posting the info graphic.

What do you think? Who are the biggest greenwashing offenders? Who are those that simply don’t get it? How can they do a better job with their stories of sustainability?

Created by: Marketing Degree

It’s not. It’s making fun of companies and brands that are eager to jump on the green bandwagon without doing their homework. Their green marketing shortcuts are laughable, diminishing the credibility of the entire green marketing industry.

At least Lorna Li of Green Marketing TV appreciates my humor. She recently invited me on her web TV show to discuss the art of green marketing.

The Art of Green Marketing for Sustainable Brands – Park Howell, Park & Co from Green Marketing TV on Vimeo.

In this interview we cover:

• Which companies tell their sustainability story well, without the hackneyed green marketing cliches
• Big brands that are failing the “got green?” test
• Successful examples of green marketing
• Egregious examples of green wash, in products that have no business calling themselves green
• Whether green marketing is really dead and if we should just give up

This revealing discussion with several real world green marketing examples, ought to help you better define your green marketing strategies and bring you closer to becoming a remarkable sustainable brand.

GoGreen Conference at the Phoenix Convention Center

Do you think you have your green brand and marketing figured out? Do you want to put it to the test? Join me as I moderate the workshop, Green Marketing & Branding: Creating Behavior Change during the inaugural GoGreen Conference at the Phoenix Convention Center this Tuesday, November 15.

GoGreen Conference Phoenix has a terrific lineup of speakers, including:

• Al Halvorsen, Senior Director of Environmental Sustainability, Frito-Lay North America
• Derrick Hall, CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks
• Phoenix Mayor, Phil Gordon
• Kevin Tuerff, President, Enviromedia

Great Lakes Brewing Company sources its ingredients locally to green its operations

But there’s hope and help for the Coal Burgers of the world. Entrepreneur Magazine, in its November issue, features an article on the five-step guide to marketing a green business called: Selling Green. They called me as a source for their piece the day after I wrote about Coal Burger, so the information was top-of-mind. Here are writer Matt Villano’s five steps to green marketing that he culled from his interviews with marketers and business owners across the country.

1. See What Your Customers Want – Do they even care if you’re green? Bardessono, a luxury hotel and spa in Yountville, CA, made this mistake.
2. Define What Green Means to You – Green has many nebulous meanings to consumers and proprietors alike. Ava Anderson does a nice job of explaining what being natural means in their non-toxic personal care items.
3. Connect the Dots – Answer consumers’ questions: Does it work? Is it good for my budget, my family, and our planet?
4. Practice What You Preach – Are you backing up your green position with sustainable actions that matter? Green Apple Cleaners in New York walk the talk.
5. Reinvest in the Community – The old think globally, act locally adage. Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland only sources its ingredients locally.

The article is filled with case studies that demonstrate each of the five steps to marketing yourself as green. However, I’d like to remind you that being green isn’t so much about your marketing as it is about your philosophy and action. Being sustainable should be a natural bi-product of how you approach your business with planetary efficiency and healthy products as your highest priorities. That’s when your green story starts to get really interesting.

Do you have a favorite company that is doing its green marketing well? Please let us know below.

“We just got another $5 donation for prostate cancer.”

“Oh no,” I thought. I’m going to be guilted into giving to another cause as I check out with my Lloyd’s barbeque ribs, Kraft mac-and-glue, and Coors Light.

“Just got a $5 contribution for prostate care,” another checker chimed in for the entire store to hear. All told, while I shopped for about 15 minutes, Safeway raised around $60 in shopper donations. My initial annoyance of the pending “Ask” began to thaw into more of a sense of community. As I heard the one, three and five dollar amounts shouted out, I felt the growing need to participate.

Socialization is one of the primary drivers in game theory

Safeway’s donation drive was nothing more than a game it was playing with its shoppers, while doing something great for the community. But could it have been more effective?

I just finished the book, “Game-based Marketing: Inspire customer loyalty through rewards, challenges, and contests” by Gabe Zichermann and Joseline Linder. Having attended Gabe’s gamification workshop at the recent Sustainable Brands Conference, in Monterey, CA, I’ve been fascinated by game dynamics in creating real and lasting behavior change.

As the book reveals, we are constantly playing games. Sometimes we even participate without knowing (See the “Naive Player” description in the book), with everything from frequent flyer miles, to currying favor with a Starbucks barista, to customer loyalty programs like Safeway’s Club Card.

Safeway deployed a small set of social game dynamics in its prostate fundraiser, but I think they could’ve created an immensely more compelling game with a few added twists.

First, Safeway’s primary strategy focused on the “Socializers,” one of the four primary archetypes of gamers, which comprises approximately 80% of all game players, according to Zichermann. People play to be social, and winning is secondary. In the case of the prostate drive, the sense of winning comes in making a donation that is cajoled out of you by announcing the donations being made real time by your fellow shoppers (The social side of their game).

Five ways they could’ve made the game more fun

However, it seems they could’ve amplified their success by also using the four primary motivational constructs of gaming: leaderboards, points, badges and challenges.

1. Leaderboards: Since I’m a Club Card member, why didn’t they ask for permission to announce not just my contribution but my name to the store? Sure, some folks will want to give anonymously. But if game theory tells us anything, it’s that people crave recognition for their achievements and good deeds. Plus, it would personalize the exchange and make the overall “Ask” even stronger to the next shopper.
2. An electronic leaderboard promoting the names of the contributors could have also been positioned at the exits to acknowledge their gifts and alert sweaty incoming shoppers that they are entering an important game currently in play.
3. Points: Safeway built three levels into this particular game – $1, $3 and $5 contributions. So the shopper personally levels up depending on which contribution they choose to make, and presumably gets an increasing level of self gratification depending on which denomination they choose. I felt better about my $5 contribution than if had I given less. Safeway missed a great opportunity to give coupons of varying degrees, depending on the level, to thank the shopper for playing.
4. Badges: Along with the coupon, Safeway could have also attached a brightly colored yellow, green or blue thank you sticker to the shopper’s bag signifying which level you belong to. It’s an atta-boy-or-girl that provides a demonstrable thank you and ignites the curiosity of the shopper behind you leading to the conversation about their contribution.
5. Challenges: Finally, I’m wondering if Safeway could’ve added an internal challenge by marking random products with the prostate game sticker and providing a $10 contribution in the name of the shoppers that happen to have it in their basket at checkout. This is the kind of designed serendipity that adds an element of surprise and reward to make the game more intriguing. As shoppers look for the stickers, they are culling through other merchandise that will illicit the spontaneous purchase they might not otherwise had considered.

The game inside the game seemed to be blowing up

In addition to the shoppers, it appeared that the checkers were competing with each other for the amount of contributions they secured from shoppers. But it was awkward. The poor guy that rang up my groceries was being badgered by what appeared to be an assistant manager, another checker and a bag boy, to make sure he was playing their internal game. They kept asking him in front of me and those in our line about how many donations he had tallied, and how was his dollar amount? You could tell he was NOT into the game, and I felt badly for him.

I’m curious how management structured this secondary game of checker competition, because it clearly wasn’t resonating with this player. It underscored another important element in Zichermann’s book about how critical is competition compared to other social dynamics? It turns out, competition is NOT the most important motivator in creating a compelling game.

I do believe that gamification is gaining a growing influence on marketing and behavior change, and that we’re entering a whole new realm of ways to reach and engage customers. So pay attention to the games that you’re participating in over the next few days. I bet you’ll find that you’re a pawn in a game or two that you didn’t even realize is underway.

Let me know how you fare.

When you’re sharing your story of sustainability, how do you frame it? If you’re talking to 17-year-olds, you might muscle past the philosophical “green” parts and get right to the tangibles of how you and your product are making their world better.

They get that!

This was the finding revealed last week by Dave Cobban, Consumer Mobilization Director for Nike, during the Sustainable Brands Conference in Monterey, Ca. Nike is trying to outdistance the favored sustainable terminology of other green competitors by reframing the green movement as a “Better World” for its youthful customer.

Three of my favorite sentiments from Dave’s presentation are:

1. A survey respondent noted, “We’ve been in Code Orange since I was nine. I’m not worrying anymore.”
2. Somehow Americans have fooled themselves into believing that to luxuriate means to be inactive.
3. Sport can actually solve tremendous cultural ills, like calling time out during a war. On their new Nike Better World site, they point to a civil war in Ivory Coast that came to a cease-fire during the 2006 Football World Championship when the national soccer team progressed to the finals.

What I especially like about Nike’s approach is that they still focus supremely on the performance of their product, and sustainability becomes a powerful, actionable theme that backs up their product promise through the “Better World” campaign. It is an elegant and relevant evolution of “Just Do It.”

It proves that smart organizations, especially the “Andre the Giant’s” of the world like Nike, champion themselves and the communities they impact when they listen intently to what make their customers tick, and then they respond accordingly.

This two-minute “Better World” movie, made completely of recycled Nike commercials, pretty much sums it up.

What a copper mine is doing for water reclamation in the desert from ParkHowell.com on Vimeo.

While the report is loaded with pertinent information, its organization and presentation can be challenging to read, navigate and appreciate. So this year, we made this compulsory publication a celebration of RCM’s sustainability practices.

Here’s how our web designer, Joe di Stefano, described the creative approach:

“Environmental sustainability is just one facet of Resolution Copper’s sustainable approach. They focus on five main aspects of sustainability: environment, community, safety, workforce, and socio-economic. The look and feel of the entire site all grew out of the design of the “sustainability wheel,” a visual device we used on the homepage to illustrate RCM’s holistic approach to sustainability.

To enhance the report and create a more engaging experience, we incorporated a wide variety of media. Throughout the site, you’ll find photos, maps, animated graphics, slideshows and video. The videos in particular show how sustainability at RCM is about more than adhering to standards or the ever-changing rubric of ‘being green,’ it’s about bettering people’s lives and contributing to the community you belong to.”

Tactically, RCM was looking to:

1. Enhance the overall look of the report online. Within the resolutioncopper.com website, the real estate available for a unique page design, content and graphics was very restrictive. We lobbied to have the entire 2010 Sustainable Development (SD) Report reside on a separate site, allowing for a wider range of color and content options.
2. Tell their sustainable stories in a more engaging way. Many of RCM’s accomplishments over the year directly impacted the environment and area residents. Words on a webpage didn’t do these stories justice, so we crafted videos, slide shows and animated charts to bring them to life.
3. Make it easy for viewers to find information. Previous SD Reports on resolutioncopper.com had countless layers with multiple portals to access similar information. Navigating the site or simply locating a specific topic of interest was challenging. By utilizing a separate site for the 2010 SD Report, we were able to build a design that provided easier navigation, faster information gathering and on-page prompts for activating videos and slideshows.

Explore RCM’s 2010 Sustainable Development Report, and see if it doesn’t do as much for your interest level as it does for the community, the economy and the environment.

This article was featured in our recent Flashpoint agency newsletter. Read more about our recent work, including the launch of Ecodriving Solutions, as well as the homework assignment we took on for Social Venture Partners Arizona’s annual report, click here.

So listen in and see if your green brand suffers from the 10 brand-curdling clichés of green marketing. If it does, I’m afraid it won’t be too sustainable and I know how you can make it better.

“Got Green? and 10 Other Brand-Curdling Clichés of Green Marketing” Webinar from ParkHowell.com on Vimeo.

You can also download the powerpoint or take the “Gang Green” test with this PDF: got gang green?

Is it because Goodwill’s workforce development programs are a great cause, and they know that the sale of their used items will help put people back to work? Or perhaps it’s because they know their used clothing and household items will help families that are less fortunate, especially in this rough economy? Or by donating to Goodwill do they feel they are doing their part to keep their items out of landfills?

Although altruism is an important motivator, the proximity of stores and ease of dropping off donations drop are the top reasons people donate. In short, it’s all about convenience.

Click on the image to hear the bag.

Another great example is Frito-Lay. They created a marvel, one of the first compostable consumer packaged goods bags for their Sun Chips. Did consumers embrace this remarkable innovation? No, they repelled from the noise it made. Forget what it does for the planet. The loud rustling of the bag, the first brand touch point for consumers, was just too obnoxious for most Sun Chips fans.

This unexpected sensory experience was, in its own way, too inconvenient for consumers and they stopped buying the product.

Forget about the deliciousness of the chip, it being a healthier alternative to other snack items, the renewable energy used to create it, and it’s overall “Greenness.” The sound the bag made trumped all of those brand benefits in consumers’ minds, or ears. Frito-Lay had to pull the compostable bags to, ironically, insure the sustainability of their product.

They have recently launched a new, quieter compostable bag.

Where have you seen consumer convenience trump all other aspects of a green product or service?