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.

If you’re selling sustainability, you can learn a lot from this Copenhagen flash mob. Take a ride and see how they share their mission while creating serendipitous joy to color an ordinary commuter’s day.

That’s what happened to these Copenhagen straphangers. Their commute was accompanied by Grieg’s “Peer Gynt.” This marvelous word of mouth marketing marketing duet was beautifully performed by the Copenhagen Philharmonic and classical radio station, Radio Klassisk.

This was an encore presentation: injecting music to brighten the mundane. Remember when the Washington Post recruited one of the world’s finest violinists, Joshua Bell, to dress like a street musician and fiddle in the metro to gauge people’s responses. Or how about in 2010 when Philadephia’s Opera Company organized a flash mob of 650 singers at the local Macy’s – they performed the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s “Messiah.”

Bravo for mixing mission with inventiveness to create joy.

“What in the hell was I thinking?”

How many times have you asked yourself this following a less-than-spectacular decision, especially at the ass end of a dumb purchase? Instead of being a willing buyer, you were probably subconsciously manhandled and you didn’t suspect a thing.

Many experts in the art of influence, like Arizona State University professor, Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D, a self-proclaimed patsy, suggest we are more susceptible now than ever to slight-of-hand salesmanship. Content is the culprit. Or more accurately, the tsunami of information we choose to surf  and are swallowed up in every day leads to our rash decision making. But we’ve set ourselves up to hucksterism.

Humanity’s ability to archive, curate and consume unfathomable amounts of information is working against us. Our brains, the ones that brilliantly created the 24/7 library of the internet for instance, are not developed to handle the stimulus overflow it creates. When disseminating information, especially fundamental “yes and no” verdicts of everyday life, we often respond with instinct over intellect. It’s an energy-saving, self-preservation default that is hardwired in all of us. We unwittingly prune our decision tree to one sprout of familiar stimulus, make a snap judgement, and act, sometimes to the detriment of our personal ecosystem.

Dr. Cialdini put his fall guy weakness to work and studied the craft of compliance practitioners. He captured the principles of getting people to say “yes”  in his book, Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, and is now one of the foremost authorities on persuasion, compliance and negotiation.

Selling Sustainability is Tricky

Being persuasive for the right reasons is a good thing. And I was curious how to sharpen my persuasion skills, especially when trying to get consumers that are rightly skeptical about green marketing and sustainability to do something good for themselves and the planet. So I read his book, and then tested his compliance theories in the ultimate den of persuasion: A Hawaiian timeshare presentation. Shudder, you might. But I actually invested nearly three hours of my and Michele’s vacation on the Big Island exposing ourselves to the virtuosic sheen of a Shell Vacations Club pitchman.

Here’s how the match went down as the Shell man punched and massaged the six proven compliance triggers within us, including reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. But we were formidable opponents, sturdily armed with the anticipation and recognition of his wax-on-wax-off sales Jujitsu.

I. Reciprocity

You do me a favor and I am compelled to do one in return. Reciprocity is a deep rooted instinct: the basic currency of social life (See The Godfather). Shell Vacations triggers it immediately by providing a host of significant savings on every kind of Hawaiian adventure – snorkeling, luaus, golf, fishing, dining, etc. – as long as you commit to a timeshare presentation. They also highly recommend that you “take advantage” of their connections first and enjoy your stay on the Big island and THEN do your time in the presentation. They are not only playing off your reciprocity tendencies, but are attaching great experiences to their vacation ownership. Which is a nice set-up for commitment and consistency.

II. Commitment & Consistency

We are all suckers at wanting to look consistent, even when we don’t act consistently. Compliance practitioners prey on this other fundamental need to get us to commit, so we look consistent (See “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”) One of the first things our salesman – we’ll call him Jim – asked us when we sat down to the presentation was how much we enjoyed our experiences on the island: outings that were mostly provided at reduced rates by Shell. Get their game? To say we didn’t enjoy them would be dishonest and inconsistent with our experience. We had to commit to the wonderful time we were having.

III. Social Proof

Social proof is a term used often in social media. And why not? We’re social animals. Remember the last time you found yourself in an unfamiliar situation? What did you do? You looked at the people around you to provide the social cues as to what was the proper behavior. “The world’s leading detergent,” “The top grossing movie of the weekend,” “A New York Times Best Seller,” are all obvious advertising constructs to get us to buy into pack mentality. After a 20-minute initial sit down with Jim to get to know us, and for us to get to like him, we were herded into a room of 15 couples for a group presentation. When polled, curiously half of the people in the room already owned a timeshare, and they weren’t shy about “spontaneously” sharing how wonderful vacation ownership has been for themselves AND their families. I wonder if they were plants? This had all of the initial markings of timeshare neophytes being corralled for a stampede to the investment abyss (See Jonestown).

IV. Liking

Why does Facebook “Like.” In addition to anchoring the top three compliance practices, we also do business with and are persuaded by those we like. The front man, we’ll call him Bob, who arranged all of our Shell Vacations-sponsored activities, was a handsome, athletic and affable guy, who also happened to be an alum of ASU, was a former golf pro, and told a hell of a story about entertaining Willie Nelson as his golf partner at Gainey Ranch: three attributes that Michele and I could immediately connect with, although the golf pro is a stretch, given our games.

Jim, who we were handed off to for the presentation, was a fit and tanned 60-year-old, former special ops and drug enforcement agent who also taught Sunday school. I had some consistency problems with his story as the presentation and his reactions to some of our our curveballs unfolded. You’d think a highly trained covert ops guy would be unflappable enough to overcome a change of venue when I suggested we leave the crowded sales floor for the lanai to continue our discussion, as well as locating his misplaced calculator that I had to remind him was in his pocket after suggesting he shouldn’t leave it on the table when we went in for the group discussion. Wax on, wax off. But at one point with both Bob and Jim, Michele and I both looked at each other and said, “I like this guy.”

V. Authority

We naturally gravitate to authority figures. One of Jim’s early ploys was to “have the authority” to provide us a deal no one else could: a “one-of-kind” offer on back-owned inventory. A euphemism for foreclosure. I’m sure the previous owners probably just bailed. It was because of his longevity with the organization that he could offer this “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” He was doing us a favor, and it would be inconsistent of us not to commit to such a proven concept at such a great price from such a likable fellow, don’t you agree? Body blow, body blow, faint, upper cut, shield, block, parry.

VI. Scarcity

When we’re afraid we can’t have something, we want it even more (See Tickle Me Elmo). So if you want people to act, you naturally dangle a limited supply of what you’re selling in front of them. Our day began with scarcity. Jim proclaimed that they had more buyers than they had property, and today was our lucky day  but we had to act quickly. When we weren’t buying is when Jim pulled out the one-of-a-kind offer of the repo. There is another coercion tactic at play here, too. That is the “contrast principle.” They present the highest price possible on the package, and then reduce the rate, which looks cheap in comparison. You experience the contrast principle in nearly everything you purchase, so beware.

Vacationers running the timeshare gauntlet

Although all of this sounds extraordinarily underhanded and manipulative, Dr. Cialdini’s message is about using these ancient triggers to motivate people for good. Many great organizations have employed compliance practices to better people’s lives, the community and the world. And the best way to thwart the evil-doers is to anticipate, recognize and use their own tactics against them: Jujitsu like.

Given our all-consuming, harried lives, these principles are more effective now than ever, and they’re everywhere.

How have you been exploited by, or have thwarted, a professional compliance practitioner?

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Will your water rates rise like a gallon of ethanol at your corner Chevron?

Probably not.

And that’s why Americans seem to be apathetic about water conservation. Many experts argue that until we hit them in the wallet, they’ll keep wasting water.

So how do you get consumers’ attention about the pending water crisis that is barreling down on us like an Arizona haboob?

You get them to live and breathe it.

Companies and initiatives like American Standard’s Responsible Bathroom, Coca-Cola’s Global Water Stewardship, and The Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Triple Bottom Line are embracing water conservation with cause marketing that is helping to educate and change consumer behavior.

These companies underscore our core belief: an understanding learned from the nearly 14 years of running the Water – Use It Wisely conservation campaign:

“Technology alone will not save our water. You must start with behavior change.”

Click to see the show

Recently, our position on water conservation messaging was featured in Christine Birkner’s excellent article for the American Marketing Association magazine, Cause for Concern, as well as on AMA TV. Like most of the sustainability movement, companies and campaigns propelling cause marketing initiatives around water conservation are pioneers, and we need more heroes leading the charge.

“Water conservation has been billed as the most important environmental issue of the 21st century, yet few American consumers are altering their behaviors – and fewer companies are trying to motivate them to do so.”

Can you point to a corporate initiative that is championing water conservation in your community?

Michael Gass Skyped to life on my computer screen yesterday. My friend and social media business development mentor was popping in to see how business was going. “Great,” I said. “We’re busy as ever.”

Three and a half years ago, Michael came to town to help me and my agency pull together a social media strategy to let the world in on a little secret: Park&Co has been a leading sustainable marketing agency since 1995, long before “green” was cool. Online social media was the ideal platform to share our stories of sustainability and to expand our thought leadership in this growing niche. And it’s MUCh more than just about being geen.

Here’s how it all came together.

Our social media efforts have created opportunities for ourselves and our clients, including:

• We launched Coca-Cola’s SmartDriver ecodriving training program among their 60,000 fleet drivers and operations folk
• Our agency insures that the Water – Use It Wisely campaign generates increasing conversation around water conservation and securing its place atop all significant organic search engines: Google “Water conservation” and you’ll see what I mean.
• We partner with Resolution Copper Mining to give voice to the residents of rural Arizona that represent 90 percent of citizens in favor of a new mine that will satiate 20 percent of America’s cooper needs in our growing renewable energy economy
• We are launching this week a new website for Goodwill of Central Arizona that features intense customer engagement.
• And we’re whipping up our online following in the creative community to rage against logos that are too large, how IE6 destroys families,  and the promise of Pantone 3:16 in our Occupy CoLab movement.

We have found that the best social media strategy happens both online and off.

Thanks, Michael, for your call yesterday, and for this terrific article on your blog: Fuel Lines.

Now for the rest of you, how has social media helped build your business?

Some blog topics are very popular and seem to be able to attract a wider audience. This is a superficial impression.

These are two main reasons why you should not abandon the idea of dedicating your blog to a less popular topic:

• Cultivating your real interests through your blog makes you personal, genuine and worthy to be read

• Most popular can also mean hackneyed and overused. You may find it easier to grow an audience interested in a topic that is not extensively covered already

All that is well known to Park Howell, the blogger who calls himself sustainable storyteller and that we interviewed to get to know his blogging story. His posts are never trivial but always full of interesting news and original opinions.

When you finish reading one of Park Howell’s blog articles you know something useful that you did not know before.

How and why did you start a blog?

I started to blog about green marketing and sustainability to further define our ad agency’s position in this growing niche. We’ve been creating cause-related and environmental movements since 1995, long before being green was cool.

When the recession hit, I realized that we needed to do a better job of communicating our unique strategy and creative capabilities relative to sustainability. Blogging and using online social media was one of the best ways to share our agency with the world.

As our mission states: “Park&Co ignites the growth of people, products, companies and causes that dare to make the world a better place.”

How much time do you spend working on it and what are the usual tasks?

When I first began blogging over three years ago, I spent between 15 and 20 hours per week listening online, researching, writing and promoting my posts. My goal was to reach 50 posts as quick as possible, because it seems the search engines start taking you seriously after 50 posts.

This meant three to four articles per week, and I believe I wrote nearly 200 in my first year. It still is a ton of work, but your knowledge of your niche, social media and the world at large compounds itself through your blogging efforts.

What is the best lesson learned that you would like to share with people who want to start blogging?

Despite popular belief, blogging is not a popularity contest. If you fixate on the numbers of your followers and feel like a loser if they’re not growing as quickly as you like, then the whole process becomes a psychological train wreck.

I focus on writing about industry information I find interesting, and to help others see a different point-of-view, whether they agree with it or not.

Sometimes writing is just therapeutic, and I don’t care if the post gets a bunch of hits. Sometimes you can be a mad scientist and test your followers’ paradigms. Sometimes you can just be jovial, or pissed off, or obtuse and simply let it fly. But all of the time, be you.

I happen to follow the same philosophy that Seth Godin noted in this recent post. He wrote in part: “I’m not writing to maximize my SEO or conversion of even my readership. I’m writing to do justice to the things I notice, to the ideas in my head and to the people who choose to read my work.” Amen, brother Seth.

What is your best advice on how to grow a blog?

Write with a unique voice. Don’t regurgitate existing content unless you make it WAY more interesting than the original. Test, poke and prod your readers’ mindsets, and try to nudge the world in whatever direction you choose.

And by all means, keep this book by your side: Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.

What is your biggest success and biggest mistake as a blogger?

My biggest mistake was listening to the so-called social media experts. There are really only about three or four, and I count Jay Baer as the Gustavo Dudamel [look him up] of social media. I must also tip my hat to Michael Gass and his early mentoring – as well as his ongoing friendship – to help me become better at social media to build our agency’s business.

Unfortunately, I initially bought into the need to have massive amounts of followers and be loved by all. That just lead to superficial drama in my social media life, and I quickly abandoned the hedonistic practice.

I enjoy blogging so much more now, and my followers are more authentic in their interest of my work. I just realized that my biggest mistake has become my greatest success: Be at peace with your blogging, and your audience will find you.

Now I have a question for you…

What works for you and your blog?

With a swipe of your finger it plays back the flatulence-dampening sound of a shower without actually running one, so you can do your thing without the resounding ring. And, it shows you how much water you save in the process.

“Silly, useless app,” you say? The new Fake Shower app is from Brazilian water company, Akatu. Apparently the thin walls found in domiciles in many countries leads to embarrassing bathroom “noises” polluting living rooms. In Japan, for instances, I’m told it’s a common occurrence for bathroom dwellers to run showers while cleaning their pipes, so to speak. Now they have a fun app to run instead.

Wonder if we can gamify it?

The event, held at The Duce, an industrial open space in downtown Phoenix, recognized the blood, sweat, and tears we put into our award-winning pieces for Girl Scouts, Goodwill of Central Arizona, and the Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation. Here’s a closer look at the work itself and how it’s meant to help these organizations accomplish their main mission: Doing good within the community.

The first honor bestowed upon us was a Silver ADDY for our “It’s a Girl’s World” brochure for Girl Scouts-Arizona Cactus-Pine Council. This colorful piece of collateral designed around this unique rallying cry uses photos of girls full of potential, along with fun illustrations to depict these kids’ place in the world. Not really where they currently reside, but the beautiful places they, and all of us, could very well be headed, thanks to Girl Scouts.

Our “An Ill-Fitting Halloween” TV commercial for Goodwill of Central Arizona secured our second Silver ADDY of the night. With October as the most important month of the year in the thrift agency, Goodwill wanted us to position their stores as “the place” to shop for all your Halloween costume needs. So we did just that, thanks to a man in a chicken suit. In the end, the purchases this commercial generated didn’t just mean a happy Halloween for the shopper. They meant funds Goodwill could use to help overcome Arizona’s scary unemployment rate.

The last award we received was yet another Silver ADDY, this time, for the Bruce T. Halle Family Foundation. Our “Don’t Look Away” postcard series was created to encourage people not to turn their back on those in need. Each card features someone who’s overcome obstacles to make something of themselves, and each holder of the card is asked to pass it along to generate awareness for those facing similar plights. The end objective for the foundation is to get individuals within various enterprises and agencies to recognize the problems presented on the postcards. Then, work together to provide the assistance needed, which will eventually help us all.

Although these awards were greatly appreciated, at the end of the day, we at Park&Co don’t really judge our success by the chunks of metal in our trophy case. We measure our accomplishments by the glimmers of hope we instill in people’s lives.

This may all sound pretty sappy, but hey, what can we say. We’re still celebrating.

Cheers!

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

Janet was 103 then, two summers ago, when we first began this project. Our son, Parker, and I spent two days in our living room with Janet asking her about the secrets she might share in living a long, healthy and loving life.

Questions for Janet came in from all across America. Finally, here are her answers.

This is a four minute trailer of the 60-minute film we completed in time for Arizona’s centennial celebration. Janet, now 105 and going strong, was recognized by Governor Jan Brewer as one of a handful of centenarians celebrating Arizona’s 100th birthday on February 14, 2012. Janet gladly gave a DVD to Governor Brewer and former chief justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was also in attendance, thinking these youngsters might learn a thing or two.

I will feature one segment of the film every day for the next 30 days on the “What Would Janet Do?” playlist on YouTube, and then post the piece in its entirety. I hope you find a minute or two every morning to receive some interesting and insightful wisdom from a sharp lady who is pushing 106. She still swims every morning, enjoys a glass of wine with lunch, and listens to her books on tape.

Thank you, Janet, for sharing your owner’s manual with us.