Tue Apr 27, 2010
This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert’s views alone.

I wanted to write this week about how important I believe education is in order to transition into a new way of operations in our corporations, communities and homes. Last week, a friend sent me an interview with President Bill Clinton from Digg.com on Earth Day. The first question was “How can we best engage our nation’s youth on the issues surrounding climate change?”

President Clinton replied that empowering our youth to green their schools, create organic schoolyards, develop sustainability curriculum was the most important thing we should all being doing today.

It was no coincidence that during that same week I had spend time to Peg Watson, of the Green Schools Alliance, Rachel Gutter, from the USGBC LEED for Schools and Laura Seydel and her team from the Captain Planet Foundation (developing organic school yards).

I also believe it was no coincidence that I received an email from the Dean of my Business School alma mater, Goizueta Business School, telling us that we had dropped in the US News and World Report Rankings. My question back to him was “where is sustainability in the curriculum?”

As a part of a book project I am working on, I had the benefit to meeting with Hunter Lovins to discuss the future of our country and planet. Hunter, founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions, has consulted with many major organization such as Walmart and the U.S. Department of Energy, but it is during this time that she is spending much of her focus as a founding professor at San Francisco’s Presidio Graduate School. Hunter knows that what Bill Clinton has said is true and also believes that sustainability is the most important discipline we can be teaching our future corporate CEO’s today.

I wanted to use this week’s blog to feature the work of one very diligent social entrepreneur, Tom Feegel and his organization called Green My Parents. I asked Tom to tell me about the program and his overall mission. Tom writes:

GreenMyParents is a revolutionary, nationwide program to help young people teach their peers and parents how to work together to help the economy, earn money at home, and save the planet through simple, everyday actions.

Launched Earth Day 2010, this movement enables youth to bring their insightful perspective on how to reduce their parents’ use of resources and save money at home to make a huge difference in saving the planet and securing their future. Based on the book, Green My Parents, available on
Amazon.com http://amzn.to/GreenMyParents

Our youth environmental leaders will be equipped with the tools and resources to train and educate an additional group of 100 peers each about
eco-friendly actions they can take in their own homes with their families.

By continuing the cycle of recruiting another 100 kids, GMP aims to bring together one million students in an effort to save the planet. Operating with the family pocketbook in mind, kids will find environmental allies in their parents as they work together to bolster family savings, help the economy, and save the planet by conserving home resources through following
and completing “eco assignments.” From reducing water and energy usage to cleaning with non-toxic products, families are estimated to save at least $100, which brings the collective savings of American families to an estimated $100 million over the course of a year.

Environmental Charter High School (ECHS), an award-winning college-prep PUBLIC charter school in Los Angeles, has learned
this week that we are recognized by The White House and the Department of Education for academic excellence and has been named a finalist in President Obama’s Race to the Top High School Commencement Challenge.

To vote for ECHS http://bit.ly/Vote4ECHS

ECHS is one of six public schools selected to compete for a presidential commencement address from Obama, the only school
in CA and the only environmental school. The Commencement Challenge invited the nation’s public high schools to submit applications.

“At ECHS the question is not whether you will go to college. It is which college will you go to?” said student Jordan
Howard, is the editor of GreenMyParents, and a senior at ECHS. Jordan is a fantastic representative for the student body of ECHS, and her web site is

http://jordaninspires.com/.

Thank you Tom!

I believe this work is very relevant to the readers of FastCompany magazine. It is from THIS work and THIS training that we are going to find the next wave of innovative leaders and the very people who will help us retool our corporations to safely and responsibly operate in the world. When I met with Rachel Gutter last year to discuss her work with the USGBC, she told me that the kids today are sustainability literate. They know no other way. They are engaged in solutions and operate with a collaborative world-view approach. From what I have learned from Tom, this is not only true, but the vital skills needed as we transform business.

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For more information on Our Green Value or to contact Paula Collins, click here.

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But when I am not tapping into the brilliance of my fellow eco-warriors, I enjoy checking for the latest “green” news and info on the following sites:

Treehugger.com – Partial to a modern aesthetic, it shares sustainable design, green news and solutions.

HuffPostGreen – Green News and Opinion on The Huffington Post.

MNN.com – MNN is the leading resource for daily environmental news, green commentary and simple steps to save money, stay healthy, and support the environment.

ecofabulous.com – The authority on stylish, sustainable living – your inside source for all things both eco and fabulous!

EWG.org – EWG is a nonprofit environmental research organization based in Washington, DC and a leading content provider for public interest groups and concerned with public health and the environment.

gengreenlife.com – Find everything you need to live a sustainable life: Local green business directory offering products and services; Events and classes where like-minded people.

grist.org – Environmental news and green living tips from Grist, the most recognizable voice in environmental journalism.

Healthy Child Healthy World – Igniting a movement that inspires parents to protect young children from harmful chemicals.

Check out the sites and let me know what you find. It is sure to be good information whatever it is.

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So I think we can all admit by now that “green washing” is a thing of the past and most consumers are savvy enough to determine which companies are really walking the talk and which companies continue to attempt to shade their organization green with stories of zero net impact and carbon neutrality. I believe that 2010 marks a new intelligent view on how we promote our green story. In marketing, the term authenticity has been thrown around a lot over the past several years – but as I look around, I believe we have reached a point where the majority of stories being promoted are real. We are tired of the blowing smoke. Recent events in our government, the healthcare plan, the stock market and even the uneventful and very disappointing results of Copenhagen have led to the American public reaching fatigue with the promise of something that is never realized. We want results. We are not only ready to be presented with action for change, we demand it.

A few weeks ago, the Sunday New York Times ran an article about plastic coatings which are under development to rinse clean without the use of soap. The author of the article presented a vision of how great it would be if, after dinner, the greasy stack of dishes could be placed in the sink and let “plain old water rinse away the grime.” A polymer shield that would do the job of dishwashing detergent. I immediately thought of the hundreds of P&G executives shaking in their boots, but then I thought of one very innovative and visionary leader with whom I recently had a great conversation – Adam Lowry, the co-founder and Chief Greenskeeper of Method Products, Inc. Adam said to me, “rather than being in the soap business, I think we should be in the clean business.” Not only would the development of such a polymer NOT frighten Lowry, in my opinion, he would most likely get right in the middle of its development.

I had met Adam on several other occasions and just the month before we were on a panel together on Trends in Green at the Opportunity Green in Los Angeles. So I knew him to be a bright, open, visionary thinker. His company today is poised to deliver another product which will shift the way we and the entire cleaning industry think. about soap. Lowry was quick to state that he did not claim to be the leader behind the concentrate trending in household soap products over the past few years, but a little market research reveals that in fact Method was the leader in bringing the world concentrate laundry detergent.

Lowry and his colleagues at Method are indeed walking the talk as they understand that you cannot make a “zero impact” claim when you are a company who produces any product or provides any service. Merely by being in operation, you have a footprint. So, in his opinion, it is the role of a CEO to find ways in which to lessen that footprint as much as possible. Lowry says “we are not in the soap business, we are in the clean business.” Perhaps the future of clothes laundering involves more partnerships with the machine manufacturers and considered technology, such as the “clean” polymer described above, in development of fabrics.

In order to truly create a model of a sustainable product innovation, you have to be willing to break down barriers that exist between industries. I look forward to learning about the types of partnerships Lowry and his Method team may be forming in order to break down industry walls.
So it will come as no surprise that Method has launched a new product in 2010: an 8x concentrate laundry detergent, which is dispensed in a pump style container to lessen the mistake of over soaping your clothes. In fact, I was shopping in my local Target Store this weekend and the product was well placed on the shelf. When you see the product lined up with its easy pumping visual and messaging, it is clear that this product is a departure from traditional laundry detergent.

What are the implications? Less product, less weight, less expense and carbon footprint to ship, less shelf space required and a smaller overall impact on water systems. Not to mention the overall innovation of the product which will hopefully encourage competitors and similar product categories to respond with more ways to reduce our material use.

What impressed me the most about my visit to Method was Adam’s visionary perspective on how to lead and innovate. Adam understands that whatever his company creates that is a game changer will be copied. The pump detergent is a new product category. Ultimately he expects the other “soap companies” to follow.

As we discussed above, Lowry also knows that truthfully there is no business which is sustainable. So, in response Method has fostered a business model that is literally focused around change itself. Without this, Lowry believes his company would not be able to reach product and overall company sustainability.

According to Lowry, and borrowing from nature, Method is run as more of an organism than an organization – meaning they are set up to adapt and evolve to their environment. This means being willing “to shoot what makes you money and replace it with something bigger, better, perhaps greener and in our case definitely greener.” And that is just what they have done by creating the new pump detergent and potentially cannibalizing their traditional detergents. I give great props to Lowry and his colleagues at Method for pushing the sustainability envelope and moving us all toward a more sustainable experience when getting clean. I am now waiting for Method to announce a partnership with Patagonia on clean fiber technology. After meeting with a visionary like Lowry, such a concept does not seem so ”future-state.”

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