October 15th, 2009 by Jane Meier

So, I am not sure if my business cards will make it to my doorstep tomorrow, in time for the CVC Annual Meeting, but if they do, at least they’ll be green.

When faced with the decision about printing business cards,  my instinct was to find a green printer.  However, I wasn’t clear enough on the benefits of green printing vs. conventional printing to make an informed choice.  So I researched, and here’s what I learned:

• Paper & pulp industry is the third largest polluter of air, water, and land &  about 25% of the trees cut down in the US every year are used to make paper.
• Traditional chemicals have two drawbacks:  they are made with petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and those chemicals release VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) in the air, reducing indoor air quality and having negative health effects for the workers.
• “Green” printers use soy or vegetable-based inks which typically have very low or no VOC’s and are made from a renewable resource.
• Using recycled papers is important, obviously! with the stats above, but there are different standards among recycled papers.  I learned that I should be choosing papers that are as close to 100% PCW (Post Consumer Waste) as possible, and look for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo.  This council has worked to develop principles and criteria to govern the standards surrounding recycled papers.
• I also learned that business cards are just the beginning,  as the average office worker uses 1.5 lbs of paper a day….375 lbs in one year.  That’s a hefty paper footprint and one I need to remember when making my everyday printing and paper buying decisions.

So what did I decide to do?  Well, I first tried to contact a local green printer, Ecoprint, and while they do commercial work, and right down the street from me, they don’t do ID work (business cards, letterhead, etc.).  So, I went with a web based printer:  Greener Printer Online, based in Canada but doing business in the US, and after I ordered I found a little more cost-competitive printer Greener Printer.

Besides the benefits to the environment and the printing industry employees,  all three printers have options of postable icons for website or business cards to easily communicate your commitment to your clients commitment while also helping them to think about their own.

Look for this cool icon on my website soon and cross your fingers with me that UPS is smiling on me and I will have them in my hot little hands before noon tomorrow.

September 11th, 2009 by Jane Meier

Whole Foods Market has launched a campaign this fall to help engage customers to change the way school children eat lunch. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did work at Whole Foods Market in the community relations arena, but that makes me even more qualified to recognize a good program when I see it right?)  

 Dubbed the School Box Revolution, Whole Foods Market has partnered with a chef, “The Renegade Lunch Lady”, who has ushered schools through reform and seeks a broader scale platform upon which to revolutionize school lunch for the nation’s 30 million children.   Customers can donate online or in store to support the creation of resources & a website to help school adminstrators, concerned parents, and school lunch rooms make the switch to less processed and even locally sourced foods.  This campaign was also planned to coincide with Slow Food USA’s eat-ins which were hosted around the country on Labor Day to create grass-roots support for changing our nation’s food in schools.  To date, the campaign has raised almost $500,000.

This campaign has been effective because Whole Foods Market is engaging customers around an issue which they are likely impassioned. After educating their customers for years about choosing organic, hormone-free, non-GMO foods, these same customers as parents are loathe to turn over their children’s diet over to a system that does not value these ideals.  So by tapping into an existing concern among parents, Whole Foods Market is using stores as educational arenas and grassroots organizational areas to create change.

The campaign also makes sense from a business perspective:  Food.  Healthy Food. It’s what they sell.  Tied into the company values and as well as their sales platform, it makes sense to support a cause so closely tied to their mission and product.  While they are incuring costs to promote program in stores, the customers are funding the activities through donations, thus they are not tying up their community giving budgets. In addition, in the long run, it might help with the supply of local and/or organically grown food available in the marketplace.  If the nation’s schools are demanding these qualities in food, demand will eventually increase to meet supply, which means more will be available to Whole Foods Market for purchase. 

This is one company’s story of engaging customers as partners in the Corporate Social Responsiblity efforts.  How do you engage customers in your CSR efforts? 

CSR, food, lunch, retail, school

August 27th, 2009 by Jane Meier

As if I needed yet another reason to visit Vermont,  the people of Hardwick, VT are giving me one:  great partnerships in action.   

In a article in Eating Wellabout Hardwick, I learned about a rural town of 3200 is reviving its’ own economy while revolutionizing food production in a way they hope to be replicated across the country.    They are creating local value through business partnerships and I love the example stated so succinctly in the article:

“High Mowing Organic Seeds was growing organic squash and pumpkins to extract seeds, but it had no use for thousands of pounds of pumpkin meat. So Johnson, who had just set up an industrial kitchen to offer prepared food as part of his growing farm CSA, took a half-ton of free pumpkin puree, got Cabot Creamery to provide butter, a local farmer to provide eggs and a local baker to help out. Thus was born “Pies for the People,” a project that donated hundreds of pies to the local food shelf last fall and looks to become an annual event. .”  (Goodman, Eating Well, July/August 2009) 

By utilizing one company’s waste products, and soliciting resources from other local businesses, the business community of Hardwick provided much needed resources to a local food pantry.  They also created good will in the community, name recognition for those involved, and a  foundation for deeper, on-going business relationships.  By joining together once, these businesses are more apt to join together again as they learned more about each other in the process.  Partnerships that could lead them to save resources and increase profitability.

I hope someday I will get to eat at Claire’s, the now famous locavore  restaurant where etched on the glass is “Claire’s:  Local Ingredients, Open to the World.”  With these innovative partnerships, local businesses are opening up to changing the world through business partnerships while creating a local and world economy way past the town’s city limits.

Sustainable and delicious.  What’s not to love?

Green, Local Food, Travel, Value

August 14th, 2009 by Jane Meier

This week on my way from a family visit in the Northwest, I picked up a cup of coffee at Starbucks, and since traveling with a toddler does not involve a reuseable water bottle AND and a commuter mug, I got a paper cup.  Having not held a paper cup in my hand for awhile, I was struck by the messaging on the back of the cup.  Previously, it was thoughts on life, but those messages have been replaced by some skillful CSR messaging by the Starbucks team. 

Two messages struck me in the paragraph on the back of the cup.  “You.”  and “It’s using our size for good.” 

The first message:  You.  This  invites the consumer in to become a partner in the businesses’ ethical sourcing and sustainability commitments.  It informs the customer–”Hey, you thought you were just buying a cup of coffee—but really by buying coffee from US, YOU are helping to make  a difference in these tangible ways.”

The second message:  It’s using our size for good.  That statement directly and succinctly targets the negative perception people have of big companies in general.  The stereotype that the bigger you are; the more evil you do in the world, you care less, etc.  By stating that “Hey, we know we’re big and you might think negatively about us, but being big has some benefits.  Like buying power.  And we are using that buying power responsibly.”

While we all have different opinions about the taste and price of Starbucks coffee,  I just have to say that the communications about their CSR work is spot on.

coffee, CSR, good, size

August 6th, 2009 by Jane Meier

Welcome to Full Circle Partnerships Blog!  Full Circle Partnerships helps clients integrate marketing with corporate social responsibility; you can check out our website here: http://www.fullcirclepartnerships.com/.   We’ll be blogging topics surrounding corporate social responsibility including sustainability issues, strategic marketing, community partnerships, communications, and corporate volunteerism.  We’ll be highlighting some great ideas and best practices in the news and from the field,  so join our community to stay up-to-date on CSR happenings.