June 14th, 2010

Sustainable Brands ‘10 in Monterey, CA

Beth and I were at Sustainable Brands ‘10 last week in Monterey and had a great time. I presented CSR’s Seven Best Practices on Tuesday and Beth was video-interviewed by Justmeans that day as well about how to integrate sustainability into organizations’ brands and conversations (video below).

Some of  the key concepts taken from the Sustainable Brands conference were:

1. Developed and developing countries are more in tune to the importance of the environment’s health than the US. From Cohn & Wolfe’s ‘image power green brands survey’: 79% of Americans are more concern with the economy than the environment while in countries like Brazil and India 55 – 70% picked the environment first.
2. Consumers consider sustainable brands within three categories; “in me” (things we eat or drink, Brita water filters fall into this category), “on me” (personal care products like Burt’s Bees), or “around me” (household productions such as Clorox Green Works).
3. Companies can encourage sustainable consumer consumption by ‘editing’ their choices by removing unsustainable products all together.

See #sb10 on Twitter and Andrew Winston’s blog post for additional coverage.

The variety and depth of SB ’10’s topics mirrored the variety and depth of ocean life at the world renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium, where SB ‘10 held its gala event also on Tuesday night.  What an amazing backdrop for a party. With the lights low and the facility dotted with candle-lite tables, good food and drink, we were mesmerized by the displays of ocean creatures of so many varities.

Being on East Coast time, it wasn’t difficult for me to get up before the day’s events for a run a couple of the days we were there. I enjoyed Monterey’s beautiful scenery, including the dozens of seals on the rocks and beach.

And, oh yeah, we met lot’s of amazing people — some old friends and some new from organizations of all sizes from LivingHomes to Dow Chemical.