GreenSmith Consulting

GreenSmith Sessions #8: Is Global Sustainability Even Possible? Yes, Says Bryan Welch

Sometimes the most forward looking among us come from the most unlikely places.  I’m neck deep in the sustainable business realm, and delight in discovering  and sharing new sources of inspiration and innovation with my audiences. And the most powerful mover of green ideological mountains and catalyst for action I’ve seen in 2011? A rancher from Kansas. Bryan Welch.

Oh and he happens to also publish Mother Earth News, Utne Reader, Natural Home, and, um, Gas Engine magazine. 

This former newspaper man turned publisher has had an eclectic background that has helped him develop a broad perspective that doesn’t have the blinders on when it comes to thinking about how living and doing business sustainably can happen.

He recently wrote a book called Beautiful & Abundant: Building The New World We Want, that eschews the dramatic eco alarm sounding and finger wagging that many books and people take, while at the same time not avoiding thinking about and looking at the challenges we face. 

He has a clear framework for how to shape what you do and how you communicate it, that could very well be the glue that sticks all the disparate, supposedly separate groups of people in the world, together, in common cause.

For GreenSmith Sessions #8, I had the good fortune to spend just over 30 minutes in frank conversation with Welch about everything from how many environmentalists are stymieing mass scale progress on the important issues at hand, to his desire to see Earth Day and green business become obsolete concepts in the near future. Do stay tuned to the last five minutes, where he deftly explains that how he sees drastic population reduction being achieved, not by government mandates of natural/manmade disasters, but in an organic fair, just, desirable fashion. 

 This Session was full of gems, here’s two of the best:

 “It seems to me illogical that the concept of sustainability would be controversial. Who does not want clean air and clean water? Who does not want, 3 or 4 generations from now, a wonderful place for human beings to live on this planet? Yet somehow we’ve allowed sustainability to be pigeonholed as this wonky, tribal fascination for people who wear Birkenstocks and burn Patchouli. It’s wrong, it’s destructive, and it’s absurd.”

“People who are utterly cut off from the prosperity that we enjoy in the developed world don’t have the time, resources or motivation to think about sustainability. We alienate them if we pose solutions or pursue visions that exclude them, and we can’t afford to exclude or alienate them, because we need a very broad consensus across the planet, or the whole notion of human sustainability is unattainable.”

Listen in, and let's talk about it, below! 

Remember, you can play the podcast here, right click and save it, or get it free from iTunes, where you can also subscribe to get all future GreenSmith Sessions.

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Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

CLick here to play/save GreenSmith Sessions #8 Bryan Welch

GreenSmith Sessions #5: Sustainability Firebrand John Marshall Roberts (video & podcast)

Do you want to know what the core of all the (human) problems in the world are? Empathy. Empathy, you mean that word tossed around by new age enthusiasts? Not quite. 

Think about how recently you got angry over another person’s actions or words. Or presumed someone or some group couldn’t possibly understand where you’re coming from, so why try? Or better yet, clung forcefully to being right, trying to diminish their point of view in favor of yours?

More often then we’re comfortable admitting, I suspect. 

I had an interesting, inspiring, deep, funny time in GreenSmith Sessions #5 (after post, below) with John Marshall Roberts, a man who describes himself as, “…a renegade social scientist who refused to fit in in the academic world that I came from.”

Roberts is an amalgamation of many things: a one time musician, now deeply versed in psychology, behavioral studies, and how they interest with business. Luckily for us, he’s able to distill it in an engaging, understandable manner, whether presenting at crux points like the Sustainable Brands conference or most recently at TEDx New Zealand (See video at the end of this post)

The problem it seems is pervasive cynicism of that which isn’t like us, no matter our level of development. And it’s not insurmountable. Recognizing cynicism for what it is - undigested pain - is the start to dissolving it and effectively, collectively moving forward. As Roberts said in our interview, when we realize the source of the cynicism, we don’t feel as personally offended, and we have more strategies and choices available for how to deal with them constructively.

However, having good, constructive ideas is one thing, executing them in the real world is another. Listen in as Roberts shares how he and his team have been creating ways to repurpose and give further structure to the concepts of his keystone book, Igniting Inspiration, in a modern, quick bite, media enmeshed society. The results are impressive. (NOTE: As Roberts mentioned in our interview, he's given us a very generous 30% off code for his Igniting Inpiration 101 course, good through December 15th, 2010. It is GSCART)

He and his company World View Learning have also taken what they learned about online learning outside their own projects, working with other organizations to better bring to life the crucial knowledge that businesses, governments and individuals need to know, and make beneficial, durable change more likely.

This was a fascinating GreenSmith Session, I encourage you to listen to the whole thing, you’ll want to keep a notepad nearby. It’s positively full of thoughts to get your mind moving, laughs to loosen you up and leave you hopeful, and many things that will have you wanting to take action, right now. 

Best quote: “If we take that blame away, and throw in the word empathy, which leads to insight, then insight can lead to common vision, which can lead to collaboration, which can lead to actual problem solving.”

For more on what John Marshall Roberts and World View Learning are up to, visit www.johnmarshallroberts.com.

Click here to play GreenSmith Sessions #5 John Marshall Roberts
(To save, right or control+click)

Readers/Listeners: What did you learn from this podcast? Have any questions for John? I’ll make sure he sees them.

 

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

Time to Stop Talking About Going Local, and Doing It. Here's How. (pt 1 of 3)

With gold reaching all time highs in value, and other indicators that our global economy is in serious trouble (or seen more positively, ripe for a reset) money as we know it, and commerce as we know it may well vanish, or drastically change in the not too distant future. So perhaps, now more then ever, it’s time to look at how to build and maintain robust local economies.  

This week’s guest writer Wayne Maceyka takes an interesting, inspiring look at how that can happen. Part 1 of a 2 part series, we encourage your thoughts, ideas, and questions in the comments below.

  Considering the seismic activity that's been rumbling through the global economy over the past few years (it's not over, unemployment here in the United States is over 10%, the highest since 1983 and there are fears that commercial property loans, additional residential mortgages, and energy prices will squash a full-fledged recovery - in the traditional sense of the word), perhaps looking at our economy through a different lens would be interesting.

 For me, that lens has been building local and regional economies as a way to buffer regions from the winds of globalization and perhaps address some of our environmental challenges as well.

Why import items that meet basic human needs (food for instance) when much of it can be supplied from nearby? Of course, “nearby”, “local”, and “regional” are relative terms, the definitions of which are up for debate, but lets leave that discussion for another day Why is “going local” a good idea? It reduces our dependence on long distribution chains that are vulnerable to energy price fluctuations, reduces environmental impact, and perhaps most importantly helps keep financial capital circulating within the region.

 This recirculation of financial capital supports regional businesses and the jobs and value they create, further increasing the region’s resilience in the face of large-scale economic challenges.  Will every city, county or state be self-sufficient in the next 20 years? Probably not, though depending upon your beliefs around peak oil (see Jeff Rubin below) perhaps they’ll have to be.  The point is not to seek protectionist self-sufficiency, but cooperative interdependence on a scale consistent with human needs and natural resources.

Coming soon...

I've got something bubbling up inside me, and it's all Chris Brogan's fault. The man who I'm sure has a stunt double or two for all that he does, issued a challenge in a recent video, Overnight Success Part 2 - A Call to Arms.

In it, he said that it's time for us to stop just playing small, playing remedial when it comes to using social media to its full potential. Time to level up, together, as it were.

It knocked something loose in me.

I began to write all sorts of thoughts, not necessarily focused on social media, but instead on sustainability, and how I see people and businesses practicing it and shifting others towards it in a healthier and well, more sustainable, enjoyable fashion than is prevalent now. Social Media definitely plays a part.  

What I've been writing has more questions then answers, and when it comes together to something I'd like to share with you, you'll be the first to see. Something big is bubbling inside me, and it's time to let it out. And I want your minds and hearts in on it too.

Stay tuned...

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

What's in Your Bag?

Sometimes you find inspiration in the most unusual places. This time it showed up at breakfast, in the most humble of origins.

I like to read with my breakfast. Totally against the high minded Ayurvedic digestive principles of my wife Vanessa, aka @CoachVanessa. But my mind needs feeding just like my stomach, and sometimes there's some surprising treats to be found.

Like this morning, with nothing close at hand to read, I began to look at the nearest thing, a bag containing the brown paper lunch bags we use for scooping cat litter in to.

These Safeway Basic Red lunch bags contained a surprise.

Just below the words LUNCH BAGS, it said:

SELF STANDING • FLAT BOTTOM • EASY TO OPEN

I had to laugh, as of course they're all these things. That copywriter must have been bleeding out the ears trying to come up with "features."

But then I thought, If a simple brown paper bag can be stretched to fit such previously un-thought of features, what is there about your company that we should know about that you haven't told us yet? What do you take for granted that we'd see as special, worth supporting? We're waiting.

What is it about your company, your culture, your product, that you take for granted that, when shared with others, would be seen as extraordinary? Help us see what you do, are, or offer that will make our lives better, expands our possibilities, is a boon to the planet, and is just plain a pleasure to experience. And please, don't deal in trivialities, give us something of substance. We'll thank you, and tell others.

And internally, what might be the effect of seeing yourself and your company in a new light? It's a no cost, high benefit endeavor I'd say.

Get to work. And tell us what you come up with, here in the comments.

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.

10 Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media

This guest post is a collaboration between Mashable's Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell's "10 Ways" series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs. Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That's one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.

Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you. If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you'd like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

1. Write a Blog Post

Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days -- whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you're passionate about, you're helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.

Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers. The beneficiaries included Sustainable Harvest, Kiva, Healthy Child, Healthy World, Environmental Working Group, and Water for People. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here. You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of blogs pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.

2. Share Stories with Friends

Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you've gathered a social network. You'll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.

10 Ways to Change the World Through Social Media

We are honored to have our friend and fellow traveler of the intersection of social media and green, Max Gladwell grace our blog with a host of innovative ways for each of us, as individuals and collectively to make an impact. Citizen journalism, open government, status updates, community building, information sharing, crowdsourcing, and the election of a President are in the mix here. 

Our children will inherit a world profoundly changed by the combination of technology and humanity that is social media. They'll take for granted that their voices can be heard and that a social movement can be launched from their laptop. They'll take for granted that they are connected and interconnected with hundreds of millions of people at any given moment. And they'll take for granted that a black man is or was President of the United States.

What's most profound is that these represent parts of a greater whole. They represent a shift in power from centralized institutions and organizations to the People they represent. It is the evolution of democracy by way of technology, and we are all better for it. For most of us, social media has changed our lives in some meaningful way. Collectively it is changing the world for good.

Given the pace of innovation and adoption, change has become a constant. Every so often we find the need to stop and reflect on its most recent and noteworthy developments, hence the following list. Please note this is not a top-10 list, nor are these listed in any particular order. It's also incomplete. So we ask that you add to this conversation in the comments. If you'd like to Retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.

How to Amplify Microfinance Effectiveness: Don't Pay People Back!

This week Twitter has been abuzz about the interactive, technology, social media focused component of the South By Southwest conference, or as it's tagged on Twitter, #sxsw. Mark Lovett of Global Patriot was particularly excited about a microfinance organization called OptINnow. Though I thought the name sounded more like a mailing list company, I was intrigued when Lovett said they took donations via cell phone. I'm glad I looked. Read on as we learn about an organization that on the one hand is the new kid on the block, and on the other, has been around for 37 years.

Sometimes being in the business that I am, I presume things to be common knowledge that I'm reminded are not, microfinance being one of them. For those not familiar with it, it's the facilitated process of making small loans, typically to people in developing countries, in order to help them create and grow their businesses, thereby better supporting themselves and their family.

OptINnow does it a differently then I've seen before, for example Kiva, where your loan a one time thing, benefiting one person/business. As in you lend money to a specific person, they repay it, and it gets repaid to you. End of story. You can of course choose to fund others, but the cycle ends should you choose not to lend any more money.

With OptINnow, the money gets repaid to the local partner bank, plus interest, then gets loaned back out to additional entrepreneurs. Hang on, it doesn't go back to you, the original lender? And they charge interest? That might be a hard sell for those used to the typical microfinance model made popular of late.

How to Address Deforestation, Sustainably, at a Profit

Today I want to share with you a creative solution to something many complain about, but frequently don't offer a solution: Deforestation.

So often these days you hear statistics of how rapidly deforestation is happening, wringing of hands over people's shortsightedness, cutting them down so that they can raise cattle, soy, or some other cash crop. But something's being forgotten here: the people.

Like smokers who know it's damaging, but in their lives, don't see another option, these people often don't have another viable way to make a living, and feed their families. Without something as profitable, what reason do they have to take a long term view of things? They're not stupid, they know they're damaging their environment, but to them, what other choice do they have?

Planting Empowerment is fast growing another option for them, starting in Panama:  They partner with people in the area, making deals with them to replant the area with native tree species, plus other plants that would make up a forest,  like there was before. In the case of the indiginous community of Arimae, for every hectare of land they replant, another 5 will be preserved. This agreement is a first between an indigenous community and a private forestry business.

Then what?

Spotting Innovation in the Everyday

Ok I'll admit it. Sometimes I can be a green snob. I've at times looked down my nose at publications such as Plenty magazine, which in the past have catered to a more, shall we say, dabbling demographic.

But then something changed. They went and got more substantial. Yes, there's still fluffiness to be found there, but you know what? I now think fluff plays a role too, giving access points to people who otherwise wouldn't have come to the party. The latest organic facial creme may not float my boat, but someone else may care about that, and from there delve broader, deeper into things sustainable. Plenty makes room for that to happen.

An example of Plenty's new substance is in the current issue: "Radiating Roads," which talks about a relatable, accessible innovation that has a connection to a common shared experience. In this case, doing something with the scorching heat produced by streets, parking lots and sidewalks during the summer: Heat water, or use the steam to produce energy.

An Ode to Ode Magazine

Ode magazine saved my life.

Well ok, pointed it in a new direction, more like.

Let me back up.

Four years ago I got West Nile virus. It nearly killed me. After a lengthy recovery period, I found myself in a restaurant with my wife, pondering what to do next. It was clear I was given a second chance, and I wanted to make the most of it. Always a strongly intuitive woman, I asked her what she saw as the next way to go with my life, my work.

She got a distant look in her eyes, then returned my gaze. "Sustainability. And Utne Magazine. And...", she paused, "The orange and green on the walls here."

The next day I found myself experiencing what I call Yellow Karmann Ghia Syndrome: The experience of suddenly seeing everywhere something that wasn't previously on your radar. At first it seems unusual, but it's just you deciding to notice what's all around you, all the time.

 

It was that way with sustainability. It seemed to show up in every facet of my life, overnight. Honestly, it had not been something I had a strong awareness of...or so I thought. It wasn't until my wife pointed out how often I relayed with great excitement stories from Ode Magazine, that they all had a common thread of sustainability in them.

Enter The GreenSmith...

Greetings, and welcome to the first entry of the GreenSmith blog. You have Chris Brogan and Max Gladwell to blame  for this.

Well not entirely.                

I've been wearing the green business blogger hat for the past few years as a weekly contributor to Triple Pundit and Ecopreneurist, in addition to being a green/sustainable business consultant here at GreenSmith. And having a grand time at it. So why start my own? Why now? Great question, and it's one I'm going to answer for myself as I write here.

I'd have to say it's because I see things. No not ghosts and goblins (though those were quite prevalent a few days ago, to be sure!) No, I have a set of eyes and brain that sees things out there in the world, perhaps with a slightly different lens than most. I consider this an asset, as I find possibility and promise in what others may miss, a benefit to both myself and my clients.

And I want you to see it too.

But before I dive into the innovation that comes across my radar, what GreenSmith Consulting is up to, promising future scenarios that I'd like to see realized, and interesting people, I want to stop and ask:

What do you want to see me write about? What's not being covered out there these days that you'd like to see more of? What gems are underneath the muck, waiting to be discovered? Many of you reading this are probably somehow connected to me via Twitter, and you've watched what I've shared on there. What do you imagine me writing about? 

I have many ideas in the cooker ready to be written about, but I want to hear from you first. It's how I work as a consultant, listening carefully to my clients so I can best help them. Now I'm listening to you here. I can't promise I'll write about everything you suggest. But I do promise to listen to what you have to say, and to be grateful for all suggestions.

Some boundaries: I'm not interested in writing straight up environmental pieces. I'm interested in the intersection of commerce and consideration (of environment,  resources, and people). Solutions being created for supposedly intractable problems.  Exuberance over despair.

I'm not interested in polarizing people, or emphasizing what's wrong. I want to shine a light on what's being done to create a more positive, supportive, healthy, and yes profitable world for all. And I reserve the right to go completely off topic, should it have a useful insight or lesson for you and I.

So, what's it going to be? I look forward to your thoughts, below.

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, blogs weekly on green start ups of note at Triple Pundit and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. He creates interest in, conversations about, and business for green (and greening) companies, via social media marketing.