Total Carbon Ownership?

Many retailers and brands are now scrambling to position themselves as “Green”. As Carbon becomes the “New Satan” consumers are increasingly seeking reassurances that they are not burning the sacrifices on the wrong altar. Seeking even the slightest form of reassurance that somehow their purchase is going to keep the rivers flowing and the birds flying, they latch on to labels and signs of “eco-absolution”.

But how does this help? Just about everybody is using a different standard. How can I compare between brands or between retailers? Tesco has been quick to call in the Cambridge cavalry, yet, until an industry wide standard is accepted, the consumer will have little help and can continue being blissful.

So how do you measure a carbon footprint? There are many sites now offering quick answers with the obligatory dose of tutt-tutting. But where do you start?

The carbon footprint of an idea:
Did the designer draw up the idea on an energy saving PC or with a pencil and paper and was the pencil made from sustainable sources? Recycled paper that is chlorine free? How many copies did they run off before they were happy with the final product? And just how were those printer cartridges produced and transported?

Nope, I think we’ll stick to the products designed with pencil and paper.

Then came the sourcing trip and all good intentions flew out the window. The good news is that the product manager or sourcing agent can fly first, business or economy with exactly the same carbon footprint! The fedex package with the first and second prototype too!

The carbon footprint of the t-shirt:
So I suppose we’ll opt for the hand stitched prototype shipped to the factory.

What I wonder though is: "how do we account for the waste before, during and after a product is produced?" A high fashion item will go out of fashion quickly. This leads to many of its kind being made redundant and taken off shelves to be burned (in e-bay auctions or real furnaces) leading to spiraling carbon costs, after the product has been delivered to the retailer and displayed. A dark carbon “second life” begins. Does my individual T-shirt carry the carbon weight of all its failed siblings? Am I now compelled to buy only M&S standard ware that can be found year in and year out without the risk of redundancy?

The carbon footprint of the value chain:
There are already strong signs that politicians and small business alike are relishing the prospect of promoting local industry on the basis that it saves excess transportation and emissions. In supermarkets local apples are now again on equal footing with those Spanish and Brazilian imports. Will this newfound interest in sourcing strategy be extended to product design? More options means more emissions after all. So will we calculate for the Total Cost of Ownership?

The implication is that consumers will increasingly buy “process” rather than “product” How does this affect branding and communication? How will we make “process” obvious at the point of purchase?

How did you get here?

I am absolutely thrilled that Matt is traveling again. Defining the dream in one simple idea: Let's dance!
Dancing is most probably one of the most underrated ways of discovering things. When is the last time you used dancing to think? We don't often think of our body's as part of our minds and I think we are moving further away from being aware of how we move.

For me, one of the most amazing things that has come out of the field of neuroscience in relationship to marketing is how we store and remember words. Simple words like knife and fork, often used together can be saved in two completely different parts of the brain. "Fork", or at least your personal concept of it could be saved in the part of the brain related to taste. "Knife" on the other hand may be saved under touch, perhaps reflecting an early experience of being cut.

The implications of this fact about how the human body works is extremely significant. How can we continue to believe that brands are primarily built via the stalwarts of marketing communications: printed and audio-visual media. The richness and depth of what a brand depends on how deeply we engage all the senses. Loyalty seems to be related to the richness of these associations and how many parts of the brain light up in association with a brand. Do you know where your brand is remembered? And how it got there?

Ironically, the more people become obsessed about the shapes of bodies, the less we are using them to learn and observe. I think this is related to a reduction of our awareness of how our bodies move. I once read a description of a character by Thomas Pynchon. He observed that the character was in fashion, based on the way he walked. The hips tilted slightly forward with the feet falling outwards on the stride. Do we see such descriptions of characters today? Are we aware of or looking at how people move?

The photo above is from from an attempt to break the world record for a Tai Chi performance. Tai Chi has always been dancing with a purpose. I wonder when brands will learn to dance.

The web we weave

A lot is being said about the whole 2.0 thing. Web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, economy 2.0, all a bit like the cybermen and their upgrades, marching towards people 2.0. Or perhaps that should be 2.0 people.
Anyway, this got me thinking about the web we weave. We have created the web and it's supporting technologies in our image. The behaviors, the expectations and inadequacies. In the same way, the social development taking place in the 2.0 sphere seems to reflect the same.

I recently worked on a project for a major national public transport company. When looking at the user base it was split clear as day down the middle according to one criteria, whether people were internally or externally motivated. Internally motivated people understood and used rail transport because they valued their time, understood the benefits of shared resources and all the other benefits that come with it. Externally motivated people cared more about what others would think and needed the security and status of their metal cocoons to get around. The car had become a social shell which both defined and protected them. They felt less confident being by themselves in this sea of people.
People have an attitude towards public goods based on where they fall on the confidence/insecurity axis. This attitude also drives their engagement with public p2p platforms.

There is an element of this in the web 2.0 evolution. The basic insecurities that define people will remain hidden in the way they embrace and use technology. Their degree of comfort in going naked. Their need for social recognition and ability to invest in the public, rather than personal good. Does this mean the future of the web will still be mired in cliques (or shall we call them clicks?) that use their superior knowledge to bully and intimidate other people. Is web 2.0 a compensation for or shield from personal human interaction? The more people invest in their new space online the less likely they are going to invest in building up face to face relationships. It just becomes too easy to refer someone to your blog. "I've had those ideas already, read my post from 14 April....."
And this brings me to the basic dilemma we now face. The basic human processor has not evolved. The brain is still only capable of presenting the Cartesian theatre, no matter how well our parallel processors and universes are plotting away.

Are we nearing a tipping point where our inventions will start molding us in their likeness? I think so. The web is brutally honest about exposing just how much of your time and energy you are willing to sacrifice on the qwerty altar. It becomes immediately obvious how intensely you serve the webgod "content". Once people realise that their sacrifice is rewarded proportionately and that it comes at a cost the self mutilation and martyrdoms will begin.