Just like Wall St., the Earth is overdrawn (two weeks ahead of '07)

The Greenwash Brigade

Today is Earth Overshoot Day. I’m not certain about the marketing savvy of this phrase as my immediate association is playing basketball at the YMCA and overshooting the basket and hitting some unwitting guy in the head. Perhaps Secretary Paulson will recommend a bailout of the planet, but hurry up because we only have a week to decide.

Just like AIG and a collection of Wall Street luminaries, we, as planetary citizens, are 140% overdrawn today. This means that if we measured all the resources that Mother Earth starts to produce on January 1st— such as oxygen, food, medicine, drinking water, forests, mineral ores, energy resources and acceptable climate,— well before Halloween is upon us, we are overdrawn, using more resources than have been generated. But “resources” is a very bad word — because its abstraction masks the fact that they are human lifelines.

The Earth Overshoot site is replete with resources and an astounding array of over 75 organizations as partners in its pursuit to measure our ecological footprints and collectively reduce them. It’s hard not to notice that there is not one business organization on that list. Go figure.

Three things come to mind when reading this: all are inextricably tied to almost every system problem I can think of:

1) Most of us have no direct feedback loops: If we directly, immediately and rudely experienced the outcomes of what it means to destroy or contaminate ecosystem gifts (water, food, air, medicines, livable climate) we would quickly correct our behavior. You don’t see Mountain Apes paving over their food supply!

2) Businesses and NGOs are siloed: Despite our best efforts at corporate social responsibility and stakeholder relations, we still tend to plan, execute and gossip in our own silos. This means our objectives are misaligned and we continue to pretend what we do at work doesn’t affect us at home, including our own children’s health and long-term future.

3) Marketing failure: As a behavioral junkie, I know that doom and gloom do not sell, period. Neither does spewing gigabytes of data. To change people, we need to become better storytellers, make the solutions easy, sexy and non-partisan and yes, we all have to go on a diet.

I can’t speak for other countries but on every count, America is overdrawn in a 50 year decline in self accountability, discipline and a deep and abiding recognition of what really matters in life. Wake up and smell the planet or you may not get your morning coffee next year.

September 23, 2008 by Heidi Siegelbaum
3 comments

tags: Earth Overshoot Day ecological debt Footprint Network marketing

Comments (3)

Bill Stevenson | Respond
October 17, 2008 11:38 AM PT

Heidi, thanks for this post. Your insights are intriguing.

While I understand your point, I disagree that we need to make solutions seem easy and sexy. In fact there is too much talk about how "easy" it is to be responsible with our resources. See this post for a further discussion of this point: http://lenovoblogs.com/heartofbusiness/?p=143

Yes, we need to be better storytellers. We need to tell stories of people who are making the types of sacrifices we will all need to make in order to live in line with available resources, and how as a result they are living well.

But we shouldn't shy away from the fact that sacrifices, real sacrifices, need to be made. This is not "doom & gloom," this is treating people like adults, giving them the facts. The fact is, radical changes to our way of life are required, especially in the US, in order to sustain life on this planet. I think we'll all be better off with simpler lives, by the way, so this is the opposite of doom & gloom!

The diet analogy works here. There are no miracle diets. Losing weight is hard. If we sell environmental responsibility like a diet (Lose weight while you sleep! Eat what you want! No need to exercise!) people will be discouraged and give up when our easy solutions fail to bear fruit.

Of course if we had a proper feedback loop, as you point out, none of this marketing would be necessary.

Allen | Respond
October 25, 2008 12:12 PM PT

"You don’t see Mountain Apes paving over their food supply!"

No, we don't. But I don't see them able to produce fire, let alone asphalt. I also don't see them saving other mountain apes lives by donating a kidney, helping an old female mountain ape cross a stream or devoting their lives to finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Despite our occasional parking lot or natural gas well pad, I think we've done a much better job. ;)

Heidi Siegelbaum | Respond
October 29, 2008 10:39 AM PT

Thanks Bill for your thoughtful response. I agree that real sacrifices have to be made and that we, as a nation, have to become more lean in every manner of speaking. I was writing more from a marketing perspective in which negative frames deflate people, creating learned helplessness (and martini consumption) and inaction. These negative frames have dominated much of the environmental discourse and education I have seen for over 20 years.

I would love to see the arts community help create positive norms around innovative, "lean" living and cast our Jabba-the-Hut tendencies in a negative light. Change is hard which is why the frames need to change. I think Oregon and Portland in particular have done a magnificent job of styling sustainability as a prime business opportunity and the community abounds with great stories around quirky, successful (and sexy) living.

See The Book of Oregon (www.traveloregon.com/Book Of Oregon.aspx)

Tools

Meet the Greenwash Brigade

Our hand-picked environmental professionals, each part of the Public Insight Network, are on the hunt for "greenwash" as they examine eco-friendly claims by companies, governments and other groups. They ask tough questions about the mainstreaming of green, from the perspectives of people in the trenches who are focused on these issues 24/7.

Jim Nicolow is a nationally recognized expert on sustainable design and leads the sustainability initiative for Lord, Aeck & Sargent, overseeing the incorporation of sustainable design strategies and features into the firm’s design projects. He is a LEED® Accredited Professional with extensive knowledge of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED rating system.

Janne K. Flisrand has worked as an affordable housing and urban planning research consultant for five years, primarily supporting local non-profits. Her focus is on transit, transit-oriented design, affordable housing, and sustainability. Currently, she’s the program coordinator for Minnesota Green Communities, a program promoting affordable, healthy, sustainably built housing throughout Minnesota.

Dennis Markatos-Soriano recently completed a Master's in Public Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. He is now launching Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) to help individuals and institutions move from dependence on oil and gas to an efficient use of renewables. Previously, he co-founded SURGE (Students United for a Responsible Global Environment), which aims to bring young progressives together across issues of environmental and social justice throughout North Carolina and beyond. In the summer of 2006, he helped to start a small green company, Greenway Pedicabs, to provide a greenhouse gas-free transportation option for people in the Triangle of North Carolina.

Heidi Siegelbaum is a principal with Calyx Sustainable Tourism and works primarily on advancing sustainable tourism practices. She also specializes in science translation, cross-border indicators with Canada, cross-disciplinary planning and environmental technical assistance to businesses. Previously, she was in-house legal counsel for EPA for industrial chemicals and biotechnology and the senior performance measure analyst with the Washington State Department of Ecology. She is on the technical advisory committee of the Seattle Culinary Academy and a long standing member of the Chefs Collaborative.

NOTE: The opinions expressed by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of American Public Media or its employees. American Public Media is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Greenwash Brigade bloggers.

Marketplace

The Greenwash Brigade