Green Isn't Everything

It's critical that consumers and employees hold businesses accountable to their social marketing hype, says Adam Werbach, the former Sierra Club President-turned-sustainability chief for advertising giant Saatchi and Saatchi. And "we've got to get out of this thinking that says sustainability is only about being green," he told attendees of this year's Net Impact Conference, a national gathering of social innovators at Cornell University.

Werbach, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi S -- the marketing icon's new sustainability arm -- is also the author of the new book, Strategy for Sustainability, in which he urges the business world to consider long-term profitability and transparency and not just environmentalism in its sustainability goals going forward. At 23, Werbach was named to head the Sierra Club; he was its youngest-ever president. Now 35, Werbach -- who sold his global PR and marketing firm, Act Now, to Saatchi last year -- says he has expanded his definition of sustainability to include "internal innovation" by companies in every aspect of how they make, buy, sell, and produce their products.

Just as key now as being green, Werbach says, is how closely aligned companies are with their employees and customers -- and how outspoken these stakeholders are in making sure the companies they work for or patronize walk the talk. "The financial meltdown marked the beginning of a new relationship between companies and their customers," Werbach said Saturday, "... and acting on the right values across the board is critical."

Werbach, who says he's been "an activist all [his] life but [nonprofit] environmentalism wasn't moving fast enough," told conferees that the Great Recession has been a bit like a wildfire, burning away the weakest underbrush so that new growth may replace it. Out of last year's financial meltdown, he says, will come "whole new breeds of companies" focused on long-term profitability by being transparent about their operations, more engaged with their customers, and more networked with social issues [including environmentalism] that interest them.

Werbach says these goals, to be effective, must be: actionable by every employee; core to the business objectives of the company; achievable in 10-15 years, and clear and simple enough to inspire employees and customers, alike. Werbach says that Toyota, for example, has set a North Star goal, which is "to create cars that never crash and clean the air as they drive." Or consider Starbucks Coffee, which has as its North Star goal the idea that "local is important." The company is moving toward buying all of its coffee as fair-trade and making all of its cups recyclable and re-usable, Werbach says. Meanwhile, Wal-mart's North Star goals, Werbach says, involve having only sustainable products in its stores and 100 percent renewable energy powering the company, plus zero waste. "It is green-washing or local-washing?" Werbach asked his audience. "Let's see how they do it."

To be sure, Werbach said, some companies "cheat" when it comes to marketing themselves for sustainability. But that's why, he said, everyone in the audience "needs to be an activist. The corporate world needs this infusion of employee and customer activism right now because the business world is on the verge of change," he said. "American consumers and businesses seem ready to make changes to save the planet but our challenge as activists now is to give companies something to do."

Werbach urged customers and employees to make their views known to store managers and company executives, and to hold companies strictly accountable to their stated objectives on sustainability, corporate responsibility, and social innovation. "We all need to be reminded that more socially responsible behavior is not just important to the planet," Werbach said, "but important to companies to survive in a marketplace where customers have never before had so many options."