In late-2007 I participated on a panel at E&Y’s annual clean tech conference.  As it closed we made predictions on the future of “green” as a marketing concept and business driver.  My prediction was that “green” will fade from vogue and be replaced by the broader platform of “sustainability.”

Yes, environmental responsibility is vital, but so too is social and economic responsibility.  A reduced carbon footprint doesn’t absolve corporations that avail themselves of child labor or deceive investors.  And, from a marketing perspective, “green” is limiting whereas “sustainability” delivers scale by binding together good works across the corporation.  As the regulatory environment evolves and standards are established, “green” will lose its effectiveness in the marketplace.

Clearly, I didn’t spark a revolution with my pearls of wisdom.  There wasn’t a mad rush to de-green advertising and marketing campaigns…at least not that I noticed.  Was nobody listening?  Could I have been wrong?  Perhaps if “sustainability” looked better on T-shirts…

This morning I was pleased to see an Environmental Leader editorial by John Rooks, president of THE SOAP Group, called More on the Color of Sustainability.  Rooks and Adam Werbach, Global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S, have a running debate on the value of colors to social movements – think the Green Party or the Orange Revolution – and where we go from “green.”  Rooks wrote:

When Adam writes that we need to move beyond Green, he is right. But moving it to Blue is only a temporary fix – a branding and design project, an opportunity to differentiate it for a while; an academic exercise for branding geeks like me.

The beneficial business movement does need to shake free of Green – yes.  Shaking into a new color is one possible strategy. But dropping the concept of color altogether and making sustainability ubiquitous – therefore invisible – might be even cooler.

Movements are hegemonic forces of swelling ground and visceral rally cries and the color assumes the cause (not the other way). And they can all be derailed through propaganda.  So, Ok, I give, I give.  Make it Blue.  I really don’t care what color it is.  But as long as it is painted veneer, it can be counterfeited.  Get ready for a new trend of bluewashing.

Seems to me that companies thinking now about what they’ll do after the “green” revolution…and then taking an active role in shaping the vocabulary of the next revolution – sustainability…will be the winners in the long run.

msacks Sustainability Corporate Brand, Green, Sustainability

On January 15th we witnessed commercial aviation history and saw first-hand the dynamics of crisis communications in today’s digitally-enhanced communications environment. 

Just before 3:30 pm Flight 1549 skimmed to a stop in the middle of the Hudson and immediately became the focal point of a squadron of news helicopters and scores of observers armed with every digital toy known to man.  Within minutes Tweets were flying, bloggers were posting and video was streaming across the Net.

Three hours later the ether was awash in coverage of Flight 1549 – over a quarter million Web pages highlighting the incident, several thousand related Twitter posts, nearly 3,000 stories from media outlets, over 400 blog posts, some 1,500 videos available online. ..all of this plus the expected deluge of coverage from traditional media channels.

The pace at which the news spread was as startling as the potential for catastrophic reputation damage had the landing gone differently.  What could have been a reputation nightmare for US Airways instead turned into something very different thanks to Flight 1549’s heroic pilot and crew.  As far as crises go, this was a “best case” scenario but few organizations get so lucky when crises hits.

Following the incident I wrote a white paper looking at the timeline of events during the early hours following Flight 1549’s miraculous landing.  From a communications perspective all did not go smoothly that afternoon and there is much to learn. You can download the white paper here.

msacks Crisis Communications Airline, Crisis, Social Media