EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN!

When I went to the grocery store yesterday, an excited cashier at the checkout told me about the rewards program that Foodland had put in place for the next few weeks. For every $10 purchase you get a stamp to put into a booklet and if you fill the booklet (which means you have to spend at minimum $500) you get a "free" knife!

To which I said "So this is like the green stamps from days of yore!" She looked at me for a moment (she was in her early 20s) with a confused look. "I guess you don't remember green stamps." She nodded in affirmation.

There must be a new generation out there, that is stealthily going into the history books and hoping that there is no one alive who remembers when these things were rolled out in the past. But really? In this electronic era, you are giving me a booklet (not really environmentally friendly) and you are expecting me to take all these little stamps, place them in the booklet, and bring them back for a knife I don't need? At least with green stamps you could save them and buy something substantial. 

So these stamps are not a new idea, out of step with this era and from a loyalty perspective, not really a compelling value proposition.

It got me to thinking about how many old ideas are being recycled. It goes from fashion (platform shoes and yes ladies, shoulder pads are back), to TV shows (Hawaii Five-0 really?) to movies (another Star-Trek is in the works). The list goes on.

What I find utterly amazing though is that some of the younger generation (OK, now I'm sounding like an old person...let's just call me wise, not old) seem to believe that these ideas were an epiphany from someone inventive soul in their ranks vs. the reality that we were there first.

We were recycling well before it became trendy today. In fact, everything had a substantial deposit on it, so you were compelled to return it. Milk bottles for example. When I was very, very young, we still had milk delivery and you put the old glass milk bottles out, to get new ones in return. When the milkman faded out, the plastic gallon milk jugs had a 40 cent deposit...a veritable fortune at the time. There was no energy used to destroy these bottles and make them into something else. They were sterilized and sent back out...seems to be this from an energy consumption point of view, as well as reuse..a lot more environmentally friendly.

And paper bags? I was amazed when I was talking to someone younger who is in the sustainability field and this person didn't know that paper grocery bags used to be the standard, not the exception. And that we survived quite well back then without plastic bags. And now as paper bags are being re-introduced, there seems to be a "hey, look at us and how environmentally friendly we are." Ok, I'll give them that the bags at that time were not from recycled paper and that's better than cutting down a whole bunch of trees, but they didn't invent using paper bags, we did (this is the royal "we"). I didn't see a plastic bag being used until I went with my parents to Europe in the 70s and it was "wow, look at these!"

Organic food? We didn't have anything but organic food. There was no genetic modification or antibiotics put into our meat. Fruits and vegetables.?Well, I remember Mr. Galletti coming by every Saturday with his truck full of fresh vegetables. He parked on our street for about a half hour, selling to everyone in the neighborhood, and then moved on to the next street. Fresh, "organic" and delivered right to your street, meaning you didn't really need any bags at all to carry them home.

It's not a bad thing that some of these things are being re-introduced. But let's give the previous generations a little credit for what was in place in the past.

Hmmm, I feel like after writing this I should amble over to a rocking chair, pull up an Afghan (that's a quilt like thing, not a dog, nor a person from the Afghanistan) and reminisce about the "good old days!"

Environmental knee jerk reactions...

OK, maybe as I get older I have gotten a little more contemplative. I focus on the long term, look at all the possibilities and then try to strike a balance between some short term gains, but building towards a sustainable future. And by sustainable, I don't just mean "green" -- because the true meaning of sustainable is to "support, hold up and endure without yielding." The word was hijacked by the environmental movement and certainly has applicability. Yet in business, it has always meant making sure that the decisions that are being made will "hold up" and be relevant in the long term.

When you look at the "green" sustainability movement, I'm wondering how many of the corporate and government decisions that are being made will actually stand this test of time. Because you see, from my perspective, many of the decisions that are being made (and note this is my opinion only) with the emphasis on how much of a media splash can you get so that everyone looks with adoration on the green halo above your head.

So a few examples. Yesterday, with great fanfare the Premier of Ontario announced that beginning in July 2010 the provincial government will provide a rebate of upwards of $10000 to anyone purchasing an electric car. Yet from my perspective, although getting a great deal of media coverage, I'm thinking why? Firstly, this is obviously a rebate for those who can afford a vehicle which will cost upwards of $40K, leaving out a significant part of the population who cannot partake of the premier's generosity. However, I thought and maybe I'm naive here is that the idea was to get more vehicles off the roads, because in Toronto as well as cities around the globe do not have the infrastructure to support more vehicles. So if there are programs to buy more cars - even if environmentally friendly - that means that more roads need to be build, meaning that all those non-environmentally friendly dump trucks, bulldozers and the like need to be used, and the wonderful aromas of tar and fresh asphalt wing their way into the stratosphere.

The cost of this program is potentially of $3Billion -- so I ask myself, why wouldn't we try to put this money into public transportation systems that span effectively out to suburbs of major cities? I would love to have take the commuter trains into the city, but because of their unreliability and minimal service in my corridor, I don't.

So I'm just wondering how this "green" program is actually helping the environment.

What else? Plastic bags. Please let me start this by saying I'm in favor of bringing my own bags. This has been a standard in Europe for years and truly it only makes sense. However, the big fanfare of saving the environment because of reduced use of plastic bags? The CEO of one of the major food retailers in Canada is the TV pitch man for this firms environmental push. The stuff that they are focusing on are the easy, big media splash elements. And they are doing this while continually buying more and more of their goods from China, where environmental standards to say the least are lax and furthermore, there is a significant amount of pollution generated by the transportation of these products ( I won't get into the health aspects but I'm sure most have read about the cautionary tales about products from China). Furthermore, shouldn't they be looking at their shelves and the massive amount of unnecessary packaging that they allow their suppliers to put their products in? To "trick" consumers into thinking they are getting more bang for their buck, they put small quantities into huge boxes -- the packaging could easily be taken down in many cases by half -- that would have a significant impact on the environment. Yet this type of approach -- although long term i.e. sustainable -- would not create the type of media splash -- because it would mostly be done behind the scenes, away from the spotlight.

So when corporations and governments get on their high horse and talk about caring about the environment -- look beyond the media hype and see if they really care or are they just enjoying the photo-op.

It's Not Easy Being Green

Many years ago Kermit the Frog of Muppet fame, came out with his hit single (okay, maybe not quite a hit) "It's not Easy Being Green", and for many in the procurement profession the words ring true .

Today, being "Green" or environmentally friendly is in vogue. Let's face it -- Al Gore -- has reinvented himself into the Oracle of Delphi for the Green movement. And to say anything contrary to this movement could result in being shunned.

But how "Green" are corporations in general. Oh yes, everybody talks the good talk, but is there actually true effort beyond lip service being given in many organizations. Everybody has their blue boxes in their offices and there is double-sided printing -- but is this really making a difference.

If an organization truly wanted to be heralded as environmentally friendly it would need to truly set its current practices on its head.

For the procurement profession, it would mean firstly stopping the process of having paper RFP's sent out and allowing suppliers to provide reams of binders and glossies as part of a response -- the electronic tools are here, why aren't we using them. Of course even with the electronic tools, the option to PRINT still remains -- and I will accept that I am guilty of that as well -- but if when we went out to tender for computer screens we thought of making them more "eye" friendly perhaps we would not need so much paper.

A "green" commissioner should be appointed in organizations, much like integrity commissioners seem to be the flavour de jour. These green advocates, would report directly to the CEO and be responsible for creating strategy and policy around the greening of the corporation -- from lights being on, products being bought and suppliers being used.

The latter is of extreme importance and it talks to a corporation's social responsibility. In the rush for cheaper goods, a lot of offshoring is used and a blind eye is being turned to the lesser environmental requirements in some locales like China, India and Mexico. This is by no means an exclusive list, but it highlights some of the major sectors for offshore manufacturing -- where pollutants are being spewed into the atmosphere, but, so what? -- the products are cheaper!

Corporate responsibility would say that we ensure that no one, anywhere now or in the future will be harmed by our decisions today.

We need a corporate titan to stand up and be counted and say "hey, we may be a little more expensive, but we are ensuring that we are not killing you and your descendants tomorrow, for a little more profit today!"

I'd buy that!