Ecopreneurist

Part 1 in a series where Krates Ng (co-founder of Mokugift environmental rewards) interviews fellow ecopreneurs.  Today, Krates interviews Brendan Gill of PlentyWays.

1) Why did you start PlentyWays?

We’ve always wanted to create an environmentally focused organization and its really our first opportunity to do that.  At school and college we learned about the climate change issue and it became obvious that this issue is going to form a backdrop to our entire lives.  Its already a crucial matter, but it is only going to grow more and more important over the coming decades.  We wanted to be involved with this issue and to do our bit to help.

2) Is there a story about the name ‘PlentyWays’?

These days its very hard to come up with a name.  Finding something short, simple and with an available web address is difficult so when we finally came up with PlentyWays, we were really satisfied.  The idea behind it is that there are plenty of ways to make a difference.  That’s really our guiding philosophy: through the products we make available, the tips we provide, the services we review, we are trying to show people all the ways in which they can do their bit.

3) What was the toughest challenge in getting your company started and how you got over that?

There was a combination of challenges at the beginning.  It took us a long time to come up with our name, we even tried crowd sourcing it and put up a bounty of $200 we were so stumped, but even that proved fruitless.  The second big challenge was picking out the right products to offer our customers.  There are a lot of green products out there now and the number is increasing by the day.  We had to do a lot of research into what we thought were the most popular ones and would be most useful to our users.  Its a lot of work to then build relationships with the companies that make these products as well, which we are still working on.

4) If you had to pick one company in your lineup, which one would you showcase and why?

When people ask me what they can do to go green, the very first thing I ask them is if they have switched from incandescent bulbs to CFLs.  This is the most simple straightforward thing someone can do which is guaranteed to save both energy and money.  Sometimes it can be a challenge to convince people of a more expensive option that is more ecological, but using CFL bulbs is a complete no brainier.  Also people who are waiting for their current incandescent supply to run out before switching to CFLs – a quick calculation will show you that in almost all situations you should switch straight away.

5) How is PlentyWays going to grow in 2010? And how can other ecopreneurs help?

PlentyWays has huge plans!… We are working extremely hard on our blog, which we are going to focus on helping people to go green.  We will keep our ears to the ground on all the latest environmental apps, services and products and review them on our blog making it easy for budding ecopreneurs to take advantage of them.  We also want to provide some apps of our own.  The first we made was a very simple tool to stay on top of the latest green news, which pulls in news from some of the most popular green-focused websites out there e.g. TreeHugger and NY Times Environment.  We also want to work on a system that can monitor the energy and monetary savings people can make with various green goods.  For example, if someone purchases a few CFL bulbs from us, we would like to use the date they purchased to automatically calculate how much energy savings that has resulted in and the effect on their wallet.  It will probably use an average energy cost and an average figure for daily light usage as default, but would allow people to customize the calculation to their situation by entering their cost per KWHr and average light usage.  Stay tuned to our blog for details on all new features.

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Oh happy day. I cannot tell you how many clients and fellow Ecopreneurists have in the past gotten very excited about recycled material shirts just to have that excitement evaporate when they are told the shirts are produced overseas.

Well, I am very happy to announce the “discovery” of Concept Eco, which has been cutting, sewing, printing,and embroidering environmentally friendly products for over 16 years in West Palm Beach, FL. And it is Concept Eco who is offering this 50% Polyester from Post-Consumer Recycled Clear Plastic Bottles (PC RPET) & 50% Waste Cotton Tee.

The shirts come in natural and white in youth sizes small through large, and adult sizes small through 3XL. The shirts are a very high quality athletic cut, 1 x 1 rib crew neck, with double needle cover stitched sleeves and bottom hem, taped shoulder to shoulder.

All of which means it looks and feels like a t-shirt, same as any other high quality 50% poly & 50% cotton blend shirt. But this shirt was once a water bottle.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s an idea that comes from outside the green business world, but has much to offer us and I think should be repeated all over.

In London, KiosKiosk is a simple, powerful, powerfully fun idea: Create an attractive temporary space for upcoming (but ready to sell) businesses to be at, in a high traffic area. At no cost.

Backed by the London Sustainable Development Commission, businesses just need to submit a brief form describing what they’d like to use the kiosk for, when, and why they are a good idea for the KiosKiosk and vice versa.

While the KiosKiosk is focused on creative/design/arts/music businesses, such an idea could, and should be replicated for green startups, many of which, like any small company, may not have the funds or credit history to get a full fledged, full time space. Since there is no rent to pay, this could also be used by companies to create, say, memorable experiences and activities out of the space, of lasting promotional value and social media worthy mentions, growing their online business, for example.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Green Printer interview with Carmen Spagnola, entrepreneur and owner of m.

1. What made you want to start m?
I started m because I was a frustrated consumer.  I decided that  if I want to have access to smarter, more beautifully designed, more  responsible products and amenities for my home and family, I was going
to have to create more demand.  Markets are a bit of a chicken-and-egg  relationship.  Many retailers will tell you that they only provide  what their customers want.  That is only part of my modus operandi.
I want to showcase the possibility of a better performing future, so  much of what I sell and promote is currently considered ahead of the market.  But how will the market know what it wants if we don’t inspire it to want more?
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Being small and focused helps us stay true to our mission in everything that we do.  When a company called kajeet approached us via Miller Strategic Marketing we did our homework and checked out their site, did a search on reviews and looked into the bios of the executive team.  We found out that kajeet is a mobile phone service that focuses on the needs of parents with young children.  This is consistent with the trend that companies that work with mokugift are focused on creating nurturing experiences or have developed nurturing cultures in their company.

Parenting brings out the pragmatic and resourceful skills in everyone.  kajeet approached us with the idea of Read the rest of this entry »

So you have an interest in sustainability, particularly when it comes to your home environment. You know enough that your friends seem to flock to you for advice. They say, “You should open your own store!” You think hmm, they might be on to something. But you’ve never opened up a store, and it’s a tough economy these days for doing so.

g Green Design Center may be just the ticket.

Begun in Massachusetts, they’ve now created a franchise program for the budding ecopreneurist, where someone with the passion can put the backing of someone already doing it, together with what will increasingly become a known name for such stores.

The flagship g store has a host of green building/design services from interior and architectural design to eco events.

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One of the glaring absences in the discussion of how to use social media to achieve marketing goals is the lack of established marketing terms. Since green businesses are big users of Twitter, I think we need to have this conversation!

Traditional marketing terms are just words that have used for quite a long while to name different ways of accomplishing marketing goals.Though tactics may have changed from relying on newspapers to relying on television advertising to new interest in social media, the goals and what we want to accomplish in the end have remained the same. That’s why I find it odd that perfectly good words like “impressions” and “reach” are so often absent from the discussion on social media.

Let’s review.

In advertising terms, “impressions” means how many times a consumer sees your message. This is measured across media. A TV viewer may see your commercial 5 or more times before it registers or sparks their interest in your product. Media buyers calculate the number of times specific consumers see a commercial before making the buy.

“Reach” refers to the actual number of consumers who see your message once. Obviously the more of your target consumers you reach often, with lots of impressions, the greater the chances she’ll buy your product.

And, so I ask, why does this topic not come up in discussions of social media? Yes, people do talk about followers and friends and quality followers and friends and fans and number of followers on Twitter, Facebook, SU, Myspace, etc, etc. This does address the concept of “reach” – sort of.

But what about impressions? Especially on Twitter, we usually tweet a post or an interesting thought…once. And, of course, at least, I’d say 80-90% of our followers don’t even see the tweet…unless it is retweeted. Of course, that is often the goal, but, what about if we tweeted one message a number of times to ensure that all of our key target sees it? Would that be considered bad twettique? Is that abusing our followers? Would we rapidly have deluge of people “unfollowing”? Read the rest of this entry »

With all the talk of green clothing these days, one thing seems to be missing from the conversations: Sustainability. The old fashioned kind. As in how long it lasts. Yes, you can make clothing last by repurposing it into something else, but what if you’re just not that crafty, or don’t want to spend the time doing it?

UK clothing company Howie’s has another idea: Make clothing that lasts. A long time. Enough so that when you’re done with it, passing it on doesn’t mean getting a ratty, worn, frayed garment. It’s been built so well it can last for a decade, maintaining quality.

Their Hand-Me-Down line does just that.

Howie’s puts it well when they say,

“We live in times of limited resources but unlimited desire to consume them. The answer though is real simple: to consume less as a consumer; to make a better designed product as a manufacturer.”

What does that look like?
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re like 50%-60% of businesses in America you may be thinking about sending customized holiday cards this year.  If so, there’s still time and you have lots of excellent green options.

1. The greenest option is to forgo printed cards and use an eCard.  American Greetings has a wide selction of eCards with minimal advertisements and is free for the first month.  They even have an option to include a virtual gift card good for use at over 100 participating merchants.

2. ReProduct Zero-Waste custom photo holiday cards and envelopes are created using environmentally friendly materials and are completely recyclable—100% of these cards and envelopes are reused in the manufacturing of Shaw carpets. Cards and envelopes are made from synthetic ‘paper’ (virgin polypropylene) which is a treeless alternative. According to Rachel Derby of ReProduct, unlike paper which can only be recycled a limited number of times, plastics can be used again and again without losing any material quality, in a true Cradle to Cradle manner. Recipients follow simple return instructions detailed on the postage paid envelope that comes with the card.

3. Minted has beautiful digitally printed eco-friendly cards. All their holiday cards are printed on 100% PCW recycled 130lb matte card stock. Minted is powered by wind power and the cards are FSC and GreenSeal and Green-E certified. If you order today you will receive your cards by December 15. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hearing Van Jones, author of The Green Collar Economy, talk about his vision for a green economy at The Center For American Progess.

It was an oversubscribed crowd and Jones sat comfortably on an arm chair on a slightly raised platform, giving the impression of a living room chat. He started by talking about how the floor on America has been torn out, but so has the ceiling and now is the time when we are “free to fall or to fly.” He spoke of our unsustainable economic model that is based on consumption not production, run on debt vs. savings and thrift, and environmental destruction vs. preservation. But soon after the gloom, Jones shifted the rhetoric to one of hope. He spoke of building a new economy with clean energy power centers and a clean enemy corps. An economy where all people, including people often left out of economic expansion such as the poor, people of color, etc…, have a place at the table. He spoke of the low hanging fruit in a new green collar economy: retrofitting. He laid out his vision where out of work construction workers — workers he predicted would be idle for 12, 24, 36 months — are put to work retrofitting existing building across America.

And therein lies the ecopreneurial opportunity. In Jones’ vision, people from all economic strata can start a business that provides retrofitting services or produce the products needed to retrofit. And, retrofitting is just the beginning. Jones went on to say that the days of the environment being a “a box you check off” are over and we have entered an era where environmental impacts are a lens through which all economic activity must be viewed. The result is an economy with a host of ecopreneurial opportunities and where our two worst problems, the economy and climate change, are solved by ecoprenuers. In Van Jones’ world, there never been a better time to be an ecopreneur.

Photo courtesy of Van Jones.