Category: environment

blogging, charity, customer service, environment, New York City, social media, social network

Make it easy for me to participate

Christa Avampato

See that blog post just below entitled, Root for Your City? I didn’t write it – not a single word of it. A handful of clicks and it was posted for me. American Express ran a program called “Root for Your City”. 8 cities across the country are competing for the largest share of 1 million tress to plant in their cities. By using my Amex cards (I am now up to three of them as of yesterday!) at participating stores and restaurants, I am contributing to the effort in my city.

I went to the site after receiving a customer email (1st click) and clicked on the button “RootforNYC.com” (2nd click). After arriving on the home page for the contest and learning a bit about it I clicked on the button “Spread the Word” (3rd click). There was a tab titled “Post to blog” (4th click). I checked the “Blogger” button (since my blog is hosted by Blogger), entered by username and password, clicked “sign-in”, and then click “post” (5th, 6th, and 7th clicks). That’s it. Done. Posted up to my blog with a link to the contest’s site and a pretty picture. A clean, easy to follow, aesthetically-pleasing process. (It was so easy that I felt like I was visiting a site designed by Apple!) Now that is service.

This tiny event was a big lesson for me. In this day and age of messaging and the need for mass participation, the organizers of events, efforts, and campaigns need to make participation easy. Companies need advocates now more than ever. Give a customer a good experience and they’re with you for life. This is the age of customer service, when finally customers are given their due as valuable, cherished members of a company. And the companies that will come out ahead when it is all said and done are those that not only call their customers kings and queens, but treat them like that as well.

business, Business Week, economy, environment, money, recycle

Cash for Trash

Christa Avampato

Who doesn’t need a little extra money these days? Pretty soon you may need to look no further than your trash can. This week, Business Week ran an article on the recycling and waste – an area of our economy that is booming despite the loses being felt in many other industries. Green collar jobs and green collar crime are on the rise, mostly in the area of how to use trash. VC and PE firms are tripping over themselves to invest in new trash technologies, throwing a million ideas at the wall and hoping that a couple of them stick. 


You really want to make some money in trash? Figure out the most efficient way to sort it. As with so many other projects that require a clear, concise reason for being, the value of trash is in the edit. And there isn’t a top of the line sorting system out there that does away with ever form of human sorting. What we need is a WALL-E. Actually, we need thousands of them. And some people still think that cartoons are only for entertaining kids! Who knew those folks over at Pixar were moonlighting environmental engineers? 

Africa, environment, food, friendship, girl scounts, politics, sports, television, travel

10 little things

Christa Avampato

My friend, Julie, is in Tanzania for about 2 months. She’s on assignment with the Peace Corp and has started a blog to track her experiences. http://turnyourhead.wordpress.com/


On one of her posts, she takes a cue from her blogging sister and lists 10 little known things about her that are interesting and unique. I love the idea so much that I’m stealing it. Thanks for the inspiration, Jules 🙂

1.) The first profession I ever had an interest in was paleontology because I loved dinosaurs.
2.) When I was little, I memorized every fact about Africa that I could get my hands on and my mother would patiently listen to me go on for hours – if only we had the internet then.
3.) I was a Girl Scout until I was 12.
4.) I learned how to swim when I was 30.
5.) This is the first year I have ever been registered with a political party. My mother gave me a voter registration form when I turned 18 and until this year have always been an Independent.
6.) There is a tractor crossing sign on the road I grew up on. 
7.) The two countries I must visit some time in my life are Rwanda, to see the mountain gorillas, and Cuba because of the movie For Love or Country.
8.) I hate talking on the phone – it’s my least favorite form of communication
9.) My favorite charitable cause is environmental protection
10.) Mary Lou Retton was my childhood idol  
and a bonus fact:
11.) My sister and I have two common obsessions: The Gilmore Girls (my baby niece is named after Lorelei Gilmore!) and Dunkin’ Donuts (which we affectionately refer to as “Dunks”)
animals, creativity, environment, green, Josh Klein, sustainability, TED

Crows: Man’s Best Friend? Possibly

Christa Avampato

Joshua Klein is a Principle at frogDesign, an incredible design and idea house based in New York City. I read their blog, frogBlog, religiously and everyday find new ideas and POV that give me new perspective. Klein recently spoke at TED about crow and corvid behavior, his unusual passion for the last 10 years. 


Klein explains that we seem intent on a handful of things when it comes to wildlife. We are very concerned with endangered species, particularly those that are endangered because of human destruction of habitat and hunting of the animals. On the flip side, we show disdain for those animals who have learned how to thrive in spite of a human desire to crush their species – rats and cockroaches are examples.


The most remarkable specimen of a species that seems to thrive on human existence are crows. They always live within a 5km of humans, on every continent except Antarctica. Like chimpanzees, crows use tools, reason, and logic, and then teach these skills to their young and flock. They have memories, particularly of physical human descriptions, better than most humans. They have trained themselves o understand human systems like traffic lights, and then use these systems to their own benefit. They adapt to challenges quickly and can even be taught to use vending machines. Unbelievable you say? Watch the video. You’ll be blown away. 


Great observations, Josh Klein. So what? Who cares if crows are smarter than we give them credit for? What can crows do for us? Klein is asking these profound questions and he’s wondering how crows and humans can form symbiotic, mutually-beneficial relationships. It turns out that crows could be trained to do a lot for us, if only we apply a snippet of creativity. Collect trash? Participate in search and rescue? Salvage valuable items from a landfill? After all, crows have proven one thing to us that we cannot refute – they thrive on human interaction and they aren’t going away from us any time soon. And as long as they’re here and willing to be a part of human society, then we might as well make them as useful as possible. 


The photo above can be found here. 


Take a peek at Josh’s website: http://www.wireless.is/

economy, environment, happiness, travel

Gross National Happiness (GNH)

Christa Avampato

I’m starting to feel panic at the pump. In Rhode Island this past weekend, I paid $3.99 for a gallon of gas. When I arrived home, I found this week’s issue of Business Week waiting for me. Some energy sector analysts are predicting $200 / barrel oil by the fall of this year. Wal-mart and Costco are placing limits on the amount of rice any one customer can buy. Food bills, air fares, electricity prices are all climbing. And then there’s the real estate market.


On my long drive home from work, I often consider whether or not we did this to ourselves. Our consumption level is frighteningly high. In this country we seem unable to be happy with what we’ve got – it’s embedded in us, as Americans, that we always strive for more. 


While we are obsessed with measuring GDP, other nations in the world have different benchmarks. The country of Bhutan considers GNH, Gross National Happiness, an indicator of societal well-being. A while back I found the following definition and history of the term GNH:


“Coined by Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Gross National Happiness (GNH) measures actual well-being of a country’s citizens rather than consumption, accounting more fully for social, human and environmental realities. Its premise is that basic happiness can be measured since it pertains to quality of nutrition, housing, education, health care and community life. By contrast, the conventional concept of Gross National Product (GNP) measures only the sum total of material production and exchange in any country:


Promotion of equitable and sustainable socio-economic development

Preservation and promotion of cultural values

Conservation of the natural environment

Establishment of good governance    


At the GNH International Conference in 2004, participants adopted a declaration that said that the facilitation of GNH should be accompanied by “the development of indicators that address human physical and emotional well-being. They must be capable of use for self-evaluation, so that individuals and groups may gauge their progress in the attainment of happiness. In addition, indicators should facilitate full accountability, good governance, and socially constructive business practices, both in day-to-day life and in long-range policies and activities.”   


So while we weather this latest economic situation, the consideration of alternate indicators is at least worth a few moments of time. After all, if you’re going to wait out a storm, you might as well have some reading material that gives you hope for a better tomorrow. Learn more at http://www.grossinternationalhappiness.org


The images above can be found at http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0411/Bhutan_Monastery.jpg

environment, green, travel

Life dream: Rwanda

Christa Avampato

Real Simple Magazine recently asked their readers to write in with the top 3 things on their life’s “must-do” list. I needed to think long and hard about this and I came up with the following short list, though there are many more things I’d love to do:
1.) Scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef 
2.) Learn to play the piano
3.) See the mountain gorillas in Rwanda

Runners-up:
4.) Speak another language fluently
5.) Visit Sicily with someone I love
6.) Buy a home

Taking the Rwanda “must-do”, I did a bit of research after hearing the tail end of a story about mountain gorillas on NPR. Many scientists have traveled to Rwanda to study the animals, and many conservation groups are working round the clock to save them and their habitat, in the face of poachers and a never-ending stream of wars in that nation. The gorillas grew used to seeing people, though once the genocide grew rampant throughout Rwanda, scientists withdrew from their work with the gorillas. The populations of the animals has been falling ever since, until now. 

It appears that the gorillas could sense the stress of the wars going on in their area, and their birthrates declined as a result. Another well-supported theory suggests that once the scientists withdrew, the gorillas missed them, became depressed, and stopped having as many young. Now that peace has been restored, even though tenuous, to Rwanda, the gorillas population is growing and birthrates are up for the first time in 24 years. 

The natural world often goes overlooked in war-torn areas. The human casualties of conflict are heart-wrenching, and there are other species that are also harmed in the wake of war. They suffer in silence. All the more reason to do whatever we must do to keep the peace – there i more at stake than our own existence.
business, choices, corporation, environment, retail, shop.org

Living in an ecosystem

Christa Avampato

A few nights ago I went to a dinner co-sponsored by Shop.org (a retail trade organization) and Demandware, an e-commerce platform provider. They were kind enough to host a soft sell dinner for 50 retailers in New York City at Ruth’s Chris. While the dinner and networking were terrific, a researcher from Jupiter Research, Patti Freeman Evans, gave a brief speech on e-commerce, though her insights had much broader-reaching applications.


I have written often about the act of curation – in writing and in life. As a retailer, there is also a curatorial aspect to my company’s work. In our brick-and-mortar stores, we are constrained by the size of the box. Even on our website, there is just so much merchandise that any one Guest is willing to click-through. Navigation must be easy. Content must be relevant. Frustration, confusion, and wait time must be held to an absolute minimum from parking in our parking lot all the way through the Guest exit. As retailers, we are curators. Yes, the content matters, though the thoughtful edit matters even more. Or point-of-view and clear expression of it is mission critical. There’s no room in retail for “wishy-washy”.


It’s easy to have a POV about a store, or a chain or stores, or a website. But what about an enterprise POV? Much more difficult when there are parties of conflicting interest. Our business, like so many others, is currently siloed beyond belief. Many people see an ecosystem within their own microcosm. And you can’t build a brand that way. I am surprised every day at how many people drive their respective buses with blinders on. This is only complicated by the fact that we are a turn-around, so we are, as my boss likes to say “driving the bus at breakneck speed while also trying to paint it.” Again, if only I could draw…


What Patti Freeman Evans asked us to do, as retailers, is consider our entire business and indeed our entire industry, as an ecosystem. What we do in one store, one chain of stores, or on one site has an incredible effect on many other people and companies. And her thought provoking analogy of businesses being living, breathing entities offers us a chance to reflect on the question, “what would we do, in our businesses, if we were conscious at every moment that our decisions profoundly effect the lives of everyone we reach for years to come?”

environment, green, media

Vanity Fair’s misstep on the 2008 Green issue

Christa Avampato

While Miley Cyrus’s photoshoot maybe the talk of the hallways over at Vanity Fair, I think they have bigger problems – that of leadership. This month every magazine had their version of a Green issue. Finally, it seems that the wake-up call to protect the environment and reverse some of the damage we’ve done is reaching the mainstream. Last year I was so impressed withVanity Fair’s Green issue that I subscribed to the magazine. When this year’s Green issue arrived in my mailbox, I couldn’t wait to read through it. And now I’m completely confused.


In spite of all of the incredible innovation and creativity happening in the world of sustainability, this year’s VF Green issue simply rehashed the same old topics and players that have been kicking around for years. I didn’t see anything about entrepreneurs with green-collar jobs, young companies that are making a big difference (i.e., Method), the growing popularity of CSA’s, or the locavore trend. All of these are timely, trendy topics in Green. Rather than the fine reporting I’ve come to admire in VF, this issue’s features are pretty much the same as those found in nearly every mass media source. 


And then to add insult to injury, there’s a double-sided, heavy stock coupon for cigarettes right in the middle of the magazine! I guess I’m supposed to feel better that at least the tobacco is “additive-free”, the coupon is printed on recycled paper, and the executives at the tobacco company are “passionate about the environment” and have organic growing programs. Gross – the ad was an exercise in how many environmental buzzword the company could haphazardly throw together on one sheet of paper.  Their product still causes illness, and is not part of a healthy lifestyle. Healthy living is exactly what Green is all about! What was the VF advertising department thinking when they accepted and prominently featured that ad? Clearly, they weren’t thinking at all. 


Here’s to hoping that VF makes better choices in the 2009 Green issue and that the rest of us take-away the power of being genuine. The damage being anything less than genuine can cause is not something any company can afford.

Earth Day, environment, green, scruppies

Scruppies unite!

Christa Avampato

We couldn’t let Earth Day go by without another new vocabulary word in the lexicon of sustainability. This one is actually fun to say! Scruppies is defined as “socially conscious upwardly mobile persons.” Me (God-willing on the upwardly mobile part), for example.

I grew up in a rural area where being Green was just the way we lived. We’d never pollute the land we had to live on because, well, we had to live there. We bought food at the farmer’s markets because we were friends with the farmers. We shut off lights and rarely had air conditioning because it was just too expensive. We used items until they wore out, and then had them repaired rather than tossing them because that makes economic sense.

So now that I’m college educated twice-over and have a good job, I want to be financially independent and successful while also hanging onto my roots of only using the resources I absolutely need and doing my part to make the planet a cleaner, healthier place. Simple enough. Apparently, I’m not alone. There are so many of us who fit this category that we have numbers large enough to justify our own demographic segment: scruppies.

Persistence pays. Happy Earth Day to all!

The photo above can be found at http://www.newworldbiomass.com/images/earthdate.gif

environment, Google, green

Google-Powered Search Engine Goes Green with Blackle.com

Christa Avampato

“Green is the new black” is all over NYC lately – t-shirts, bags, TV commercials, street posters. Saving the environment is coolest hobby these days. Now Heap Media has partnered with Google to take a creative bent on search making “Black the new Green” with Blackle.com.

Instead of Google’s traditional white search window, Blackle.com’s window is black with white type, saving about 15 watts per search. I learned about Blackle.com through the Centerfor Biodiversity’s weekly newsletter that I receive each Friday. One blogger has estimated that if Blackle.com is widely adopted, it could save the world 750 megawatts / year. (This amount of energy would power 500 US homes for about 2 years!) In additional to savings energy, and ultimately money, the search engine is also a powerful reminder that protecting the environment is important. It keeps the cause top-of-mind.

Check it out at http://www.blackle.com/
To subscribe to the Center for Biodiversity’s weekly newsletter, visit http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/