Laura Cisneros (photo left) &  Nickie Vogt, Tom Calvert-Rosenberger, and Aryn Young (photo right) of the Texas Christian University Environmental Club feature Ditto Ecological Hangers as part of their August 25, 2011 fund raising event. The club’s auction raised money on behalf of Trinity River Sponsorship & clean up as well as fund other environmental based projects.

“Our club mission statement is to promote environmental awareness through outreach and education within the TCU community in a NON-PARTISAN way,” said Brooke Long, Texas Christian University Environmental Club President. “We want to encourage fellow students, faculty, and staff to be more environmentally friendly by providing the necessary opportunities and then showing them how. Your donation of Ditto Ecological Hangers will help us raise awareness of local environmental issues and get more students involved in ecologically friendly products!”

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Topics were wide-ranging and conversation flowed! Everything from local green initiatives to industrial green practices were on the table. Our guests shared their different perspectives on – for instance – bringing sustainable materials and practice to industries that are breaking old habits & responding to consumer demand for green alternatives.

Here’s a sample of the great feedback we received:

“Just wanted to say I really enjoyed myself. You had a great group of people there and I look forward to the next one!” – Thomas Rosenberg, VP, Advisory Services (EVI:Sustainable Solutions for the Environment)

“Thanks very much for hosting the event. It was very interesting hearing the different challenges from the variety of perspectives and just nice to be chatting with a likeminded group of people.” – Ben Pawsey, Design Director (Sustainable Life Media)

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The City of Oakland, California urban planning department announced this week that it will move towards reducing the cost and regulation to encourage the growth of urban farms.

“Oakland’s city planners are going through the books and trying to update zoning codes that were written in the 1960s, when the city was still a growing metropolis and becoming a new urban home for people fleeing farm land.” says Sajid Farooq of NBCBayArea.com.

Making conditional use permits more available will allow for the kinds of gardens and livestock farms that have become increasingly popular with residents all throughout Oakland.

“By breaking down some of these barriers to growing and selling food within our communities, we are going to create more open spaces for people to develop more skills and to create more food enterprises in the city, so more people can grow and provide healthier options for their neighbors,” said Aaron Lehmer, the campaigns director for Bay Localize, an Oakland-based environmental non-profit organization.

Read more at http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Oakland-Looking-to-Update-Urban-Farming-Laws-125974063.html

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It may surprise some people to learn that Oakland, CA (Ditto’s hometown) was ranked the 4th Greenest Large City among U.S. cities over 250,000 in population by the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) July 2009 Smarter Cities Rankings, Mother Nature Network, and Popular Science magazine.

This ranking is no fluke. The Oakland City Council established the “Sustainable Community Development Initiative” in 1997, immediately and unanimously adopting a policy framework called “Building the Sustainable Economy: An Opportunity for Oakland.”

The Sustainable Oakland program, housed in Environmental Services, supports Oakland’s progress in becoming a more sustainable City – a community in which all people have the opportunity to live safe, happy, healthy and fulfilling lives, now and into the future. The Sustainable Oakland program supports Oakland’s progress in becoming a more sustainable City through:
- Facilitating collaborative approaches to improve Oakland’s sustainability performance
- Tracking, reporting on and promoting Oakland’s sustainability story

As a result, Oakland achieved its first Top Ten Green City in 2005 awards by both Smarter Cities and The Green Guide. It was named a “Bicycle Friendly City” in 2010 by the League of American Bicyclists, was awarded a 2007 City Solar Award by NorCal Solar for having the most solar power-generating capacity installed among large cities in 10 counties around the Bay Area, and was named one of “The 20 Best Towns in America” by Outside Magazine in July 2008.

In fact, many prestigious awards (www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/PWA/o/FE/s/SO/a/Awards/index.htm) for sustainability stewardship and quality-of-life have been bestowed since the city adopted 27 policy resolutions (www2.oaklandnet.com/Government/o/PWA/o/FE/s/SO/a/AdoptedPolicies/index.htm) to curb its carbon footprint and green the environment for its citizens.

Being headquartered in Oakland aligns beautifully with Ditto’s business model. Ditto reverse engineers everyday products (www.dittobrandsolutions.com/our-products) – including our flagship Ditto Ecological Hanger, a green clothes hanger – to flow through mainstream recycling systems. And through the Sustainable Community Development Initiative, Oakland has created a platform for a green economy.

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(July 6, 2011 – post courtesy of Wendel Forum)

This week Ditto Sustainable Brand Solutions features a recent report by the Wendel Forum (www.thewendelforum.com) on California Assembly bill 361 which would create a new form of social & environmentally driven business known as a Benefit Corporation. The Wendel Forum is a blog by fellow Oakland, CA-based Wendel Rosen’s Green Practice Group focusing on the legal side of the green economy.

“AB 361 would create a new corporate structure available to companies that want to build social and environmental values into their core mission. The Benefit Corporation form of entity would protect the corporate officers (and hold them accountable) for socially- and environmentally-driven decision making. It requires transparency and verification from accredited companies.”

Similar to the proposed Benefit Corporation status, a B-Corporation designation holds companies to very high standards of environmental stewardship. Ditto has been a Certified B-Corporation since January 2009; that certification established Ditto as a corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B-Corporations are unlike traditional responsible businesses because they meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards, institutionalize stakeholder interests, and build collective voice through the power of a unifying brand.

The same Wendel Forum post also includes an interview with Adam Lowry of the stalwart green business Method to discuss AB 361. They report that “Adam suggests that there is a natural shakeout happening currently for businesses that are not as green as they say they are. B-Corporation Certification and a future Benefit Corporation form of corporate organization would promote transparency and require third party, independent, recognized standards (that are credible and comprehensive) to battle greenwashing and provide additional certainty for consumers.”

Please follow the following link: http://thewendelforum.com/2011/06/23/episode-20-%e2%80%93-method%e2%80%99s-adam-lowry-talks-b-corp-legislation-ab-361/

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(by Sandra Beaton, Ditto® Sustainable Brand Solutions)

Ditto Sustainable Brand Solutions attended both the Ceres Conference (held in Oakland, CA) and the Sustainable Brands Conference (recently concluded in Monterey, CA). In Parts 1 and 2 of this series of blog posts we presented a digest of those two gatherings. We end our report by sharing several statements from the Sustainable Brands Conference we thought were informative…and a few that were outright inspiring! We’ll leave it to you to decide…

Koann Skrzyniarz/ Sustainable Life Media…Koann drafted the 3 quotes seen on the slide above.

Dave Cobban/ Nike…”Can we all be the voice of the positive rebel?”

Jules Peck/ Abundancy Partners…”We are creating a new global economic model; the “Happy Planet Index” determines our well being. We must maximize well-being and minimize our impact on the planet.”

Erin Shils/ teens turning green…”83% of the Millenials (18-29 year olds) are willing to change their consumption patterns to help our Earth be a healthier and better place.”

Paul Herman/ Human Impact+Profit and Founder of HIP’s 100 Index for Sustainablity…”People are a company’s greatest asset, and they’re not listed as such on a company’s balance sheet.”

Arthur Rubinfeld/ Starbucks…”We use good environmental design to educate consumers. We believe in collective consciousness and have brought LEED certification to China, France, and the Phillipines.”

Alexis Olans/ Adidas….”We expect to reduce the company’s needed volume of display samples by 30% with our advanced new Adidas Virtual Footwear Retail Wall.”

Colleen Kohlsaat/ Levi Strauss &Co….”Life cycle thinking changes supply chain prognostication and Levi’s has created E-Valuate™, a new life cycle analysis system.”

Beth Jensen/ Outdoor Industry Association….”The Sustainable Apparel Coalition was formed as an EcoWorking Group of 100 members to initiate the Eco Index Seal as a common framework and benchmark tool to be utilized for global product industries.”

Gabe Zichermann/ Author GameBased Marketing… “We use ‘gamification’ or game thinking and game mechanics to solve problems and engage users. Gartner Reseach predicts 50% of all innovation processes will be gamified with companies.”

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(by Sandra Beaton, Ditto® Sustainable Brand Solutions)

Ditto was there when 2 major sustainability conferences took place in Northern CA. Last week we reported on Ceres in Oakland; this week we cover the 2011 Sustainable Brands conference (www.sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb11) held June 7-10th in Monterey, CA. We left SB ’11 very excited by the energy and forward-thinking views of the many innovative industry colleagues and experts from sustainable design, manufacturing and retail display space that will positively impact consumer choices and the planet.

Sustainable Brands is the brainchild of rapidly growing Bay Area company, Sustainable Life Media (www. sustainablebrands2011.com). Its mission is to build a progressive community of multiple stakeholders, visionary leaders willing to take risks, share expertise and build best practices leveraging insights from multiple industries to find solutions for the future.

Sustainable Brands 2011, the 5th annual conference, topped previous gatherings with a record 790 attendees! A few highlights included an action message on the “Millennial” generation (18-29 year olds), “Karmic Capitalism” by Joie de Vivre CEO Chip Conley, and presentation of an Eco Index implemented by the Outdoor Industry Association, a global collaboration of 100 members (brands, retailers and suppliers) charged with creating a common environmental product benchmark.

Additional compelling presentations included Starbuck’s environmental/renewable building design, Travelocity’s “Travel for Good” Program, the debut of three car-sharing business models, SaoPaulo/Brazil’s “visual pollution” billboard clean-up program and Adidas’s upcoming “Virtual wall retail purchasing platform” designed to create customer excitement and raise awareness of the company’s sustainability mission.

The event closed with a wonderful program for giving back to youth in the local Monterey, CA community: children received bikes from Specialized Bikes and soccer balls from One World Futbol, recipient of the Sustainable Brands new business competition.

Notable links to 2011 Sustainable Brands conference:

2011 Sustainable Brands conference forum_”Force Drives Successful Change”: www.sustainablelifemedia.com/news_and_views/blog/force-drives-successful-change

2011 Sustainable Brands conference events: www.sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb11/program

2011 Sustainable Brands conference attendees: www.sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb11/attendees

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Jim Woolsey Keynote from Ceres on Vimeo.

Ditto was there when 2 major sustainability conferences took place in Northern CA; Ceres in Oakland (www.ceres.org/conferences) and Sustainable Brands in Monterey. We were very excited to absorb the conferences’ combination of plenary speakers, group panels, and workshops.

Ceres is a non-profit organization started in 1989 by Joan Bavaria as a result of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. The organization is a national coalition of investors, environmental organizations, public interest groups and companies working to address major sustainability challenges. Ceres integrates sustainability into business practices for the health of the planet and people.

This year’s Ceres conference topics included everything from clean energy, water risk management, retail/consumer strategies and communication, electric vehicles, sustainable reporting, agriculture, recycling and waste management, public policy and corporate citizenship.

The networking events drew us into passionate discussions with multiple stakeholders that affect our business and opened opportunities to learn more about the current and future challenges and solutions in many different industries.

The powerful, collaborative relationships we developed during these networking sessions were incredibly inspiring; in fact, we came away from Ceres with a plan for launching our own quarterly salons to bring sustainability innovators together with business leaders because we know great things can result! (Keep an eye on this blog for the announcement of our first sustainability salon.)

Ceres’ 2011 awards included Root Capital, KLD Research and Analytics and Anvil Knitwear for the “Track your Organic Tee” consumer program with Disney.

Other conference highlights included:
- BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy)

- Levi’s “Waterless Jeans” campaign touting the company’s innovative manufacture using 95% less water

- Nike’s leadership policies on Sustainable Business and Innovation
And a powerful panel discussion of the U.S and China in advancing global clean energy, including CEO of Suntech and Sr. VP and Director of China Sustainable Energy Program at The Energy Foundation

Next week’s post will feature our report from the Sustainable Brands conference (http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb11)

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Ditto Sustainable Brand Solutions loves to spread the word about great, sustainably-minded companies like TOMS Shoes (www.toms.com). Not only are their traditional line of slip-on canvas shoes eco-friendly, they’re sturdy and – because they’re made in a huge variety of prints & colors – they’re fashionable too!

The best thing about TOMS is the company’s incredible One for One program, giving one pair of shoes to a child in need in over 20 countries worldwide for each pair sold. As of September 2010, TOMS has given away over one million pairs of shoes.

Alert! Ditto announced that it’s 100% recyclable Ecological Hangers are back in stock and available at Amazon.com. To access Amazon’s Ditto page directly, please click this link: http://amzn.to/lETp6S