strfish’s Recent Comments

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  I am estimating carbon footprints for a range of grocery store items. These are difficult and tedious calculations involving a lot of research. I plan to post a list on my blog. In the meantime however I did find a U.S. product with a published carbon footprint.

  PepsiCo working with Carbon Trust worked out that a ½ gallon of Tropicana orange juice emits 3.75 lbs of CO2 in its complete lifecycle (field to consumer use and disposal). Based on the cost of carbon offsets from Native Energy (at $14/ton of 0.7 cents/lb), offsetting a ½ gallon of OJ would cost 2.6 cents. Compared to an on-deal price of $2.39 and a full price of $5.99, offsetting carbon emissions would mean a 0.44% and 1.1% increase in the ½ gallon of OJ. I can afford that!

  On The business of Earth Day posted 7 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

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  I’d like to think that this is a defining opportunity for P&G and all its employees to really make a difference. We are clearly at a societal/economic tipping point. We need organizations like P&G to take the lead. We need them to take marketplace risks and suffer profit hits. That is where they started. We need them to do it again.

  On the other hand, this is a huge business opportunity for P&G. The packaged goods industry is stagnate. Most of the cost has been squeezed out of the supply chain and the industry has been competing for market share based on packaging and flavor. The industry is at the part of the innovation S-curve where innovation is incremental at best. We need to jump to a new S-curve. (Note that packaging and flavor inherently add carbon to a base product.)

  I think the new basis of competition will be “impact on the planet”. Over 25 years ago, Michael Lanning (while at McKinsey) defined a powerful business concept and coined a wonderful phrase - the “value proposition”.  It said that a consumer of a product will associate a value to a product based on the delivery of a set of perceived benefits.

  It’s time for an update - value proposition 2.0 (VP2.0). VP2.0 says that value is now benefits plus impact (lack thereof really). Impact itself is not a benefit because the consumer doesn’t get the benefit of a zero-carbon product, we all do. Impact forms a new powerful differentiating factor in the marketplace. A 2006 survey of U.K. consumers by Carbon Trust found that 67% of consumers are more likely to buy a product with a low-carbon footprint. People want zero!

  I have to crunch some macro numbers, but zero packaged goods would not be much more expensive. It didn’t take me long to find an example. Clifbar just announced a new sports drink called Quench. Working with Native Energy, Clif offset all the CO2 emissions created in the manufacturing and supply chain for Quench. I don’t know for sure, but I think Quench hits the same price point as their carbon-rich competitors. I suspect that Clif may have made changes in the product that made it cheaper to make. They may have been able to do this (e.g. change the packaging) because they could be a little different than their competition, as one of their main points of differential is now zero-impact.

  I am hoping that this is just the start of a huge trend. That we will start to see more and more and more, zero products. If all the folks at P&G start working in this direction … they could plant a lot of those trees you point of we need.

  On The business of Earth Day posted 7 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

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  Len –

  But it hasn’t “evolved for all of us”. It’s part of your job – so you are way ahead of the curve.

  By my math less well less than half a millionAmericans know their carbon footprint. To me, that is where you start. McKinsey has pointed out that getting below 500 ppmv isn’t really expensive (around 1% of GDP). I can afford 1%. So what gives? A recent global survey by Accenture found that 37% of companies have “no awareness of the level of supply chain emissions”. This is not the progress we need.

  Here is the consumer problem as I see it. I’ve got 364 other things to worry about. Why do I buy organic milk (and pay more for it)? Because it’s in my face. I can’t avoid the comparison – drink hormones or not. Why did I buy ClimateSmart carbon offsets from PG&E? Because they put it right in my face (in the online bill pay setup). I was forced to think about what I was doing to the environment.

  I understand that rebuilding P&G supply chains and manufacturing processes will take considerable time. We can’t wait for that however. Why doesn’t P&G put it right in my face? You can relatively easily figure out the footprint of each of your products. Work with Safeway and put that along the product price in the database. Give me the option right at checkout to offset that product. That way you have a cyber equivalent “zero” product. As I am sure you know Safeway is having success putting other good causes in the checkout process (e.g. donating to MS).

  I think carbon awareness on consumer products is critical. Most people grocery shop at least once/week. With this type of a program, they would be potentially choosing a zero product every week (or at least be forced to consider it). This makes the carbon decision part of their regular thought process. Not only would the actual offsets help, but there would be tremendous spillover.

  Maybe this is one good first step in the journey.

  Greg

  On The business of Earth Day posted 7 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses