may day may day may day

Loved this story in the Guardian about how a new condom making venture could help keep the Brazilian rainforest standing, as it were. Yet another example of the growing efforts to show forests can be worth more left standing than cut down.
 
More serious is this piece about the perils of planting fake activists in campaign groups to try to undermine them. I’m no fan of BAA (having again experienced their ‘customer service’ at a hopelessly chaotic London Heathrow on Sunday evening), but I’m relieved to see they weren’t behind this foolhardy strategy. It’s extraordinary that people think this kind of covert operation can still work without the risk, dare I say it, of exposure. It turns out the campaigners were a bit smarter than the mole on this one. Sad to think the chap involved couldn’t find a better use for his Oxford degree.
 
Lastly, this video clip is a good reminder about the perils of not adapting our transport systems to a fast growing population. If you thought the London tube system was bad, take a look! And then imagine our planet in 2050…

Following Unilever’s recent move to Rainforest Alliance certified tea for PG Tips, more good news for UK ethical shopping market today as Costa Coffee unveils its big plans for Rainforest Alliance coffee across the UK. As far as I’m aware this is the first time a big coffee chain has decided to convert its whole supply to Rainforest Alliance certified in the UK. It’s hard to miss Rainforest Alliance products these days. You’ll find certified coffee in an ever growing number of places, large and small, from McDonalds to Pret a Manger, in office canteens, airport lounges, and soon Costa! Factor in PG Tips’ certified tea, Innocent Drinks’ smoothies (100% of their bananas come from Rainforest Alliance certified plantations), Kenco’s ever growing range of sustainable coffees, and some more exciting plans in the pipeline, Rainforest Alliance has now gone mainstream in Britain. It’s great news for farmers, consumers, and the companies doing the right thing.  

Last week the Rainforest Alliance edged closer to stardom – and tea from sustainably farmed sources also hit the big time with the official premiere of A Tale of Two Continents at London’s Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Square. So my girlfriend and I headed over to the red carpet with some friends and Rainforest Alliance colleagues to join in the fun.
The movie is a new 10 minute comedy from Unilever’s PG Tips, who are busy converting their tea to Rainforest Alliance certified, a first for them and indeed for the Alliance. There’s more plot in this film than any recent 2 hour romantic comedy. The sustainable tea project is a very large scale innovation, and another major milestone in the mainstreaming of sustainable produce. Just as Unilever pioneered the Marine Stewardship Council for seafood more than a decade ago, once again they lead the field with tea. The film features my friend and colleague Anita Neville, with whom I’ve worked on Rainforest Alliance issues for the past 3 years or so. She is now so grand she is no longer taking calls. I expect she’s house hunting in Bel Air…

Sadly, the other star of the show, iconic PG Tips front man Monkey couldnt join us in person as he was busy picking up awards in Hollywood but he did take a brief moment to speak to us live via satellite and introduce the movie. You can see a trailer clip here…
A 5 minute version of the film will appear before The Spiderwick Chronicles, Horton hears a Who, Hannah Montana and Gameplan for the next 3 weeks in cinemas around the UK. And then fans will be able to grab a DVD version (with added extras) and a tea towel from supermarkets during April. The film will then be available as an online download from May.
It’s hard to believe how far the Rainforest Alliance has come in the UK in recent years, but last Wednesday’s event was a timely reminder. If you want to see business-NGO collaboration at its best, then this is it.

Happy New Year. Just returned from Christmas holidays in India (some green anecdotes on that trip to follow soon along with some pics) to see the great new Innocent Drinks TV ads featuring Carlos from the Rainforest Alliance! As always, no one beats Innocent in their straightforward, humble and engaging sustainability language. It’s a model multinationals are falling over themselves to replicate. But as Jonathan Greenblatt, founder of ethical water brand Ethos Water said when we spoke on a panel together in Boston a few weeks ago, the big challenge is to be truly authentic, which doesn’t always sit easily with multinational corporate culture. Cheap copies of brands founded on sustainability don’t really work, because unless the core values are there to underpin a marketing strategy, people see through it. 

I’ve been lucky to get to know the founders of Innocent a bit through their commitment to the Rainforest Alliance, and they are proof that the most successful entrepreneurs of the 21st century will be those who apply their personal values to their business practices, day in, day out. They’re good fun to have a drink with too, as I discovered after the Rainforest Alliance Gala in New York last May. Take a second to sit back and enjoy the new ad.

I got a letter recently (yes, people still write letters despite all this blogging stuff). It began, “I have just read your blog – how refreshing it is to be able to read about CSR and the …issues facing our planet in plain English – no jargon whatsoever”.

This is how everyclick.com caught my attention when they wrote to me asking for some exposure for their site. Flattery is always effective. As the brainchild of Julia Felton and Polly Gowers, who put their lives on hold and even remortgaged their homes in order to set up a search engine which donates 50% of its gross income to charity, I was delighted to be approached by a company with such a simple idea, proving so successful and with such a genuinely philanthropic ethos. Much of what we read in the media today gives the CSR movement a bad name. End of the world articles are two a penny and companies are constantly attacked by greenwasher vigilantes for the holes in their CSR efforts. Understandably, many people outside the movement think it’s all too complicated, intimidating and gloomy. So why bother, they ask. Thankfully the tide of opinion is changing. There are fewer and fewer people like Jeremy Clarkson (quoted as saying ‘Yes I do have a disregard for the environment. I think the world can look after itself and we should enjoy it as best as we can’) and more people with an everyclick.com attitude.

Check it out - it does what it says on the tin.

Happy Christmas and New Year.  I’ll be offline for a couple of weeks, back January 9th.  

Earlier this week I headed over to East London to join my friend Toby Webb for an Ethical Corporation ‘pubcast’. It’s a neat idea which, as you’ve already guessed, is a podcast done over a beer in the Gramophone pub next to Ethical Corporation’s offices.  We chatted about the state of the corporate responsibility movement, some highs and lows of 2007, and the role of the PR industry in promoting responsible business. Toby then decided he’d like to do a second one about my work with the Rainforest Alliance and the growing movement in ethical certification, so we carried on and did that too. Only two small bottles of beer were consumed, before you ask, as you need to be on your guard when Toby is armed with a microphone and recording device. Besides that, he was off to the gym later. You can listen to our pub chat by clicking here.

To the launch party for the new ‘QI’ (Quite Interesting) Annual at the Groucho Club in Soho last night. Usual mix of the great and good of British comedy. QI, which makes the quiz show of the same name on BBC 2, is the brainchild of my old friend John Lloyd (who has won more BAFTAs for the likes of Spitting Image, Blackadder etc than I have bought carbon credits). Enjoyed mingling with old friends and marvelling at John’s capacity to bring a collective IQ of about 8 billion under one roof on a cold London evening. Fortunately I managed to avoid getting into a debate with Jeremy Clarkson, whose crusade against sustainable development continues to ravage the minds of unthinking people with not a care for the one home they have, our planet. The point of QI is that everything is interesting if looked at in the right way. The sustainable development movement could learn much from the approach. After all, how much fun can you have with a press release about sustainable packaging?