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Sustainable Brands Conference
May 31 - June 4, 2009
Monterey Conference Center
Monterey, CA
SPONSOR:  Sustainable Life Media

Sustainable Brands '09 is an international event discussing the rapid rise of sustainability as a driver for revenue growth and brand equity in the 21st Century.

Despite negative world news, the climate is more ready than ever for smart, sustainable brands to pick up steam and take the lead into the future. 

Hear from some of the deepest thinkers who are paving the way for sustainable brands - from futurist and economics iconoclast Hazel Henderson on Building a Win/Win World, to Mathis Wackernagel (2007 Skoll Award Winner for Social Entrepreneurship) on ecological overshoot. From Dacher Keltner (PhD, Stanford, and author of "Born to Be Good") on the evolutionary sensibility of altruism, to Tom Szaky (CEO, TerraCycle) on creating profit from trash. And, of course, that's just the beginning. Get a sneak peek at some of the over 60 faculty we're in the process of bringing together.

SB'09 is where the most forward looking business thinkers, brand strategists, designers, sustainability executives and communications experts gather to craft new strategies, solutions and stories that will better serve the needs of today's - and tomorrow's - global marketplace. Whether we are discussing sustainable bonfire brands like Seventh Generation, Living Homes, New Belgium Brewery and Nau, or large global innovators like Wal-Mart, Coke-a-Cola, Steelcase, Clorox, HP and Unilever.

KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz
President and CEO
Sustainable Life Media
650-344-9693.
Event website: http://www.sustainablelifemedia.com/events/sb09

States are targeting key niche markets that affect their regional economies for green marketing support.  In California it's lodging for the tourism industry as well as renewable energy. In Florida it's definitely green lodging for the tourism industry!

 

Barach Obama's campaign mastered the use of social media.  This slide presentation points out the seeds of that mastery for growing a movement...not just advertising it.  Excellent points to consider in social marketing and social change marketing.

With California's new green chemistry plan, the state is moving from 'claims of green' to 'metrics of green.'

Green is not a useful term when a company does one thing to make their product green, but their overall footprint is not good. The state of California will now start looking at how green is green. And how to compare this product to that product."

Approximately 100,000 known chemicals are used in manufacturing production today, but safety data is available on only a few thousand. In California, 644 million pounds of chemical products are sold each day.

The proposed "Green Chemistry" initiative comes at a time of growing concern that the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, passed three decades ago, has failed to control an explosion of hazardous materials.

"The federal government has not required ingredients disclosure for all products," Gorsen said. "Now for the first time, we will know what is in products -- and not just those made in California but anything sold in California."

Two California laws passed last fall have jump-started the program. AB 1879, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), requires the state to identify "chemicals of concern" and to evaluate safer alternatives. SB 509, sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), creates a scientific clearinghouse for information on chemicals' effects.

Automakers and electronics manufacturers lobbied against the bills, saying that, given the new European standards, they could be subjected to a patchwork of warning labels.

Read more at the LA Times

California Green Solutions is building a robust catalog of professional training courses and certification programs offered by private companies and colleges. You will find this robust catalog covers business law, construction, human resources...as well as engineering and green building...and more.

Visit the Green and Sustainable Job Training Catalog at: CaliforniaGreenSolutions.com

President Elect Obama has made it clear that job creation in rebuilding the US infrastructure will be high on his agenda.  This slideshow synthesizes his energy plans from his campaign platform and recent transition activities.

Government policy and support with funding opens jobs in some areas...and closes them in other areas.  It is anticipated that military jobs could decrease and domestic infrastructure jobs could increase under the Obama administration.  This slideshow summarizes Obama's energy policies from his campaign...and points out some of the chnages due to today's economic situation.

by Ian Garrett

The issue of sustainability stems from the needs of creating a sustainable organization, which is at odds with ecologically sustainable production.

Margo Jones opened Theater '47 in Dallas, Texas in 1947. Influenced by the decentralized European model and her work with the Federal Theater Project to create a national American theater, Margo Jones is single handedly responsible for starting the regional theater movement ("Sweet Tornado").

As contrasted with the commercial world of Broadway, this model introduced the ideas of season subscriptions, community outreach, a resident artistic company, and board development. These are all hallmarks of every member of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT), the organization of the non-profit regional producing companies in America, and the Theater Communications Group (TCG), which facilitates the infrastructure of those LORT and smaller non-profit theaters that create the 14,000 non-profit productions annually.

Production is a large expense, and the limitations of presenting a stage show, as opposed to a film, where one might spent millions to present to 2,000 seats as opposed to as many screens with hundreds of seats each, can make recouping an investment take years. On the other hand the goal of non-profit theater and by extension, regional theater is to fulfill a mission tied into its non-profit 501(c)3 status. As a charitable organization these theaters provide a cultural and educational community service similar to that of a museum.

The economic and organizational sustainability of a non-profit regional theater is based on the ability to sell a season.

Ticket sales have never covered the cost of production. As a charitable non-profit, most theaters are highly dependant on contributed income. In 2006 contributed income was 48% of the budget of those 14,000 non-profit theaters.

Life Cycle Conservation for Sets and Costuming

These limitations manifest themselves physically in the available resources for the creation of a theatrical production. While it behooves the theater to extend the life cycles of raw scenic construction materials into as many future iterations as possible, the deconstruction or "strike" of each set on a regular basis demands either disposal or storage. The one time expense of disposal as opposed to the sustained expense of maintaining storage for highly specific items is much more attractive from a fiscal perspective. Costumes have similar consideration.

Lighting, Sound and Video Costs

On the other side of the resource equation, the issues of lighting, sound and video involve fewer raw materials, but require management of and storage space for a capital inventory of related technology. But as technology for performance evolves and expands the energy resources necessary to produce at a professional level increase and/or shift. Sound and video have experienced large advances in technology in recent years that have increased energy efficiency of devices used while also seeing prices drop. But, they have also increased in fidelity and controllability in such a way as to create a larger demand for a larger variety of devices. This leaves the question of the overall impact these advances have had on energy consumption for these areas of design. However, the essential technology for lighting has remained unchanged since the invention of the electric light.

Theatrical Luminaries

Large steps have been made in efficiency and efficacy of theatrical luminaries, but all other electrical devices pale in comparison to the overall demand that the electrical loads of theatrical lighting. Quite some noise can be made with a few Meyer Sound wide coverage loudspeakers, each having a peak load of 2.55kw (Meyer).

Using methodology from the EPA and Solar Buzz, an online solar technology resource, one can convert the power consumption of this show into a number of equivalents. To produce the power to be able to provide the capacity for this show one would need to spend $1,347,527.40 for a solar array based on the national average of the price per watt of existing commercially available technology.

Running with all lighting intensities at full this design would create 10.88 metric tons of CO2 over the ten performance run of the show. This is equivalent to the yearly emissions of two passenger cars, the yearly energy consumption of an American home, 25.29 barrels of gasoline and would require nine acres of pine to offset. Simply using the conventional electrically grid costs $2,739.79 per hour and requires an HVAC system to compensate for a thermal gain of 877,849.80 btu/hour.

Strides have been made to increase both efficiency and efficacy of theatrical lighting. The largest leap in both occurred in 1992 when Electronic Theater Controls (ETC) introduced the Source Four.

The Source Four not only included features that made huge steps in the usability of theatrical luminaries, it also introduction new reflector and lamp technology. Due to filament design and the integration into more efficient aluminized (now dichroic) reflectors, the High Performance Lamp or HPL is able to produce the same luminous flux, or perceived power of light, as most 1kw lighting instruments with only 575w (ETC). Future strides, within the same product line included the introduction of a 375w lamp and continued improvements of reflector and optic technology. But, as far as these strides advance the state of the art, each lamp is still an incandescent source and is still losing 90% of the energy consumed to heat, as opposed to the 30% -40% of fluorescents.

• The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, has mandated phasing out the sale of incandescent lamps by 2014 (United States).
• Australia has passed a similar ban to phase out incandescents by 2010
• Ireland plans to by 2009
• Both Brazil and Venezuela both started to phase out incandescents in 2005 without an outright ban.
• California has proposed beating the United States deadline by having banned incandescent sales by 2012 (Kurtzman 1), but even before these bans began, California enacted Title 24 in 1978, most recently updating the standard in 2005, which requires high efficiency lighting in all new construction.

While homes, offices, and retail space will see noticeable differences with this legislation, fields requiring specialized lighting devices will be relatively unchanged. Tom Littrell of ETC remarks, "Most of the energy stuff - ASHRAE, California's Title 24, etc. exempts "portable" lighting, i.e. stage fixtures that you re-hang every now and then, from the watt-per-squarefoot guidelines that govern the rest of the buildings.

Fluorescent, Compact Fluorescent (CFL), High Intensity Discharge (HID), Light Emitting Diode (LED) and more are all viable for a number of applications. Many of these technologies have been incorporated into instrumentation for theatrical applications as well, but there are a number of hurdles that prevent lighting suppliers and theaters from changing.

Control is the largest issue. Theatrical applications primarily use large banks of high capacity resistance dimmers coupled with computerized control consoles using the DMX 512 standard to provide designers with extensive control over luminaries in a light plot.

• Fluorescents and HID lamps require ballasts to be used with the alternating current (AC) that our electrical grid is based upon and this change in resistance in the dimmers damages both the ballasts and the lamps.
• Dimmable fluorescent technology is fairly new and uses specialized ballasts and require two separate powered connections, one for power and the other for dimming control.
• HID lamps are themselves not dimmable, but fixtures have been designed to use them with a mechanic douser that reduces the about of luminous flux that escapes the instrument.
• LED lights are photon-emitted semiconductors and AC power causes them to flicker since they only allow electricity to flow in one direction. They also require voltage to be dropped from the standard 120v American standard and must be dimmed through specialized magnetic ballasts. To provide control for these newer technologies would mean not only replacing lamps and luminaries but also the electrical infrastructure of a theater, costing tens of thousands of dollars.

The ability to accurately represent color is measured by the color-rending index (CRI). Incandescent light has a CRI of 100, and reproduces all visible color accurately across the spectrum. Alternatives are able to match this benchmark, the best of these technologies having CRI in the low 90s, while an HID lamp like a low pressure sodium lamp may be nearly zero.

Many LED fixtures are touted for their ability to produce most any color through color mixing of red, green and blue diodes, occasionally packaged with whites diodes. While this does produce color accurately when reflected off a surface, this light has wide gaps in the spectrum created by the severe spikes in each LED's color.

But benchmarks aside, the most concrete barrier is cost. Most non-profit theaters maintain an inventory of lighting instrumentation. The price from B&H Photo for a Source Four is about $325. ETC manufactures an HID version of this lamp that uses a specialized ballast and lists for $750, also from B&H Photo.

The costs of building new inventories of lighting instruments without industry standard resistance dimmer racks are huge when dealing with hundreds of fixtures. The cost difference for instrumentation alone based on these published prices is nearly $100,000 without purchasing the necessary dousers form dimming or considering the costs of electrical and control infrastructure. Any theater that already has an inventory would be even harder pressed to expend the additional amount while also give their existing inventory over to obsolescence. Many well established theaters have already invested in changing over their inventories to Source Four instruments in the last decade and would find a change over of this scale especially hard.

The success of the Source Four is due to the fact that it puts more light on stage with less power and less heat gain. LEDs were embraced because they offered accurate color mixing, have extremely long lamp lives and draw a fraction of the power of conventional incandescent instruments while producing negligible heat. The benefit is not just on the electric expense for lighting, but also reducing the burden on resource hungry climate control. Though new efficient, power-saving lighting technology does result in environmental benefits, the bottom line has always been the primary concern.

Green Marketing and Ecological Sustainability

It is only recently with the explosion of "green" marketing and the spotlight that has been shone on environmental issues that the development of lighting technology has been reframe by ecological sustainability.

ETC has recently begun running print ads that claim, "It's easy being green!" This marketing campaign is for the same Source Four that was recently marketed for its cost saving potential. The technology has evolved since its introduce 16 years ago, but not for the sake of being "green".

Coemar, another major player in the market, began a similar campaign for its LED products. And again, this is not for the sake of being "green". The lessened environmental impact is a result of responding to the desire for operational cost benefits and coincidentally aligns itself with current marketing trends. Regardless of one's feelings on shifting marketing for existing products from the intentions of a product's design to unconscious benefits revealed by shifting focus on global issues, the benefits are still real.

Platinum LEED doesn't mean energy efficient operations

Portland Center Stage recently completed a new theater for themselves that received Platinum LEED certification. This is a stunning achievement for PCS, but even with a "green" building, they are trying to figure out how to make their productions "greener". They have made big steps in maximizing their resourcefulness in scenic and costume design, based partially on their sustainable goals, but also on the necessity of fiscal efficiency in being a non-profit theater. They are an all Source Four house as well.

How can we increase ecological sustainability without jeopardizing organizational sustainability? Demand exists for improvement, but no changes will be undertaken without the ability to justify the expense.

Theatrical operations players and providers

Phillips recently purchased Genlyte, a collection of theatrical lighting companies including major control and dimming powerhouse Strand Lighting, the creators of moving lights Varilite, and LED revolutionaries Color Kinetics. The largest manufacturer of energy efficient compact fluorescents is now horizontally integrated into all of theatrical lighting.

Mike Lawler, writer of the ecoTheater blog and long time theatrical designer/technician, points out that most people working in theater have a college degree and many have master's degrees. If sustainability and the efficiency of resources is integrated in all fields of high education for theater those next generation of theater artists being pushed to be innovative in aesthetics and storytelling could be doing so with maximization of available resources in mind.

Expanding the budgeting process for production beyond raw materials to include intangible resources lighting energy could not only push lighting designers to make better choices, but allow them to do so with the intention of shifting freed up funds to newer technologies and expanding their visual vocabulary.

Theaters Working on Sustainability Improvements

• The California Institute of the Arts School of Theater has begun to integrate sustainability instruction into its curriculum and in coordination with facilities has been working to develop new strategies for more sustainable production.
• Mo'oelo Performing Arts in San Diego has started building a new model for a small non-profit theater company and has been rewarded with a partnership with LORT heavy the La Jolla Playhouse.
• New York Theater Workshop is set to break ground on a new LEED certified shop this summer.
• Actor Gideon Banner has been working to fund his Green Theater Initiative in New York City;
• Sharon Swingle has created thegreentheater.org as a discussion board for ideas on how to make theaters more ecologically sustainable in Northern California.
• The Electric Lodge in Venice, California, a largely solar powered facility has grown two local Los Angles Theater heroes, Joel Shapiro and Justin Yoffe, a cultural supervisor for the city of Santa Monica. They have developed a one-page standard called the Arts Earth Partnership (AEP) for small to mid-sized performing arts companies to build eco-friendly practices in their operations and offices.
• In coordination with Miranda Wright, a second year grad student at the California Institute of the Arts and the Law Firm for Non Profits, I have started to create a venture called the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.

A number of other projects and groups are in the works or just emerging and rally around not an idea of strict environmentalism but a combined ecological, organizational, economical model of sustainability.

SOURCE: Digested version of "The Ecological Sustainability of Theatrical Lighting"
by Ian Garrett
MFA3 Lighting Design & Producing Student, California Institute of the Arts
Presented at the "Constructed Light, Constructed Meaning" Visual Culture Graduate Student Conference
April 12, 2008, St. Louis University

Signaling a fundamental shift in the publishing industry, The Christian Science Monitor  announced plans to shift from daily to a weekly print publishing format.

The national newspaper plans to invest heavily in its Web presence.

"We're the first national paper to switch to a web first strategy," said John Yemma, editor of the newspaper, which is more than 100 years old and has won seven Pulitzer Prizes. "We need to make it first rather than secondary, so we can make it more of a go-to destination."

Good communications starts with having something in common...and then treating one another with respect.  Kind of the opposite from spammers :-)

Here are a number of resources and perspectives for understanding how to pitch bloggers.

Matt Haughey: How to Pitch Bloggers

Getting to First Base: Social Media Marketing Playbook (e-book)

Pro Blogger: 21 Tips on Pitching Bloggers

Stowe Boyd: The Growing Backlash Against PR Spam

Discovery Studios Develops original content for Planet Green and other Discovery media

Discovery Studios Discovery Studios is the recently-created division of Discovery Communications charged with developing and producing original series, specials, theatrical documentaries and short form content for Discovery’s television networks. Veteran television executive Nancy Daniels has been named Vice President of Development and Production for Discovery Studios. Based in Burbank, Calif., Daniels will oversee all West Coast production and development activities for Discovery Studios. Projects now under her supervision include programs for TLC, Travel Channel, Planet Green, Discovery Health Channel and others. About Discovery Studios Discovery Studios is devoted to the creation of original television series and specials, theatrical films and short-form content within Discovery Communications, the number-one nonfiction media company reaching more than 1.5 billion cumulative subscribers in over 170 countries. Through TV and digital media, Discovery's 100-plus worldwide networks include Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, The Science Channel, Discovery Health and Discovery HD Theater. Discovery Communications is owned by Discovery Holding Co. (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB), Advance/Newhouse Communications and John S. Hendricks, Discovery's founder and chairman. For more information about Discovery Communciations visit www.discoverycommunications.com. For more information about Planet Green visit planetgreen.discovery.com For more information about SUBMISSIONS visit submissions.discovery.com

Discovery is introducing Planet Green, a cable brand promoted as the first 24-hour channel dedicated to eco-friendly living. The 24-hour eco-oriented lifestyle network will launch with 50 million cable homes. It is the highest-profile cable channel introduction of the year, and an equally risky one. By wrapping itself in the planet, Discovery is betting that “eco-tainment” will appeal to viewers.

The channel’s programming is studded with celebrities such as

• Chef Emeril Lagasse hosting a cooking show featuring organic and locally grown foods, and "Entourage" star Adrian Grenier living a green life.
• "Greensburg," a 13-episode documentary series, follows the story of a small Kansas community coming together after being hit by a 5-rated tornado in May 2007. The series is produced by Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, along with Craig Piligian's Pilgrim Films & Television.
• "Hollywood Green," a weekly entertainment magazine, will showcase earth-conscious celebrities.
• "G Word," a daily series hosted by two news correspondents
• "Wrecklamation," billed as recycling on steroids.

The channel has almost all original programming — partly because there was not an available vault of entertaining environmental programming to tap into. Part of their challenge has been educating the production community that may have had certain expectations of what green content is.

Planet Green's Target Audiences

Planet Green will speak to people who want to understand green living and to those who truly want to make a difference by providing tools and information to meet the critical challenge of protecting our environment. Planet Green's platforms include leading eco-lifestyle website TreeHugger.com and the recently launched solutions-oriented PlanetGreen.com.

Discovery is also launching Discovery Education Green, a K-12 service that hosts dynamic media content correlated to state standards. Discovery Education Green will help teachers integrate Green lessons into their curriculum and empowers students to make more environmentally conscious decisions.

Planet Green's Promotion

Timed to the switch from Discovery Home to Planet Green, Discovery marketers are conducting “Random Acts of Greenness.” At the Indianapolis 500 last month, they handed out T-shirts and beach balls to consumers who exemplified green living, and sponsored the cleanup day after the race. The giveaways will continue in New York, Milwaukee; Washington; and San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.

On launch day, Wednesday, June 11, 2008. Mr. Zaslav will throw out the first pitch in Washington, and the stadium’s JumboTron will count down to the channel’s 6 p.m. debut. Also that day, all the Discovery cable networks will show green logos.

The New York Post is going green on Wednesday, too: the newspaper will turn its flag green that day and feature advertisements for the channel all week. The newspaper will also give away 250 bicycles with Planet Green branding.

“This is a new genre,” Ms. O’Neill said. “People don’t have any set expectations of what green media is, and we’re defining it — as really funny, engaging, entertaining and definitely credible.”

Planet Green: planetgreen.discovery.com

Discovery Studios: www.discoverystudios.com

MARYLAND
1 Discovery Place
Silver Spring, MD 20910
Tel: +1 (240) 662-2000

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2600 West Olive Avenue
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Burbank, CA 91505
Tel: +1 (818) 333-5255