This is installment #1 of a regular update – short snippets of commentary – I’ll be doing on happenings related to cleantech marketing. It’s intended to be a smell test. So let’s clear those nostrils: 

• There’s talk of a new dot “eco” domain, with Al Gore attached as the celebrity. First, the last thing we need in the world is another web domain to manage (I’m still trying to get over the buzzkill from .biz). Second, the whole .eco thing will turn into a greenwashing tsunami before you can say Chevron. I can see it already – friendsofcoal.eco, monsantolovesmothernature.eco… the first one I would probably register would be a squatter site at puertor.eco. According to reports, the founders behind the domain plan to foil possible greenwashing by policing whether people deserve to have the dot or not (they use the term “filter”, but let’s just call it what it would be – a subjective value judgment, aka censorship, aka a non-starter). How about we spend our time doing something substantive instead? Gore is too polarizing for the dot eco thing to gain significant mainstream traction (one eco-leaning journalist recently told me that he’s sick and tired of hearing Gore give the same speech over and over, and even after all that Gore-speak people still don’t believe him). The idea behind the new dot – give 50% of profit to environmental causes – is a fine one, but the people who already own URLs at .com, .net, .org and whatever other dot could just as easily save their dot eco registration money and give 10 bucks a year to a good cause through Kiva, INVEST, Green Microfinance, Practical Action, Global Green and Global Giving. Conclusion: Marketing ploy that’s too clever by half, and ultimately a distraction. Besides, isn’t environmentalism dead?

• I confess I’m intrigued by the Virtual March that T. Boone Pickens’ organization has announced for early April. If 2 million people really do make their voices heard by policymakers in DC (by phone, email and yes, even something called “fax”) then how bad can that be, right? But I question the whole motivation of Pickens himself. Is it merely coincidence that two central components of the Pickens plan for planetary salvation – wind power and natural gas – just happen to be two of his major areas of investment? Further more, natural gas is just as much in the control of the Middle East and Central Asia as oil (more than two-thirds of world proved reserves). Why replace one foreign addiction with another? Conclusion: I enlisted in the “army”, but I’m pretty sure Congress is only paying attention to the bazillion lobbyists now lurking around every corner of DC (including Pickens) looking for stimulus money.

• GE’s ecomagination has pulled together an interactive campaign to help people visualize the Smart Grid through an “augmented reality” digital hologram. (Reality is enough for me as is thanks, I don’t need it augmented). But give GE credit for experimenting with something new and different. Unfortunately, I only got as far as the five-part instructions that began with a requirement to print a “Solar Panel Marker” (a what?). Instead, I watched an accompanying video that “shows how it works”. Looks cool. Conclusion: Good if you have 45 minutes in a 6^th grade science class. Bad if you are a working stiff like me with two kids that want to go outside and play. Also, need to tone the geek speak way down. 

If you have ideas for other issues to explore, send me a note on Twitter @mrcleantech

According to the State of Green Business 2009 released today, consumers aren’t buying it when it comes to corporate green marketing. The most damning excerpt of the report’s section on marketing cites a Brandchannel.com report that found readers could think of not one brand that was “truly green or going green”. Nice try ecomagination! I guess we’ll have to see if GE’s Super Bowl ads on its smart grid business make any difference in perception. In the meantime, the federal government is also doing its part by refreshing rules governing green marketing claims. The rules are badly needed. As is evident from the SOGB report, it’s still possible to build practically any argument for or against green marketing depending on the data/research you use. We need standards. Here’s the section on green marketing from the report:  

A rise in green marketing efforts has been matched by a nearly equal rise in claims of greenwashing by activists, bloggers, and others. Increased concerns about energy, climate, toxics, and other environmental issues have led some of the largest consumer brands to enter the green marketplace, prodded by retailers such as Wal-Mart, which has been pushing suppliers to offer affordable green products. But with the new players and products has come a new wave of claims about greenwashing, or at least public frustration that companies aren’t doing enough, aren’t telling their stories well, or both. 

Green claims have continued to grow. An Earth Day report revealed that 2007 saw the largest number of green trademark applications since 2000, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: More than 300,000 applications for green brand names, logos, and tag lines. Companies like Apple, Canon, Clorox, and Fiji Water entered the green marketplace for the first time, raising awareness — but also questions and, sometimes, controversy. Given the lack of definitions, just about anything can be claimed as “green” — or “greenwash” — further muddying the waters. 

One problem is that consumers are ambivalent at best about shopping green. They claim they want to, but they also say that they don’t trust companies. For example, surveys show that the number of people concerned about climate change continues to grow, and that consumers believe businesses should bear the heaviest load in addressing it, but they aren’t convinced that the business sector is doing as much as it should. Marketers aiming to shift their audiences toward making greener purchasing decisions are coming up short for the vast majority of the population, although a small subset is green enough to helpspread the environmental awareness on their own, according to one study. Although about half of those in another survey said they trust companies to be truthful in their environmental marketing and believe companies are accurately presenting information about their impact on the earth, nearly 60 percent would like to see more government regulation of green claims to ensure they are accurate. Given the Federal Trade Commission’s review of green marketing claims launched last year, they just might get it. 

The upshot is that despite the continued upswing in green business activity, there’s no concomitant rise in consumer awareness or trust. Case in point: With no prompting, nearly half of all respondents to one survey were essentially unable to name a single feature of a green home — not solar power, compact fluorescent light bulbs, home recycling, or Energy Star-labeled appliances. And when readers of Brandchannel.com were asked what brand they think of as truly green or going green, the top answer: none at all.            

Media covering cleantech expect to pay significant attention to policy in 2009 and they also have declared it the year of blogging and video, according to results of my first Annual Cleantech Media Survey released today. With an Obama administration set to take office and the next president’s commitment to end oil dependence and address climate change, 77% of those surveyed said they expect media to place “significant” emphasis on policy-related cleantech coverage, with the remainder saying policy coverage would be “moderate”. In addition, the survey of more than 100 media – leading blogs as well as mainstream newspapers, magazines and broadcasters – revealed that roughly three-quarters expect to see growing demand for cleantech sector news (from both readers and editors) this year compared to 2008. 

Solar will remain king of the renewables. Two-thirds of those surveyed named solar as the renewable energy source to be most covered in 2009, with wind and next generation biofuels coming in a distant tie for second at 15% each. And of note, media expect energy efficiency – long a tough sell to editors and readers – to be the top non-renewables cleantech story for 2009, with 40% naming it their top choice. Carbon market and related technologies was second at 25%, with EVs and industry consolidation coming in at 17% and 15%, respectively.  

As far as delivery of cleantech news, a majority of survey participants – nearly 60% – said blogs would be the key tool to tell the cleantech story in 2009, with video garnering one-fifth of the vote (Twitter, podcasts and slideshows also received mention). Concerning to the overall state of cleantech media, a total of 62% of those surveyed expect new media to continue to grow and traditional media to continue to shrink, or for new media to take market share from traditional media. A quarter had a balanced POV, expecting both new and traditional media to look for mutually beneficial distribution relationships. 

Among the respondents, there is little consensus on the major untold story for 2009. Categories that received multiple votes included efficiency (including smart grid, building energy use and demand response), coal, power storage and cleantech as the engine for economic recovery. Others receiving votes included CleanNano, bioplastics, the Mideast as solar mecca, urban windmills and water as the next “peak” story, Several media also expect the main untold story to be a negative one – examples included: realization of how long it will take for renewables to become more than a rounding error in the energy diet; new forms of greenwash as companies scramble for Obama dollars, and how solar PV and hybrid cars will contribute nothing significant to cutting GHG.  

Some reporters and organizations have done their own stand-alone predictions for the new year. Kerry Dolan of Forbes, for example, predicts that the grid will be big in 2009, and that solar will continue to soar. American Wind Energy Association also did their predictions for wind in 2009, Jetson Green offered up seven trends to expect in 2009 and Greener Buildings offered up their forecast as well.  

If you’ve seen other media forecasts for 2009, please add them to the Comments section of this post.

It’s official… sort of. According to the 34^th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness just released by Lake Superior State University, “green” and “going green” topped the most villainous terms of 2008 (other green themed expressions submitted included “building green”, “greening”, “green technology” and “green solutions”). Close behind was “carbon footprint” and “carbon offsetting”. The survey certainly isn’t the most scientific, but it was based on thousands of nominations from all over the country. Makes me wonder if the organizers of the “Green Inaugural Ball” taking place on the eve of the Obama presidency have time to make a name change. Perhaps they could call it the “Gangrene Inaugural Ball”? Also makes me wonder if media that have embraced green in their branding – i.e. GreenBiz, New York Times’ Green Inc., Greentech Media, Greenbang, Always On Going Green, Fortune Brainstorm: GREEN, etc – need a rethink as well. My favorite pull-quote from the LSSU survey came from a man in Bristow, VA:

“If I see one more corporation declare itself ‘green’, I’m going to start burning tires in my backyard”. – Ed Hardiman

Fair warning. But Ed, make sure it’s a green tire.

MediaWeek reported this week that interest from media properties to put out stand-alone green issues is waning in the current economy. So far the list of titles to do away with green issues in 2009 includes Domino, Discover, Sunset and Outside, according to the article. But the sub-text of the story, for me at least, is less about the economic factors involved behind the decision, and more about the growing sense that green no longer needs its own bully pulpit. Beth Brenner, an executive at Discover, is quoted as saying that advertisers don’t need a green-themed issue to tell their story, noting: ““They’ve made it a part of their everyday messaging.”  Which takes me back to a post I made in May of this year about the Discoloration of Green. It makes the case for an end to green as a separate topic, and for the start of green as an integrated thread woven throughout the fabric of business and policy.

CNN and Fortune's loss is the blogosphere's gain. Recent news that CNN let go of Miles O'Brien and Peter Dykstra and did away with its environmental/science core production unit, as well as Sam Whitmore's report that Fortune laid off two cleantech mainstays (and accomplished bloggers) – Todd Woody and Marc Gunther – is just another sign of the times: Mainstream Journalism 0, New Journalism 42. If true, I'm bummed for my friends who lost their jobs, but I'm also very excited for them (as a former foreign correspondent and blogger myself) because these are exciting times. We are on the cusp of the creation of a new media world that is the intersection of industry expertise, technology know-how and changing news consumption habits. Declining audience for traditional media is inversely proportional to increasing audience for new media like blogs, video and aggregator sites. Whoever you believe, the numbers are there to back it up – eMarketer says 94.1 million blog readers in 2007, comScore says total Internet audience of 188.9 million or Universal McCann, which says 346 million worldwide read blogs (60.3 million in the US). No doubt blog-savvy folks like Andrew Revkin (NYT DotEarth) and Jeff Ball and Keith Johnson (Economic Capital at WSJ) will continue to thrive (well, almost no doubt). Its clear that mainstream media is trying to shift to meet the challenge. John Byrne of Businessweek wrote on Twitter this week that Businessweek.com had 722,567 video streams in November, up 370% from the same month in 2007. That's good news. But even if they aren't successful, others that are more nimble and able to get their minds around the dynamics of social media (think Greener World Media,  Greentech Media and Earth2Tech) should be able to fill the void being created by the retrenchment at traditional media. And at the end of the day, Gunther and Woody still have their own brands that they created through their own blogs, and their survival is not dependent on a bloated mother ship.

Back on September 9, John Podesta's Center for American Progress released a study called Green Recovery, which promised two million new jobs from a $100 billion investment over two years. That day was also my birthday, so my attention was elsewhere. But nearly two months later in the wake of the financial meltdown, taking a second look at the report seems worthwhile, since now more than ever, a road to recovery for the United States and the world could very well be paved with green bricks. Conversely, it could also be a story of "low carbon prosperity" that sounds good, but ends up dead on arrival. The landscape has changed greatly since September 9. To use one last Wizard of Oz allusion – we are no longer in Kansas. Credit has dried up, global stock markets are in chaos, unemployment is spiking and consumer confidence is at record lows. As a result, does this now put the basic assumptions in the Podesta report in question? ($50 billion in tax credits, or half of the proposed $100 billion, for example, would seem a non-starter today). More importantly, even if the assumptions are unchanged, will the perceived cost of carbon policy at a time of economic instability suck the political will out of Capitol Hill, a place over the last three decades renowned for monumental cowardice in the face of monumental challenge. The stakes couldn't be higher, especially on the eve of an Obama presidency and Podesta heading the transition team. It would be great for the Center to produce an update to their report, taking these new factors into account. But until that happens, some prominent voices in October continued to build a case for this notion of a Green Recovery as a message/vision worth rallying around.  

Deutsche Bank, in its Investing in Climate Change 2009: Necessity and Opportunity in Turbulent Times, argued that the economic turmoil of the past month sets the stage for a one-time windfall:

We believe that, when combined with energy security, climate change policies will play a role in government efforts to stimulate their economies in 2009. Governments now have an historic opportunity to define long-term regulatory frameworks to encourage private investment in climate change initiatives. Additional opportunity exists for governments to boost their economies by funding infrastructure projects that will serve to foster energy independence and climate-proof their economies.

As a result, the debate around climate change has started to shift away from issues of cost and risk toward the question of how to capitalize on investment strategies that span a vast array of asset classes and industries.

Similarly, Goldman Sachs GS Sustain weighed in, citing a "warming investment climate" for sustainability, and an increasingly clear rationale for corporations to view low carbon action as a key business driver: 

Going forward, we expect the importance of climate-change performance to rise further and extend to an increasing number of sectors where the direct costs and benefits of companies’ different strategies may currently be less quantifiable but will, in our view, become increasingly important aspects of their ability to achieve and sustain industry leadership. 

Finally, economist Nicholas Stern has also provided a valuable perspective, noting that the right policies will offer a globally sustainable model for growth:

Let us grow out of this recession in a way that both reduces risks for our planet and sparks off a wave of new investment which will create a more secure, cleaner and more attractive economy for all of us. And in so doing, we shall demonstrate for all, particularly the developing world, that low-carbon growth is not only possible, but that it can also be a productive and efficient route to overcome world poverty.

It all sounds good. Public works programs, a la the New Deal, to make smart upgrades to the outdated grid and public transportation infrastructure, jobs that can't be exported coming from installation of solar panels and other clean energy solutions, cost curves from McKinsey that provide a roadmap of affordable carbon abatement measures including significant savings from energy efficiency, etc.  

But there will also be those that counter with a picture of inefficacy and a price tag that's too high, as we caught a glimpse of during Senate infighting in June over possible climate policy. Already, new messaging against aggressive climate policy is emerging. A recent letter to a Florida paper offered a glimpse of the opposing camp and its messaging, criticizing Gov. Crist's recent recommendations on climate, and warning of a "carbon police state". 

What's so exciting right now from a positioning and messaging point of view, is that the global economic crisis provides the first real opportunity for the clean energy industry to fundamentally pivot away from the politically and emotionally charged topics of "global warming" and "green" (and their polarizing, Al Gore/treehugger affiliation, which turns off a large part of the population) and own outright the promise of growth, recovery and prosperity, issues that everyone can relate to and support.  

The rubber is about to hit the road. The next three to six months offer a chance in the United States for elected officials to be heroes or hucksters. It is no secret that the oil and coal industries have outspent the renewables industry by tens of millions of dollars in the past two years in campaign contributions, so it won't be surprising to see some of our politicians fold. What's needed is a concerted effort on the part of the broader clean energy community – the Apollo Alliance, Cleantech and Green Business for Obama, Environmental Entrepreneurs, Change to Win, USCAP, Evangelical Climate Initiative, ClimateWorks Foundation, US Conference of Mayors, etc – to unite and make sure that the message that is delivered in Washington, D.C. and state capitals is this – climate change notwithstanding, the clean energy economy is a legitimate and feasible road to recovery. It appears that two additional stimulus packages are set to emerge from DC in the near term, one lame duck and one post inauguration. The industry achieved its biggest win so far in the $700 billion stimulus package, with an 8-year extension of the investment tax credit for solar, and it is possible clean energy will benefit from the two upcoming packages as well. But that is just a start, and our thinking needs to be more expansive and inclusive. It's the Recovery, stupid.

Ad Age recently published a special section on agencies involved in green marketing. Of course I am happy to see the Weber Shandwick Cleantech and Planet 2050 practices included, but I have to say that the list seems pretty arbitrary. There are a number of agencies out there that are not mentioned. Just to name a few that I know about: Blue Practice, Antenna Group, egg, Clean Agency and Earth Advertising. The other thing that struck me about the Ad Age list is how different the approaches are from one firm to another, from setting up different practice groups to trying to infuse values of sustainability throughout an organization. Granted, I've only worked in the world of agencies for 3 years, but given what I've seen throughout the industry so far I would have to say that infusing anything into organizations that are typically based on individual P&Ls seems quite a challenge unless is is bottom up. As they used to say in China where the central government is always at odds with regional governments, "On top is policy, below is counter-policy". A good resource for marketing and communications issues around sustainability is Greenbiz.

Last year, I said that a time would come when the term "green" would fall into disuse. I'm now wondering if that time is nearer than I originally thought. I'm already sensing some fatigue from friends in the media. At the consumer level it's also more pronounced (depending on the day, search for "green fatigue" on a leading search engine bring back 500,000 to over 1 million results). Ironically, at the recently concluded Fortune Brainstorm: Green event, Andrew Shapiro of Green Order said that it felt as if 2008 would be the "apex of green". Which of course begs the question: How steep is the downward slope in 2009? Ted Nordhaus (who coincidentally was my childhood neighbor growing up in the southeast quadrant of Washington, DC, back when we both had hair) and his cohort Michael Shellenberger, in 2004 shook up the establishment with their paper called "Death of Environmentalism". They succeeded in pounding the final nail in that coffin. Now green's utility is in question and it is even being challenged by another color – "blue". Sustainability advocate Adam Werbach is now selling blue as the next step beyond green, arguing that blue is more accessible because it, in effect, means having your cake and eating it too (I've tried that, by the way, and I keep biting my hand by mistake). But really, green or blue, aren't we just creating another arbitrary label that will also fade away with time? Aren't we just setting ourselves up for "blue fatigue", when the next Adam Werbach comes along and pronounces the blue movement dead, and argues that its time for chartreuse to have a turn? Not to mention the fact that people in the developing world (I spent 16 consecutive years in China from 1987-2003 so I have some credibility) have just started the Long March to consumerism and couldn't really give a damn about green or blue, unless its related to the color of their new car or the tile in their newly renovated, air-conditioned kitchen.  

I moved into technology because public capital markets (and human activity more generally) are driven by short-term interest and unsustainable growth. Facing a powerful system backed by powerful inertia, it was my conclusion that fundamental change to our behavior around consumption/growth is highly unlikely to happen (to the degree or within the timeframe needed) to address the ecological problems we face. That POV was largely informed by my time in China, where I watched stock markets open, bans on advertising lifted, private cars allowed back on the roads and consumerism return with a vengeance. I witnessed China's boom and how it raised a lot of people out of poverty. The problem is that we can't raise the remaining 1 billion Chinese out of poverty without totally screwing ourselves and the ecology. And China is just the start – Brazil, India and the rest of the developing world are going through the same transformation. Far be it for me to deny others the chance to live lives of comfort. But it is highly naïve to assume that individual Chinese or Indians or Brazilians will have the foresight to look beyond their drive to material comfort and make decisions on how they live based on a moral responsibility for the health of the planet. The West didn't. It just won't happen (no offense Bill McKibben, whose conclusion for our generation – that more is not better – ignores the fact that its mainly people who know wealth who have room to think about less). Only when people are so afraid of the ramifications of climate change or toxic sludge seeping out of their water taps will they be motivated to change behavior (as recent events in Juneau underscored). But of course, by then it will be too late.  

So my bet for overcoming the challenges is technology, broadly defined. The way I see it, technology is the layer buffering natural resources from consumer and corporate behavior. It allows consumers to continue to behave much as they do and it allows natural resources to get a reprieve from that behavior. The more scaleable the technology, the bigger the reprieve and the better our chances. What Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has done with appliance standards in China is a perfect example of this. "Technology buffering" is not a panacea, but at least there is an opportunity to insert new clean technologies into existing products and systems and have a significant and accelerated impact. That's what gets me moving in the morning. (Several new books, The Cleantech Revolution, The Plot to Save the Planet and Apollo's Fire address this movement). 

What interests me from the Fortune event and others that I've attended over the past two years is a shift in the conversation. Many of the people I talk to say green/blue doesn't really matter. I agree. What matters is that "industrial restructuring" takes place. Whether the CEO of Stonyfield Farm ("we don't even use green to describe our customers, but 'quality' or 'educated'"), the chairman of SC Johnson ("we need to move the conversation from going green to transforming industry"), Vinod Khosla ("people's view of green is obsolete, its about mainstream business"), or builder Steve Glenn ("within 15 years green building goes away as a category"), the focus is more and more on creating a technological buffer to reshape the way we supply and demand.  

So let's focus on the technology that is going to get rid of the only color that deserves our attention – the black of oil and coal.