Adam Menter’s Blog

My mom randomly e-mailed me the following blurb about Sustainability that she found on the website of the United Nations Development Program. It reminded me a lot of discussions I’ve been having for a while about importance of branding sustainability as progress and expanding it beyond its environmental roots. Sustainability is not just about “saving the planet”, it’s about creating a society that is livable for everybody today, and in the generations to come.

“Sustainability means meeting the needs of present generations without compromising the abilities and opportunities of future generations. It thus implies both intragenerational and intergenerational equity. Sustainability is an important dimension of human development. Human development is a process of enlarging people’s choices. But such enhancement must be for both present and future generations without sacrificing one for the other.

In the 1990s there have been major global debates on sustainable development (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, 1992) and for people-centred sustainable development (World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen, 1995). These have a common core, not to be missed, with human development. Human development is not a concept separate from sustainable development—but it can help to rescue “sustainable development” from the misconception that it involves only the environmental dimension of development.

All these approaches have emphasized the need for people-centred development, with concerns for human empowerment, participation, gender equality, equitable growth, poverty reduction and long-term sustainability.”

At its core, human development is all about creating a better world. Creating the kind of sustainable world that we all want to live in requires a vision of what we’re shooting for. And that’s the problem…we don’t know, and don’t know how to talk about, “what success looks like” for a holistically sustainable world.

(As Joel Makower just blogged, No one has created a vision of what happens if we get things right.)

I think one of the things that has hampered the creation of this vision is that we have been so focused on the environment that we haven’t fully explored the social aspects of a sustainable world. How would my daily life change and become more meaningful if we lived in a world that was more sustainable along both environmental and social lines? I want to picture it clearly. What’s the Futurama of the 21st centry?

As Makower points out, the atmosphere of hope surrounding Obama’s leadership might just create the conditions in which this vision can grow and flourish. But one thing’s for sure: it can’t only be top-down. We’re going to have to crowd-source this sustainable world and build it from the ground up.

Thank Van Jones for this sweet quote: “Barack Obama helped us take America back. Now we have to help him take America forward.”

I’m doing quite a bit of cooking nowadays and am enjoying it. We recently subscribed to a CSA and have all sorts of exciting fruits and veggies around. Cooking can be a wonderful creative process, a fun training ground for multi-tasking, and a good bonding experience.

I really liked Mark Bittman’s The Minimalist article in the NY Times Dining section today. It includes a list of simple do’s and don’ts - and pantry items to stock - to make your cooking fresher and tastier. Check it out on the NY Times site: Fresh Start for a New Year? Let’s Begin in the Kitchen.

I watch It’s A Wonderful Life every holiday season. It’s my favorite movie.

So it was with great interest that I read today’s NYTimes article: Wonderful? Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life (NYTimes Arts, 12/19/08). The author is obviously a lover of the film - but also makes the observation that Pottersville would not only be a more fun town than Bedford Falls, but also a more financially sound one. It’s an interesting perspective and he points out a few moments in the film I’ll pay special attention to this year (i.e. Ernie’s blank stare when George enters the cab in Pottersville).

But despite the cheap thrills and economic success of Pottersville - it’s not a place that many of us would want to live. And, to me, if Pottersville is the more economically “sustainable” town of the two - we have some fundamental re-plumbing to do on our economy and our society. (see: current financial crisis)

At its heart this is a movie about the importance of relationships and integrity in living a rewarding and meaningful life. The film is great because it shows that the world is a tough place that can make even the best of us lose our cool. But that we can aspire to a better future by aspiring to be better people.

If you haven’t seen the movie - watch it! If you’ve seen it and like it, invite some friends over, make some fresh egg nog, and watch it together.

Influence: Science and Practice by Robert B. Cialdini

My review on Goodreads

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is the best book I’ve read in a really long time. It is interesting, very useful, and chock-full of great examples.

Basically the book lays out all of the various ways that people can influence the thoughts, behaviors, and decisions of other people. Cialdini calls folks who do this professionally “compliance professionals”. These are salesmen, Hare Krishnas, and even con-men.

It is essential reading for anyone in management, sales, and business development. And, really, anyone who is curious about how people make decisions - and how those decisions, in aggregate, describe how society works.

View all my reviews.

I am starting to take a leadership role in the San Francisco professional chapter of Net Impact. Last night we hosted an event at a restaurant downtown in which Net Impact members could sign up to sit, talk, and eat dinner with a thought leader in one of eight spheres of socially responsible business. We had tables for social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, sustainable lifestyles, and non-profit management among others. I sat at, and facilitated, the green design table with Alan Bright from HOK Architects. We had a very interesting and engaging conversation. One high-point for me – and something that was almost out of The Twilight Zone – was when the table got into an impassioned discussion about Wal-mart. And how great it is.

Yes, you read that correctly. A group of professionals in San Francisco who were getting together to talk about how to use business for positive social change were talking about Wal-Mart in a positive light.

What happened? Wal-Mart started to get serious about sustainability.

We had talked how the energy crises had been such a boon to green architecture and contrasted that with how globalization and China, Inc. was affecting product design. Because of the overabundance of inexpensive gadgets, people in the USA are able to buy more with less. And have subsequently filled their lives with stuff – without really thinking about where it came from, what’s in it, or where it will go once disposed of. Digging a bit deeper into the issue we talked about how instrumental it is to educate consumers about the full costs of the products they buy and how critical it is to provide more responsible products that are compelling regardless of their environmental merits. In this realm, Wal-Mart has always been seen as the bad guy. When the W-bomb was first dropped, the folks at the table let out a collective gasp in what was an almost involuntary, conditioned aversion to the retailer (here we go again…let’s beat this dead horse – and beat him good!). BUT - here is where the conversation swung in Wal-Mart’s favor. After a brief moment of sizing up the crowd, we started talking about some of the new things Wal-Mart is doing.

Wal-Mart has been intensely focusing on sustainability for over a year. By using the same efficiencies and economies of scale with which they so successfully reduced prices, they are trying to drive sustainability. They appear to be serious about it, are working collaboratively with NGOs and outside groups, and have set ambitious goals. Their goals are to be a zero waste company (by 2025), use 100% renewable energy, and sell products that are both affordable and sustainable. Purists and skeptics still argue against the retail giant saying that it negatively affects society in so many other ways and still promotes over-consumption. The reality is that Wal-Mart is a natural response to our society and the way we live - we should not expect them to close their doors and become a Buddhist monastery. Wal-Mart has lots of levers to pull and a tremendous opportunity to use them to do good. I am encouraged by their willingness to make tangible changes in their business – and in doing so, drive society and their company towards a more socially and environmentally responsible future.

Here are some things they are doing (check out some of the videos on their site) :

• Reducing the packaging on the products they sell – both realizing distribution efficiencies and reducing waste.
• Reducing the “food miles” of the food that they sell.
• Creating multiple networks to bring suppliers, packagers, NGOs, and other stakeholders together to communicate and work on improving their products.
• Driving more sustainable development in China by requiring better health, safety, and environmental standards for their suppliers.
• Recycling much more in their stores and educating consumers on how to recycle the products they buy.
• Reducing the hazardous chemicals found in the products they sell.
• Ranking the environmental performance of products and holding manufacturers to higher environmental standards. (“The scorecard will reportedly evaluate electronics on energy efficiency, durability, the ability to be upgraded, end-of-life solutions and the size of the package containing the product.”)

The folks at Net Impact knew about many of these initiatives. They were excited about them. They were looking forward to watching them closely – and keeping Wal-Mart true to its word. Talk about a complete turn-around from where a conversation about Wal-Mart would have gone just a year ago! Let’s hope they (and we, as consumers) make good on all of the optimistic promises.

Now that I’m back in the states, living in San Francisco, and becoming involved with a highly educated crowd of professional consultants, I’m noticing that the use of the word “right” is getting a little out of hand in some circles. For example:

“So, the iPod is a great example of how human-centered product design and interaction design can lead to category-killing hardware and software innovation. Right.”

Or

“A problem with the iPhone is that it might be trying to do too much with one device. Right.”

“Right” sometimes seems to punctuate sentences in the way periods do in written prose. When the word is over-used in this way and is not used to give pause for reflection and validation of what’s being said, it comes across to me as a bit pompous. Instead of, “You’re with me here, right? You’re able to follow this logic train, right” it often comes across as “What I am saying is right. It might even be brilliant. And that’s just the tip of my huge iceberg of knowledge.”

Granted, I know people aren’t thinking this when they use the word “right” in most of these situations. However, I believe we need to start thinking of the word “right” in this context as a speech tick. It is used unintentionally, almost sub-consciously, in the same way that “like” is – and is creeping into business vernacular in the same way that “like” has grown like a cancer within the speech of most people under the age of 25.

I find myself using “right” and “like” on occasion too. But I don’t like it. Does anyone else hear me here? Will someone else help me nip this phenomenon in the bud?

If you have not read Michael Pollan’s feature article in the New York Times magazine from January 28th, I’d highly recommend it (Unhappy Meals). He starts the article with the simply profound statement: “Eat food. Not much. Mostly plants.” If America ate this way, he argues, we’d have a lot fewer obesity, societal, and environmental problems.

The “Eat Food” component is particularly important. Food, as he defines it in the article, does not include many of the food products that most Americans eat. Food should be whole. Your grandmother should be able to recognize it as food. It shouldn’t have a huge list of ingredients - and you should be able to pronounce them all. Americans, he points out, have gotten away from this wholesome, holistic, balanced way of thinking about food - choosing instead to focus on the isolated, sterile nutrients found within the food (omega fatty acids, carbs, beta carotene, etc). The problem is that we don’t really know how these things affect us and how they interact. They distract us - and take our eyes off the prize (of a healthy, sane diet).

It’s interesting to think about the different ways to think about “food.” A co-worker of mine pointed out that “food” is usually found on the perimeter of the grocery store. I thought this was an interesting way to think about it. In the article, Pollan also notes that if a packaged food product is heavily toting its health benefits - it’s probably not “food” and really not that healthy. Next time you are at the store, cut through the marketing BS and keep an eye on what you are putting in your cart (i.e. how many ingredients are involved, how much of it is corn-based). Challenge yourself to stay on the perimeter of the store.

I have really enjoyed getting most of my food from my local produce market here in San Francisco. It is cheap, it is tasty, and it makes me feel good. Let’s get back to basics.

This afternoon my girlfriend and I went shopping for some jeans for each of us. I figured that since I am going to start working, I might want more than 2 pairs of pants. Anyway, our retail experience was pretty bad. Bad enough to comment about it on this blog. I am a tall guy and it is hard to find my size (34″x36″). The store layout and displays at the Levi’s store did everything in their power to make sure that, in the unlikely event that they had my size, I would not be able to find it. The jeans were not really organized by size, were folded and turned the wrong way, and were draped in piles that made them impossible to scan through.  I ended up craning my neck, crawling on the floor, flipping the jeans every which way, and opening hidden cupboards. It was dehumanizing. When I finally found one pair of jeans in the sale rack that fit me, I learned at the check-out that they weren’t, in fact, on sale (a new color).  Our next stop was Diesel. It was worse. The sales clerks were in-attentive and disinterested (the Levi’s folks, in contrast, were very nice), the music was loud, the displays were abstract, and the other customers were just milling around and seemed out of it. We were directed to different areas of the store, couldn’t really find what we wanted, and eventually just looked around and said to ourselves: “We feel like we are on drugs right now. Let’s go. Screw this.”

I knew what I wanted and I was ready to buy - but those two retail environments just drove me away. I could have been in and out in 10-15 minutes if I had been able to find what I was looking for efficiently. Next time I’m going to head straight to Old Navy.

I recently read an article in the New York Magazine about a new social phenomenon of people in their 30s and 40s who are still on the cutting edge of fashion, music, and culture (Up With Grups - The Ascendant Breed of Grown-Ups Who Are Redefining Adulthood). They are living like 22 year olds but with have the jobs, paychecks, responsibilities, and families of adults. Basically, in certain circles, the generation gap has disappeared. This is actually something I have been thinking about for a little while. There was a huge generation gap between my grandparents and parent’s generation and a smaller (but still very tangible) generation gap between my generation and my parents’. While the “Grups” in the article are still a few years my senior, I can relate. I think a few things are at work here:

1) My generation was brought up to be hard-wired for change. If there is one constant in society, it is change. And it comes faster and faster these days. In my grandparents’ generation, things changed an incredible amount. Cars weren’t widely adopted when they were kids, let alone the boom of computers. While they were good at driving this change with business , their culture (probably inherited somewhat from their parents) was more fixed. They were not used to things moving so fast. Not so at all with my generation. Since I was in middle school my generation has been used to keeping up with the latest trends - not just fashion trends but trends that redefine the way people live, like cell phones and e-mail. We are used to accepting change and learning how to adopt it.

2) We are spoiled. We have grown up in an era of incredible affluence and haven’t really been challenged as a generation. My grandparents had to deal with the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, etc… My parents had to deal with Vietnam. Our lives haven’t been disrupted by “duty” - either to country or family. Furthermore, my parents didn’t have Wal-Mart or China, Inc. to cater affordably to their every material need as they were growing up. My generation has grown up taking our incredible affluence and freedom of personal choice as a given - and we are choosing to continue to live a fast paced, ever-changing, life of fun. We are free to follow our passions.

3) We live in the era of “the long tail.” Our tastes and preferences are not defined in a generational way. Largely gone are the days of mega-blockbuster hits (movies and music) that are fed to us by huge media companies and widely adopted by a certain age group. Groups are now defined not as much by age, but by mindset. You’ll find me watching Bollywood movies, reading Tom Robbins, or listening to Merle Haggard. So at once my contemporaries are Indians, quirky baby boomers, and old-school blue collar republicans. There is no way you can cater to me in one fell swoop. My tastes and preferences change at different speeds in different areas of my life. As an avid music fan who grew up in the days of Napster, I can’t imagine ever not being at the cutting edge of the music scene. I’ll always be mingling with 18 year olds who choose to appreciate my kind of music.