We need trusted brands

So, in NZ2100 and KiwiGrow we have a solution to many problems, and also a great opportunity.  We have chosen to name these tools to help us to talk about them, but also to start to build the brands.  These brands have enormous potential in certification and accreditation schemes, because their very nature suggests good character and trustworthiness.  In a complex world, with many competing brands, we need a few good overarching brands that can facilitate social and economic interactions, globally.

Companies need to have the regard of investors, and to help them minimise the cost of capital.  A company that has good character and can be trusted, is likely to have to pay lower interest on a development loan or other kinds of finance, than a company clearly focused on the main chance, and the short term. Investors today don't want any more major recessions like the one we're having now, and hopefully soon to emerge from. As an investor, you are not interested in companies that can't see the writing on the wall, which is that the companies that will survive and prosper in the new economy will be sustainable in the best sense of the word.  So, savvy companies will adopt green strategies, and use branding strategies to help reap the commercial benefits. 

As consumers, we want to be assured that the products and services we buy can be trusted to fit with this new world that is in the process of being created.  If you're the head of the procurement division of a major company, you have a job on your hands to figure out how to make sure that your company's inputs also fit with the sustainability values.  Do you want to spend time trawling through the reports and history of  your suppliers - and their suppliers - and the suppliers of those suppliers? Certainly not.  You want them all to be branded as sustainable, and safe.  That is, companies whose processes will not come back to haunt you in your efforts to project your own health and sustainability to the marketplace.

And there's a special case of supplier to be concerned about.  You're starting to "warm" to the idea of global CO2 emissions trading schemes.  But (as in New Zealand) the local opportunities for purchasing carbon credits might be few and far between.  You're forced to look further afield.  You've heard that there are great opportunities to invest in real emissions reductions schemes internationally, but you're wary of them.  Are they what they claim to be?  Do their activities really lead to taking carbon out of the atmosphere, or reduced emissions? And if they do, what short cuts have they taken along the way.  How reputable is the business. If you're dealing with them long range, you'll need assurance that they are OK. They need to be branded.  And they need to be branded with a brand that you understand and respect.

Say you're an investment fund manager.  All your former colleagues who couldn't care less about sustainability and global well-being are now looking for jobs as car salesmen, and your boss has kept you on because you seemed to have thought about these sustainability issues and had even started an ethical fund for the company.  It was mainly just a flag the company could wave to claim ethical credibility, and it accounted for a fraction of the investment funds your company managed, but now your boss is saying he wants you to "scale up".  Tomorrow.  Because when people start investing again they'll want to invest in the green economy.  You're going to be looking for ways of making this easier.  You're going to be looking into sustainability branding, and you're going to find the whole area is "fluid" to say the least.  What you want is companies that come with good brands, and score well on certification schemes.

Or perhaps you're a farmer.  Perhaps one here in New Zealand.  You know that farming is just one of those activities that most directly impacts on the environment. If you're messing up, you can see it right where you are, in the erosion that's happening on your property, in the steady loss of soil condition and fertility, and in the crumbling streambanks that is contributing to sedimentation and loss of fisheries downstream. And people have been complaining about stream pollution from your use of fertilisers, or the way your livestock move at will through streams and other watercourses, doing what they do.  Or perhaps you've been clearing native vegetation to make more space for livestock.  And now you've got people on the other side of the world saying that they want to buy green, and your produce doesn't come with a guarantee.  You've been efficient, you've been low cost, because you've been able to make grass grow quicker than anywhere else, and you've been able to use mechanisation effectively.  How to convince those customers that you're OK?  You'll need a brand.  And, unless you convince people that your produce has so many unique advantages that you can have your own unique brand, you'll be wanting to get some sort of sustainability certification, and preferably with a system that has a realistic view of sustainability and doesn't require you to be on first name terms with the worms on your farm.

What about our schools, hospitals, retirement homes, prisons, and other social institutions?  We'll need our children to grow up understanding what sustainability is all about.  Our hospitals are perpetually stretched trying to provide the most up-to-date treatments, and some of our retirement homes are starting to look positively lethal.  Our prisons don't seem to have any sort of overarching framework that allows them to effectively marry firm, principled incarceration, with values education and rehabilitation.  Which ones to invest in? Any of them?  Which ones are riddled with heartlessness , corruption, and exploitation?  Does handing them over to private enterprise provide the answer?  They need to be branded for sustainability and well-being.

Or, you're a marketing and strategy manager for a local council, or maybe a back-room political buff.  How to get people out there to trust you, and give you breathing space to get on and do what needs to be done?  How to avoid accountability processes that take up 30% of your time? Maybe an exaggeration, but your communities are fed up with inefficient bureaucracies, and lack of progress on the issues that concern them, and, they think you're a bunch of stick-together nest-featherers anyway.  So, you need to align yourself with the new thinking that people are hooking into, and you need to get recognised for it.  You need to be branded, and certified.  That way, maybe you'll win enough trust to be able to attract enough revenue to be able to get on with those projects.

Or, you're a manager of a wealthy philanthropic trust.  There are vast numbers of worthy causes out there, but which ones are managed well, and which ones deliver most?  You've heard that social and environmental agencies have been suffering under the output/input ratio rule - meaning that they've been trying to shrink their overheads in order to spend more on their main purpose, but it's put their operations in a straightjacket, and they haven't been able to grow to a size and capability that allows them to do justice to their cause.  What you want to do is be able to easily identify those ones that have developed into healthy, sustainable operations.  They need to be branded as sustainable.

Maybe you're even a political leader.  You're faced with the job of embodying those new sustainability values that everyone now realises are going to be so important.  So, you want your political party, your ministers, your departmental secretaries, and entire government departments to be trusted as supporting and committed to these values.  You need those organisations to be sustainability-branded somehow.   People within those organisations have all kinds of ideas as to how that might be done. But you want them to all knit together and pull in the same direction.  And that'll be the direction that you want to go in, the direction of sustainability and well-being.  So, you'll be looking to champion a brand that's going to bring everyone together.

In all of this we need brands that are associated with evolving performance, and progressive improvement. Ideas about well-being and sustainability are changing all the time. A lot of it is about changing culture. So, the last thing we need is standards and certification schemes that are inflexible, and won't allow us to grow.  We will trust the brands that recognise these needs, not ones that  stand for rigid positions, privilege and intolerance.  Whatever our starting point, we must be able to join up under the brand, and start the journey. And then start to link in with all the others doing the same thing, striving for the same goals.  How to provide such a brand, and a form of internationally-recognised certification and accreditation to support it, is our challenge.

Too many brands 

The New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development provides a directory of ecolabels at http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/EcolabelAlphabeticListing____40254.aspx l .  We have listed them below, as they were at 18 July 2009. 

How do you react to such lists?  How many brands are we expected to be familiar with?  We believe that almost none of these brands certifies sustainability comprehensively, and certainly not as we have conceptualised it.  Almost all are "partial" certifications, designed to cover issues of most importance to the industry concerned.  We believe they are most effectively used as contributory brands - brands that can be used with others to help substantiate claims to overall sustainability.  We believe international social and economic trade and development needs to be based around a few trusted brands if it is to be truly effective.  Use of these brands can oil the wheels of free trade and prevent exotic certifications from being used as non tariff trade barriers.

Here they all are:

Acorn Scheme   ---  AF&PA - American Forest and Paper Association Standards   ---  AsureQuality Organic Standard   ---  Australian Certified Organic   ---  Australian Forest Certification Scheme - AFCS   ---  AvoGreen®   ---  BAP - Best Aquaculture Practices   ---  Best Fish Guide   ---  Biodegradability label for bio-plastics   ---  Biodegradability Standards EU   ---  Biodegradable   ---  Biodegradable Standards USA   ---  BioGro New Zealand Domestic Certification Programme   ---  Blue Angel (Der Blauer Engle)   ---  BREEAM - Building Research Establishments Environmental Assessment Method   ---  BusinessCare   ---  BusinessCare Enviro-Mark   ---  Carbon Reduction Label   ---  CarboNZero certification   ---  Care & Fair   ---  CASBEE - Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency)   ---  CEC - China Environmental Labelling Programme   ---  Certified CarbonFree   ---  China Ecolabelling   ---  Chlorine Free   ---  Clean & Green   ---  Clean and Green - Australian Southern Rocklobster   ---  Clean Energy Guide   ---  Cleaner and Greener Certification   ---  Climate Friendly   ---  Common Codex for Integrated Farming   ---  Corporate Responsibility Index   ---  Cradle to Cradle Design   ---  Dairying and Clean Streams Accord   ---  Demeter New Zealand   ---  Design for the Environment (DFE)   ---  Dolphin Safe (Earth Island Institute)   ---  Dolphin Safe (USDA)   ---  Dolphin-free   ---  Dolphin-friendly   ---  Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes   ---  ECMA-341: Environmental Design Considerations for Electronic Products   ---  ECMA-370 - The Eco Declaration   ---  Eco Certification Program (Eco-Tick)   ---  Eco Warranty:2008   ---  Eco-friendly   ---  EcoLogo (Environmental Choice Canada)   ---  EcoMark (Japan)   ---  Ecospecifier   ---  Eco-Tex (Oeko-Tex) Standard 100   ---  EIZO Eco Products 2002   ---  EMAS - European Union Eco-Management and Audit Scheme   ---  Energy Efficiency Recommended   ---  Energy Efficient Product Retailer Assessment System   ---  Energy Rating Label   ---  ENERGY STAR®   ---  ENVIRO-AG   ---  Enviro-Mark NZ   ---  Enviro-Mark®   ---  Environmental Choice New Zealand   ---  Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Database   ---  EnviroPork   ---  EnviroSmart   ---  EPEAT - Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool   ---  Ethibel   ---  Ethical Trading Initiative   ---  ETL - Energy Technology List, ECA - Enhanced Capital Allowances Scheme   ---  EU Vehicle Rating Label   ---  EURO IV and V   ---  European Recovered Paper Identification System   ---  European Union Eco-label (EcoFlower or The Flower)   ---  EWOF Site Standard   ---  Exhaust Emission Standards   ---  Fair Trade™ Certified   ---  FAIRTRADE Certification and Labelling   ---  Farm Pride   ---  FEMP - Federal Energy Management Program   ---  FernMark Quality Programme   ---  Fertiliser Code of Practice   ---  FertMark   ---  FLO - Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International   ---  Food Certification International   ---  From well managed forests   ---  FSC - Forestry Stewardship Council   ---  FTO Mark - Fair Trade Organisation   ---  FTSE 4 Good   ---  GE Free Food Guide   ---  GE-Free   ---  GE-Free New Zealand   ---  Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN)   ---  Global Organic Textile Standard   ---  GLOBALGAP (formerly EUREPGAP)   ---  Good Environmental Choice Australia   ---  Good Environmental Choice Sweden (Bra Miljöval)   ---  Green   ---  Green Build Environmental Assessment   ---  Green Choice - Philippines' Ecolabelling Programme   --- Green Dot (Gruner Punkt)   ---  Green Dot North America   ---  Green Globe International   ---  Green Globe New Zealand   ---  Green Guard   ---  Green Label Singapore   ---  Green Label Thailand   ---  Green Mark   ---  Green Pages Australia   ---  Green Pages International   ---  Green Pages New Zealand   ---  Green Seal   ---  Green Star   ---  Green Star NZ   ---  Green Tag Renewable Energy Programme   ---  Green-e Climate   ---  Green-e Energy   ---  Greener   ---  Greener Choices Eco Label Centre   ---  GreenFleet   ---  Greenhouse Challenge Plus Programme   ---  Greenhouse Friendly™   ---  Greenpages Directory   ---  GreenPower   ---  GreenTick- CLIMATE FRIENDLY™   ---  GreenTick FAIR TRADER™   ---  GreenTick- GE-FREE™   ---  GreenTick NATURAL™   ---  GreenTick ORGANIC™   ---  GreenTick SUSTAINABLE   ---  GROWSAFE® Training Programme   ---  GTBS - Green Tourism Business Scheme   ---  Guide to Greener Electronics (6th edition)   ---  GuT   ---  Home Energy Ratings (HERS)   ---  Hong Kong Green Label   ---  IFOAM - International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements' Standards   ---  Indian Ecomark Scheme   ---  Indonesian Eco-label Programme (Ramah Linkunga)   ---  Integrated Aquaculture Assurance Standard   ---  International Ecotourism Standard   ---  ISO 14001   ---  IT Eco Declaration   ---  Japan Voluntary   ---  Korea Eco-Label (KoEko)   ---  LEAF Marque - Linking Environment and Farming   ---  LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design   ---  LEED India   ---  LEED® Canada Green Building Rating System   ---  Legambiente Turismo   ---  Living Wine Group   ---  Made with care for the environment   ---  Market Focused   ---  Merino Benchmarking and Monitoring Group   ---  Milieukeur Ecolabel   ---  Mobius Loop (recycling symbol)   ---  MSC - Marine Stewardship Council   ---  MTCS - Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme   ---  NASAA Certified Organic   ---  NatHERS - Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme   ---  National Green Pages (USA)   ---  National Standard for Certification of Plantation Forest Management in New Zealand   ---  National Standard for Sustainable Forest Management (CAN/CSA-Z809)   ---  Naturland E.V   ---  New Zealand Farmsure   ---  New Zealand GAP - Good Agricultural Practice   ---  New Zealand Pipfruit Integrated Fruit Production   ---  NF Environment Mark (Marque NF)   ---  Nordic Swan   ---  NZ- Aust WELS Water Efficiency Label   ---  NZ Biofuel Label   ---  NZBCSD   ---  Offset the Rest   ---  Olive Care   ---  ORCA Eco-labelling programme   ---  Organic Farmers & Growers   ---  Organic Farming   ---  Paper Buyers Guide (Govt3)   ---  Paper Profile   ---  PC Green Label   ---  PEFC - Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification   ---  Pusch - Swiss Ecolabel   ---  Qualmark®   ---  Rainforest Alliance Certified   ---  Red Tractor   ---  Responsible Care®   ---  Responsible Care® Programme New Zealand   ---  Responsible Fishing Scheme   ---  Responsible Investment Certification Programme   ---  Rightcar   ---  RoHS - Restriction of Hazardous Substances   ---  RugMark   ---  Safe for the environment   ---  SAMsn - Sustainable Agriculture/Horticultural Management Systems Network Directory   ---  SBN   ---  Scoring the Tissue Giants   ---  SFI - Sustainable Forestry Initiative   ---  SGS Carbon Neutrality   ---  SMART   ---  Social Accountability 8000 Standard   ---  Soil Association Organic Standard   ---  Spread Mark   ---  Step Foundation   ---  SummerGreen programme   ---  Sustainable   ---  SWNZ - Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand   ---  Take Charge   ---  Target Sustainability   ---  Target Zero   ---  TCO   ---  Tesco Nature's Choice   ---  Tesco Sustainable Seafood Codes of Practice   ---  TFT - Tropical Forest Trust   ---  The Green Key   ---  The Natural Step (TNS)   ---  The Plastic Identification Code   ---  UK Fuel Economy Label   ---  UNEP/IAPSO Product Criteria Database   ---  USDA Organic   ---  Volatile Organic Compounds Labels   ---  Voluntary Carbon Standard 2007   ---  Watersense   ---  WEEE - Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment   ---  WERS - Window Energy Rating Scheme   ---  Wild American Shrimp   ---  Wildlife Choice.

While businesses continue to struggle to show the benefits from their efforts in engaging in sustainability and sustainable development reporting, the world context continues to change. In 2004, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and AccountAbility reviewed strategic challenges for business posed by an emerging raft of corporate responsibility codes, standards and frameworks, including the UN Global Compact, the UN Human Rights Norms for Business, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, GRI Sustainability reporting guidelines, the AA1000 Assurance Standard, SA 8000 (certification system for global supply chain labour standards, ISO 14001, the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (USA), a post-Enron law to establish mandatory requirements on public companies and their auditors in relation to corporate governance and accounting procedures, to protect investors.  Finding ways of sensibly responding to and integrating these codes was a clear concern.  Looking ahead to the future of corporate responsibility codes, standards and frameworks,  Ligteringen and Zadek concluded in 2005 that there was an emerging global architecture of de facto standards consisting of normative frameworks, process guidelines, and management systems. The main normative frameworks were the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning MNEs (multinational enterprises), UN Conventions and declarations on sustainable development issues, UN Global Compact Principles, and the OECD Guidelines for MNEs. The main process guidelines were the  AA1000 standard, the GRI Guidelines.  In the area of management systems, there was AA1000, ISO14001, ISO Social Responsibility Guidance (proposed), SA8000 Social Accounting, and Sigma Guidelines.  Ligteringen and Zadek  believed that the precise form of the future framework would depend on governments, financial markets, the accounting profession, business, and civil society, and the next 5-10 years would show either a proliferation of codes and standards, or a period of alignment and consolidation.   Well, five of those years have passed already.  We believe that it is only through consolidation that such standards and codes can support sustainable development effectively, without their becoming used selectively, being exploited, or simply ignored as contributing to confusion.

We need a few trusted brands.

How trusted brands work

What is the basis of trusted brands.  This basis appears to rest on a number of factors - clarity on motives; agreement on legitimacy of motives;  evidence of progress towards goals; simplicity, familiarity, and ease of recognition of the symbols of the brand; integrity and evidence of actions in accordance with the intent of the brand; honesty and transparency, to name a few.   Trust in a brand is earned over time, or communicated from another trusted source, perhaps through generations.

If you have a religious faith, the chances are that evidence of someone belonging to the same faith will contribute to how willing you are to place your trust in that person.  Such trust networks allow us to live our lives without putting everyone we deal with in our lives through a 20 question interrogation, or a process of trialling.  Trust allows us to fast-track relationships, and do business effectively.  Most importantly, it is based on evidence of character and commonality of values.   Any new brand that seeks to be highly trusted has to acknowledge this, and have a strategy for building trust over time, and especially gaining support of highly trusted figures and entities.

We believe that NZ2100 and KiwiGrow can become highly trusted brands, because of the centrality of fundamental values, because leading figures in sustainable development will come to acknowledge that they provide the most practical and clearest statement of sustainability available today, and because they will be developed collaboratively with stakeholders, in a highly transparent way that limits the ability of any one party, including Creative Decisions, to exert unhealthy levels of control and influence.  We also believe that the brands will have appeal through not having originated through any government or corporate process, and through their potential as a mechanism to hold those bodies to account.  We hope they will be embraced by people and communities as "the people's brands".