From The Rooftops

PRIME Messaging: Mutuality

This is part five of an ongoing series of developing thoughts on the intersection of authentic messaging and sustainability. In part one I introduce the concept of greenwash-fighting marketing that follows 5 “PRIME” principles: Participation, Rigor, Intentionality, Mutuality and Exchange. In part two I elaborate on the concept of participation. In part three I gush about rigor and how strong, verifiable sustainability information is one of the surest antidotes to greenwashing. In part four I discuss intentionality in terms of expressing an organization’s true sustainability aims: how to do it well and why it’s sometimes more important to be honest than good. Please join me now as I consider the role of mutuality as a valuable step in moving authentic sustainability messaging externally, into the public realm. As always, comments are appreciated and encouraged.

Mutuality

Sustainability claims: Use, whenever possible or necessary, third-party partners for support and advancement of their goals [Mutuality]

As we’ve discussed so far, sustainable systems are not easily implemented, let alone discussed publicly. Many organizations find themselves in a Catch-22 where they vacillate between their interest in exploring elements of sustainability and their fear of reprisal for any missteps (or misstatements) along the way. The PRIME framework is specifically designed to work through these issues. Mutuality is concerned with the advancement of an organization’s goals and partners who can help it do precisely that. There are two parts to this: the goals and the partners.

We’ll get to goals in a moment but first I want to say that, regarding third-party partners, it’s important to recognize that it is not only unnecessary but sometimes counterproductive for an organization to clamber for any and all certification and legitimacy-building labels they can muster. It’s not about racing to get the most third-party partners; it’s about collaborating with the best, most mission-aligned organizations that are out there. If you’re an architecture firm whose designs don’t reflect any concern about environmental issues, it would be kind of silly for you to go to brag about using partially recycled paper or having an Energy Star refrigerator in the office. You’re an architecture firm; most of your environmental impact is going to be associated with the production and utilization of your buildings, not the device your office uses to keep lunch cold. Conversely, here at From The Rooftops, the designs we produce are conceptual rather than physical—some of the largest parts of our footprint will be associated with commuting, paper and energy consumption. For us, using an efficient refrigerator would be a much more sizable chunk of our footprint.

You can see how this relates to goals, then. The goal of an architecture firm is to design great buildings, not refrigerate leftovers in a slightly more efficient manner. To be sure, it’s great to do that, too, but an organization needs to be honest with itself regarding its identity and purpose (not to mention the way it expresses such things): if you design buildings and you want to lay some claim to sustainability, you’re probably going to want to be conversant in all things LEED and other green design organizations and standards. Why does your organization exist? And don’t tell me your answer is just, “to make widgets.” Hopefully the goals of your organization are more significant—to help solve a certain problem; to bring about greater happiness; to design enduring aesthetic structures that not only shelter but inspire—something that matters, right? Right. Okay, how does this match up with your sustainability aspirations? If those deeper reasons for your organization’s existence lack a legitimate sustainability element, you’re going to be hard-pressed to talk about it authentically. Pepsi’s brand goals might be promoting “enjoyment,” but if their brand is held back by various issues (water, bottles, corn syrup), they will have a hard time talking about “enjoyment [+ sustainability].” An architecture firm that has credentials for and designs passive homes or LEED projects? Yeah, we can share more enthusiastically in their story of: “designing enduring aesthetic structures that not only shelter but inspire [+ sustainability].” Once our imaginary architecture firm has their in-house ducks in a row (via participation, rigor and intentionality), they have the foundation and legitimacy from which they can begin to move externally and seek additional verification and symbiotic relationships (like certified passive homes, LEED, etc.) through which they might be able to enhance the magnitude of their efforts.

The PRIME principle of participation requires demonstrating the systemic, deep internalization of sustainability. Rigor helps you talk about it in a manner that is validated and meaningful to an increasingly skeptical audience. Intentionality concerns the discussion of such things in line with a frank, brand-aligned and consistent narrative. Mutuality can be seen as a step toward moving this process externally—finding real-world partners that are aligned with the deep system of internal, well-supported and brand-aligned claims and activities. Such brand- (and therefore goal-)aligned partnerships are often mutually beneficial: by adopting and promoting a third-party standard, the firm gains tangible support for their green claims and the third-party organization gains increasing legitimacy in the marketplace (by virtue of a “network externality” or “network effect”), thus enhancing the value of the standard and encouraging others to adopt it as well. In this way, the adoption of such standards can be not only beneficial for the adopting organization and the third-party auditor but for all others—past, present and future—working with the auditor, too. I guess you could say that, sometimes, 1 + 1 can equal 3 …unless you’re Mr. Garciano, my old math teacher, in which case you’d shake your head and say, “Caleb, how did you ever make it past elementary school!?”

Caleb

–Comments welcome (even from you, Mr. G!)