Image by Danilo Rizzuti

The time has come to wrap up Socially Responsible Thoughts. There is only enough time for writing one blog and I have decided to create a new one called Living in Hamilton. You can find it here: http://livinginhamilton.wordpress.com/

I’ve lived in Hamilton, Ontario for 5 years and it bothers me that out-of-towners assume it is all industrial – as viewed from the Burlington Skyway. There is so much more to it and this new blog will feature the diversity, beauty and history that is Hamilton, as seen through my own life here. If you want to get off that highway and see some of the details, come and visit!

For my last post in Socially Responsible Thoughts, here are some statistical highlights to summarize the last year and a half of blogging:

• As of today there were 8,657 views
• The Gap post was by far the most visited at 2,821 views. Judging by the search terms used to find that post, Gap customers are still concerned about the 2007 event where a sub-contractor of Gap was caught using child labour.
• Second most visited was the home page itself with 1265 views
• Third was Polar Bears & Coke & WWF with 1212 views, many of which were fed from an American site which referenced my blog within their rant about Coke’s green washing.
• Rounding out the top ten viewed posts are Shopper’s Drug Mart, McCarthy’s School Uniforms, Body Shop, British Petroleum, B Corporation, Mabel’s Labels and Drinking Hamilton’s Tap Water.
• In the all-time top 20 search terms, a variation of ‘gap child labour’ appears 11 times
• The remaining 9 top search terms include Body Shop (3), Mabel’s Labels (2), McCarthy Uniforms (1), Shopper’s Drug Mart (1), Give a Goat for Christmas (1) and Sunny Acres Park (1)
• And lastly, the top referrers to this blog site were cracked.com (the American site which ranted about Coke), Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.

Although there will be no new posts for Socially Responsible Thoughts, I will still be around to answer comments. I thank you for visiting Socially Responsible Thoughts and I hope you found it useful!

Helen

Photo by Arvind Balaraman

Last June, I wrote a blog post about the public relations activity of British Petroleum. I included a photo of a bird grotesquely covered in oil on the coast of Louisiana. Here is a follow-up, about cleaning up some of those birds.

Two days ago, the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet show featured a story called Preserving the Pelicans. It followed the rescue, cleaning and release of pelicans caught in last year’s British Petroleum spill in the Atlantic. The clean-up operation is managed by the International Bird Rescue Research Centre, who have been doing this since 1971. Years of experimenting with cleaning products saw the use of solvents so strong that volunteers needed to wear masks and birds were passing out.

Then Dawn dish soap was discovered to yes, cut grease, just like their ads say. Every five years, the Centre conducts tests to see if they might improve their cleaning products and Dawn continues to be the best thing.

The Daily Planet showed a cleaning centre for the BP spill where pelicans were in holding areas until they could be cleaned. These are very stressed birds, visibly shaking. There are many cleaning steps, from a general wash to detailed, feather-specific, painstakingly careful cleaning. Because the oil reduces their warmth, the birds’ bath water is kept at 104 degrees Fahrenheit, their usual body temperature.

It’s a long process which considers not just physical needs but the stress of the experience. Once ready to leave, they are flown far away from the spill and released back into suitable habitats.

Dawn is active in wildlife conservation donating both soap and money to projects. For more information about their programs, check out their website.

image from freedigitalphotos.net

Well, I’m starting the new year off on a different footing – I’ve never written about animal dung before. My advance apologies to anyone offended by this unusual topic!

Last week a colleague joined me on a road trip to check out promotional items from a company new to us.  There were some really interesting and different items – including journals of hand-made paper that could be printed with logos.  Turning over the journal to check out the source, I was surprised to see ‘Poo Poo Paper – made from 100% recycled and odorless products made from poo!’ Oh my!

The Great Elephant Poo Poo Paper Company has been selling their naturally sourced products since 2002. Their website admits to having a high price tag on earlier products but they spent years refining their processes in order to reduce the cost to consumers.

It might make you feel better to know that the first production step is rinsing the dung so only the fibrous materials (grasses, bamboo, fruits) are used for processing. You can check out the whole process here. And if elephants aren’t your thing, the company has expanded to include products made from cow, horse and panda dung.

The products look great and are very professionally designed and produced. If you have individual, corporate or fund-raising opportunities to use paper products with low environmental impact, you might want to check out their goods.

Christmas is close and my mind is wandering to visions of cookies, cakes and candies. On a whim, I searched the web for ‘socially responsible cookies’ and discovered a bakery in New York that goes way beyond organic ingredients and fair trade certification.

Greyston Bakery was created in 1982 by a Zen Buddhist meditation group with the intent to: ‘produce quality, locally made products that would give the group a sustainable, satisfying livelihood.’

It has grown to be a huge business with the refined vision of: ‘a Double Bottom Line with the dual objectives of job creation & personal development for local residents and financial support for the Greyston Foundation.’

This description comes from the B Corporation website which lists Greyston among their certified members. This earlier blog post of mine explains the rigorous process companies go through to be certified.

Located in Yonkers, New York, the Greyston Foundation receives all of the bakery’s profits and offers neighbourhood programs in housing, childcare, health and education and a community garden.  Their employees are not the cream of the resume crop ‘with backgrounds that include homelessness, incarceration, substance abuse, welfare dependence, domestic violence and illiteracy.’ But chosen from the local community, these individuals are trained, mentored and promoted which must surely be a life-changing opportunity for many.

The bakery line includes the ‘Do Goodie Brownie’ and they supply all the brownie flavours for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream line.  There are swanky corporate packages to order and individual gift packages sure to satisfy sugar cravings.

And it gets better: all of the facilities are LEED certified and built on a redeveloped brownfield property.

For socially responsible baked goods – Greyston is clearly a leader.

Recently here in Hamilton, there are large billboards encouraging people to drink tap water.  My household already consumes a lot but I’ve been wondering about the reason for this public relations campaign. Here’s what I found out.

The billboards are produced by the City of Hamilton and began to appear in June 2010 to implement a directive of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. This news release from the Federation provides greater detail but essentially, the directive was two fold:

1) Reduce the amount of bottled water in municipal facilities and,

2) Develop awareness campaigns about the benefits and quality of municipal water supply systems.

A web address on the billboards takes you to Hamilton’s Public Works Department with useful information on their own initiatives and related organizations. Another click on this page takes you to a detailed explanation of the billboard campaign.

The billboard design is quite eye-catching with large, bright photos of individuals and huge captions declaring “I Drink Hamilton Tap Water.” Apparently these are all Hamilton residents who volunteered for the job. I think my favourite is the leather clad biker dude!

The text is minimal, making it easy to focus on. And the message “Tested 47,000 times in 2009″ is to the point.

Britta has also been promoting the use of tap water vs. bottled water through various media. Britta’s research explains one of their pitchers can replace up to 300, 16.9 ounce water bottles. While Britta will gain profits from this, reducing the world’s plastic is a good thing for everyone.

Kudos to the City of Hamilton for this socially responsible campaign. Cheers!

Time for teacher treats...and uniforms

Although children and youth everywhere do not want to hear it – it’s almost time to go back to school. For those who need school uniforms, their parents might want to check out R.J. McCarthy Uniforms, a Canadian company dedicated to social responsibility.

Company History: In 1956, McCarthy began their operations in Toronto with a goal to ‘establish a service-oriented business based on the timeless values of quality, integrity and fairness.’ There are now 14 show rooms in Ontario and one in British Columbia, making them Canada’s largest school uniform supplier. The company knows how to keep up with the times as their product selection clearly shows. McCarthy adapts their products to reflect current fashion trends and offers funky accessories from well-known brand names as part of their inventory.

The Social Responsibility Commitment: In 2009, McCarthy Uniforms decided they wanted to become one of Canada’s leading companies in sustainable practices. As their website says, ‘Social responsibility is now, more than ever, the “north star” that will guide our company’s direction going forward.’ And even more ambitious, is their mission: ‘creating the world’s highest quality school uniforms in a socially responsible way.’

The R.J. McCarthy Social Responsibility Framework includes:

• Responsible Sourcing and Manufacturing
  • McCarthy’s wants to do business only with others who share their commitment to safe and fair work environments. An education and monitoring process has been established to meet their standards. They are exploring possibilities to create sustainable products made from recyclable or biodegradable materials.

• Greening Operations
  • New innovations in the company include increased use of recycled products in marketing materials, a decrease in paper use, an increase in recycling and the use of environmentally friendly cleaning products, installing energy efficient lighting devices, eliminating plastic bag packaging, and the introduction of a new fleet of hybrid sales vehicles.
  • Late in 2009, McCarthy entered a multi-year project to monitor and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions with a methodology by Carbonzero which takes exact measurements rather than general estimates based on manufacturing floor area.

• Inspiring People
  • An ongoing workshop series called ‘lunch and learn’ has been set up to engage staff in the mission. This program seeks results, ‘By empowering each and every one of our employees with the knowledge and tools necessary to act in an environmentally conscious way not just at work but in their daily lives as well.’

• Supporting Communities
  • McCarthy’s makes very generous donations of money, uniforms and school supplies as part of their community involvement. Two examples from 2010 include $30,000 worth of clothing to Heart to Heart Haiti and 26 skids of clothing to a hospital and school in Zambia, Africa.

Listening to the Customer: Another initiative to be implemented in the near future will create a student panel for dialogue on social responsibility issues. As McCarthy sees it: ‘Students are quite often the loudest and the most vocal agents of change and we recognize the importance of listening to what they have to say.’

So even if your offspring are not enthused about returning to school, if your household is socially conscious and you need uniforms, McCarthy’s sounds like a great choice.

My new Ecotex carry-on luggage

Two weeks ago, I flew to the Maritimes to see my niece married on the shores of the Atlantic. It was a beautiful event and the trip logistics were very smooth, in part, because of my cool, new carry-on bag. This isn’t an endorsement, but because it is made from 100% recycled water bottles, it deserves a mention for its social responsibility.

The bag is made by Heys as part of its Ecotex line, introduced in the fall of 2009. This press release includes a video that shows how the water bottles are broken down into new material.  Independent lab tests show the recycled material is stronger than polyester and for every kilogram produced, one gallon of gasoline is saved which equals the energy saved by turning off 500, 60 watt light bulbs for one day.

The press release also states, ‘EcoTex® is made entirely without drilling for oil, refining oil, transporting oil, or blending oil with other chemicals.’ It’s a bit disturbing to realize how many everyday objects do contain refined oil.

I visited the website of the Need Project, (National Energy Education Development Project), an American organization whose mission ‘is to promote an energy conscious and educated society by creating effective networks of students, educators, business, government and community leaders to design and deliver objective, multi-sided energy education programs.’

Their website contains a report which lists common petroleum products and it was a disappointing education for me to see how many everyday items were included. A few that surprised me the most were crayons, balloons, nail polish, heart valves, guitar strings and toothpaste.

With the recent British Petroleum spill in the Gulf of Mexico, finding products made from recycled materials – thereby reducing the need for more drilling – just seems like a really good idea.

from Boston.com: A bird is mired in oil on the beach at East Grand Terre Island along the Louisiana coast on Thursday, June 3, 2010.

Watching the Gulf of Mexico disaster, at times I have purposely avoided the coverage because the scope of damage is overwhelming. But I’m curious about the crisis communications process so today I explored their corporate website, Twitter account and Facebook page to see what information was being posted and by who.

There is some confusion on Facebook. There are 2 sites, one official, one not. The unofficial BP Facebook page is just a-hopping. The stream of new comments is so fast it’s hard to read them. One that caught my eye was: ‘BP should now stand for Big Problem’.  And apparently BP representative Randy Prescott recently made the mistake of saying, ‘Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp’ to which lots of people are replying, BP isn’t the only place to buy gas.

The official BP America Facebook page doesn’t hop at all. There have been regular postings with feedback ranging from about 40 people to over 300 per post. I followed the comments on five posts and saw just once where BP commented back and it was to remind people of the need for respectful language. But honestly, a lot of the feedback is not constructive and seems to be attracting people looking to rant about anything at all. Actively engaging this  type of personality would not likely accomplish much. I was surprised to see how many people are ‘liking’ BP’s posts which is perhaps explained by the comments stating how many Americans are employed by BP.

BP America’s Twitter page has more than 10,000 followers, almost 400 tweets and has been listed 575 times. The tweets range from video postings to technical explanations and official statements, given at least every few hours. There is a permanent display of statistics about the clean up process, including the fact that 30,000 claims have already been made and 15,000 have been settled. Doing a search of #BPAmerica reveals a lot of angry people calling for boycotts and threatening personal harm to BP executives.

Apparently there is also a fake BP Twitter account with outlandish posts. Patrick Barbanes, of Social Media Today, created a blog post where praising Toby Odone, a BP spokesman, for his response, as told to Ad Age: “I’m not aware of whether BP has made any calls to have it taken down or addressed. People are entitled to their views on what we’re doing and we have to live with those. We are doing the best we can to deal with the current situation and to try to stop the oil from flowing and to then clean it up.”…”People are frustrated at what’s happening, as are we, and that’s just their way of expressing it.”’

After finding disturbing pictures of oil-laden birds through Facebook, I explored the images available on BP America’s corporate site in their press section.  There are three pages of spill-related images but they all look pretty clean really. It’s a bit disjointed to go from spill pictures on page three to stock executive biography pics on page four with big smiles that seem unsuitable in this context. Maybe the spill photos should have been displayed on their own page?

There are frequent press releases here providing technical updates and news of compensation funds and projects that are committed to by BP for the long-term clean-up plans.  I was hoping to find a response about a May 5th article from the Washington Post discussing BP’s past avoidance of environmental requirements and their ‘vigorous’ government lobbying to expand their exemptions in future operations. I think it would be good to address this directly although it isn’t a response you would want to prepare too quickly given its seriousness.

Also on the fake Facebook page, I discovered that BP president, Tony Hayward, made a gaffe last weekend by stating he wanted his life back. Public response was swift and angry to which he offered a well-worded apology. BP’s corporate site also includes a video with Hayward speaking about the disaster, the response and their commitment. It’s well done, with all the right words and phrases and he does seem believable. I’ll admit to being a bit skeptical at the mention of the thousands of employees who ‘feel the impact’ and wonder if this is a way to remind people of their economic clout.

But for me, one question needs to be answered before BP’s goal of restoring public trust can truly be met. It will involve more than BP as they are not the only company who drills in deep ocean water. I would like to see the industry demonstrate responsibility by creating the technology required to fix big problems – before you begin the operations that create them.

From a public relations perspective, this kind of crisis cannot be fixed with only words – it needs appropriate actions to prevent this from happening again.

Photo by Simon Howden

Here in Hamilton, Ontario we have numerous agencies working to improve the lives of people short on cash. Sadly, the need is considerable. I often see the logo for Hamilton Food Share appearing in local media and today I visited their website to better understand what they do.

This agency was created in 1990, ‘To diminish hunger in our community by collecting and sharing food and other resources through effective partnerships that strengthen our response to hunger.’  Until today I assumed they were essentially a food bank but Food Movers and Shakers might be a better description of this operation. Their 2009 Annual Report states that 2.1 million pounds of food were raised and distributed. While local community food drives contribute 15% of their annual food inventory, 85% comes from food industry donations. Wow.

Hamilton Food Share distributes food to emergency food programs (food banks and hot meal lines) at agencies such as St. Matthew’s House, Neighbour to Neighbour, Wesley Urban Ministries and the Good Shepherd Centres.

On several of their website pages, this statement appears: ‘Every $1 donated raised $5 worth of food.’ How does that work? The example used for demonstration is the supply and distribution of milk where it would take $8300.00 a month to buy 8300 litres of milk, plus the cost of shipping. Instead of purchasing, Hamilton Food Share has established partnerships with the food industry, in this case, the ‘The Dairy Farmers of Ontario, The Dairy Transportation Association and Dairy Processors work together to donate 8,320 litres of milk’ to HFS which distributes the milk to agencies in need. As stated in their Frequently Asked Questions page, ‘Funds used to open this gateway continue to produce donated supplies on an ongoing basis. On average throughout the year, for every dollar we expend on transportation, storage and distribution we can raise $5 worth of food.’

How smart is that? Other achievements mentioned in the annual report include funding partnerships that allowed a new headquarters which is owned, not rented; building their own industrial sized coolers and fridges; and achieving a first in Canada by setting up ‘electronic standardization within the local food banking system’. This enables a downloading and sharing of data about food bank use.

The Hunger in Our Own Backyard section explains that over 19,000 people use local food banks per month and 8,313 of these are children. Kudos to Hamilton Food Share for filling a vital community need.

Hamilton, Ontario image by Saforrest

In search of blog topics this morning, I googled ‘community relations’ for inspiration.  This is often a component of a communication plans for public relations campaigns and, of course, a component of corporate social responsibility.  The definition I found on Answers.com mentioned examples of community relations programs. To satisfy my own curiosity, I searched the web for Hamilton organizations which represent those examples.  Here is what I found.

Scholarship Programs: The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada runs a post-secondary scholarship program for ‘teens and young adults who have MS or have a parent with MS.’ Last year the Hamilton Chapter gave two students $1,000 each.

Employment Programs: The Jobs Prosperity Collaborative ‘is working to foster a more prosperous, resilient and healthy community, through the strategic growth of jobs.’  While they do not create job openings, ‘they help create an effective environment for the creation of jobs by business.’  Their 2010 sponsors include:   Hamilton’s Economic Development department, Cogeco, Hamilton Spectator, Hamilton International Airport, Ontario’s Labour Market Partnerships, Liuna Station and Stirling Print Solutions.

Sports Sponsorship: SoccerWorld Hamilton runs year round programs in multiple sport types and has a list of 45 sponsors including: Westdale Florists, Oakwood Electric, Forrester Photography, the London Tap House, Hamilton Tigercats and Tourism Hamilton.

Performing Arts Programs: Theatre Aquarius – Dofasco Centre for the Arts is an award-winning, not-for-profit centre which has been in downtown Hamilton for 37 years.  Their season partners for this year include the founding partner Dofasco – Arcelor Mittal, Sheraton Hamilton and 102.9 K-Lite FM.

I know there are many more organizations in Hamilton who run admirable community relations programs – this is just meant as a small sample to illustrate the possibilities. If you’d like to add to this list, drop me a line!