350 Business

Hi all,
These are some brief notes I jotted down at last night's meeting. I hope they serve as prompts, conversation starters, or simply food for thought...

350 is about creating a new future.
We'd like to empower individuals to engage business. Focus on consumer choice - represent a broader interest group.

Notable actions with great outcomes - Cadbury Palm Oil - now Cadbury announce that chocolate in Australia and NZ will be fair trade sourced by 2010.

We could profile a business in a regular newsletter - highlight and celebrate good things that a company is doing. Perhaps also put articles into Good magazine.
This could inspire businesses to change behaviours - follow the leader etc.

We could identify opportunities to create first mover advantage for the companies to adopt sustainable practices - this might be enough of a lever for some businesses to change their practices.

Joe mentioned Not Stupid the website referenced by "The Age of Stupid" which provides some good mechanisms to activate people.

Potential iconic companies to engage - suggestions included Meridian, Contact Energy, Mighty River, Solid Energy, The Warehouse, Fonterra, Air NZ, Kiwi Rail, Cadbury, IBM, Dell, Xerox, HP.

We could look for change agents inside companies - who could change the culture from within - using social networking and other media tools to contact and activate them.

One project/campaign that inspired a number of us was to reduce the number of lights left on in office buildings - we could run a campaign in the Wellington CBD. We could probably get support from WWF - focus on long term behavioural/infrastructure change (light sensors?), rather a short term energy reduction.

350 can add sincerity to a company brand, and offers speed of activation. Can add value in other ways to brands.